[solveit]

> How to succeed: pick the right thing to do (this is critical and usually ignored), focus, believe in yourself (especially when others tell you it’s not going to work), develop personal connections with people that will help you, learn to identify talented people, and work hard. It’s hard to identify what to work on because original thought is hard.

You have to be somewhat lucky to be able to do this, but also you have to actually try. Your comment seems needlessly dismissive as well as inaccurate.

[musicale]

Hard work is absolutely an essential requirement. "He worked for years before achieving overnight success."

For many the secret of success seems to be something like:

0. Pick the right thing(s) to work on (ideally the thing that will result in #3)

1. Work really hard (ideally starting with as many advantages as possible - wealth, family, connections, safety nets, etc.) so you can

2. Buy as many lottery tickets as possible (ideally rigging the game in your favor if possible) to improve the likelihood that you will eventually

3. Win the lottery

This may seem flippant, but if you don't achieve #2, you're much less likely to achieve #3.

Since #3 is so luck dependent, you need to increase your luck - which means increase your chances of possibly winning - usually by increasing the number of trials, or by rigging the game somehow. However in most of these games (lottery tickets, startups, etc.) there are many more losers than winners.

[dragonwriter]

The best way to get more shots at winning is to be born into wealthy family and network so you can take lots of tries with support for both the endeavours and a soft-landing if/when they fail.

[selcuka]

It is accurate in the sense that you don't have to implement anything specifically. You should simply act according to the circumstances, and if the circumstances are positive (i.e. you are lucky) you can succeed.

In the hindsight the "act" might look like the thing that made you succeed, but most of the time it's actually the luck. The "strategy" is just a normal reaction. For example:

"I invested half of my money in stock market and half in property. That made me a billionaire. You should do the same."

vs

"I won $1M from the lottery, and I invested half of it in stock market and half in property."

Obviously if you omit the lottery part the advise doesn't make any sense (i.e. you won't be a billionaire by investing half of your minimum wage every fortnight). This may be an extreme example, but demonstrates my point.