Comment by ezekg

I disagree that success is simply good luck, and that input doesn't matter. I think you're biased because your attempt failed (which I sympathize with and I wish it didn't fail), but success is never promised. Sure, you were unlucky, but 99% of us are too. You didn't fail because of that. There was likely another reason, like a lack of product-market-fit. Misattributing failure to a lack of good luck, or bad luck, softens the failure by detaching it from you, but it also misattributes success as "good luck" when it shouldn't. I'll admit that I'm also biased, because my attempt didn't fail, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm perpetually unlucky yet still successful. Sometimes what we choose to spend our time on wasn't the right thing, and that's fine, but that doesn't mean spending your time on the right thing is always pure luck. We shouldn't collapse all uncertainty into a game of luck. If you asked the casting director exactly why they chose Day-Lewis over Denzel, you'd probably see that what looked like good luck from the outside actually wasn't luck at all.