Was just listening to a podcast and thought about this question. If you’ve found some success in your life: a stable job/career or if you’re in a financially stable position, what do you credit that to? Luck or hard work? 
And if you’re not doing so well, is that because of being unlucky or because you’re… lazy? 
Were you listening to How I Built This? Great podcast!
I find the harder I work the luckier I get.
When I look back on critical moments in my life were things have gone well for me it seems to be a combination of working hard or towards something and then something which I didn’t plan for coming up and because I was ‘ready’ I was able to capitalise on that opportunity.
Where I do believe I got lucky is;
The rest is a combination of both.
As Bruce Lee said, I’m not afraid of anyone who has spent 10,000 hours practising martial arts techniques, only those few who have practised 10,000 hours on perfecting one technique.
May we know what’s the name of the podcast? Is it the one mentioned in the 1st reply?
Well there’s both. Sometimes you just have to do nothing when you’re lucky good/ great things happen to you.
Sometimes you may work hardest you ever did in your life yet you’ll lose something you wanted so badly. You’re just not lucky enough to achieve that.
I see in many places people say “Harder they work, luckier they get”, that’s not luck that’s just achieving results through hard work. It’s just different.
I believe in life, you need both. some things you can achieve through hard work. But to achieve some things you need luck.
I align with Trader Evolved response. The harder I work, the luckier I get. It is not only about how hard you work. It is also about how you think about failure or rejection. I was telling my son this morning that I was thinking of getting back into the crypto Bittorrent, after I sold 3Jan21 before it mooned 24X! On the other hand, though our account did not 24X since January, it has performed much above plan. I could have given up having sold at a loss something that proceeded to 24X. But that is a necessary part of the journey. I could have blown the proceeds on an expensive meal, but I converted it to Bitcoin instead. That did not 24X but it did 2X and more.
While I completely agree with yourself and @TraderEvolved that the harder I work the luckier I get, I don’t believe the working hard approach to being lucky in regards to trading works.
Certainly, I don’t believe the harder I trade the bigger my account gets, quite the opposite in fact.
I have found in trading, that the more disciplined I am the better my trading results are.
I have also found that I am naturally jinxed in some markets and on some timeframes.
And I always find I am unlucky the first few times I trade a new market or new strategy.
But as a general rule in life, yes the smarter I work the luckier I get.
I guessed it was ‘How I built this’ as it’s a podcast interviewing the founders of successful businesses and he always ends with asking them how much of what they achieved could be put down to pure hard work and how much to luck… The responses are always interesting but generally along the same theme… Always an element of luck to those looking in… but it took them many years to be ‘ready’ for that so called luck.
Great podcast to learn about some common businesses we know of today and how they actually came to be…
OOF. Haha. Now that made me think. I would personally like to think that I am where I am right now because of all the hard work I put in. Thinking that my successes are only because of luck is such a demotivating thought. Haha. Like, why try, right?
YES you got me! I love that podcast! Do you have a favorite episode? 
I think this alone is the biggest factor in how we live our lives.
Yup that’s the one!
Interesting phenomenon. Have you tried figuring out what could be the cause? Or is it one of those things that just seems to happen?
I’m a bit of a podcast junkie so have listened to every episode, except I haven’t been into the resilience series so have been skipping them. I find everyone has interesting points to it, wouldn’t say I specifically have a favorite. How about yourself?
I can’t say I got to the position I am in by good luck, more like random chance. A relative suggested a career when I was too young to know what I wanted to do. I didn’t have any better ideas and no arguments against what he suggested. He only knew about this career as he had accidentally met a man in the same career just a few months earlier.
After that I got into my career and worked hard. If I had not made it work I am sure I would have found another job by similar random chance and worked hard at that.
I think this one was by far my favorite:
I was driving when I listened to this and ended up bawling lol. It’s crazy how much hardship some people go through and it’s truly fascinating/inspiring to see them just rise above it.
That is also what I think. I feel like some people can be placed anywhere and will similarly thrive because they have the same work ethic they’d put in place wherever they may be.
Hardworking and not giving up
The harder you work the Luckier you feel when it happens
Agreed. I think the harder one works, the more opportunities open up. More chances of success but also more chances of failing lol. Like trading, what is the risk to reward ratio? 