[phil21]

> Working hard, networking, making good decisions - that's all just a baseline. Just the price of entry.

This is the truth, and very hard to convey in a balanced manner. I typically have discussions with people who only want to focus on luck as being part of my (or their) success, and I also have the same discussion with folks who want to only focus on the hard work aspect.

I've found the same. Most of my financial success in terms of "getting ahead" you can look back to a short period of time where everything went right for you and you got lucky. What many folks completely discount is how your consistent work ethic put you into those positions to take advantage of, and of course no one can see the 9 other times you were in similar situations and it all went to shit. It's about getting back up the next morning and taking that tiny step forward again.

I find these discussions pretty upsetting most of the time as I can look back growing up (background sounds much like yours) and think of the kids I grew up around. You could have predicted with near 100% success rate which of those kids turned out to be financially successful and which would not. I imagine it's much harder in more wealthy environments where poor work ethic isn't nearly as damaging, but in a more austere environment it was completely obvious. Those that partied and never worked hard in their early teens pretty much universally have shit lives now. Those that applied themselves have various levels of what most would consider financial success. I truly think luck is a far secondary factor for this type of success.

The difference is luck truly was the only major indicator of who in that "successful" group went from "decent salary in a nice job" to "building generational wealth" - that seems very much more random than a baseline of "middle class" success.