I got lucky
On privilege, luck, and what actually creates success.
I recently listened to a podcast episode titled “AI is critical for humanity’s survival.” When it originally published back in February, I wrote it off because the headline felt sensational and I wasn’t interested in hearing another tech dude pontificate about AI. Boy, was I wrong.
I think I ended up reaching for this episode, in particular, because I had burned through all the recent episodes from Lenny’s Podcast and I guess I was feeling a little more optimistic about AI’s potential upside than I had been feeling in February. I’m so glad I did. There are, obviously, a lot of nuggets about innovation, leading large orgs, management, and other standard topics you’ll find in a lot of these business podcasts. The thing I can’t stop thinking about, though, and what has been in my head since finishing the episode, is how much emphasis the guest, Jeetu Patel, puts on luck in his own success. In my experience, it’s pretty rare for successful people, men and tech folks in particular, to acknowledge the role luck1 has in their life. Specifically, he says:
When people start confusing life thinking that, “Everything that I’ve earned is because of my amazing abilities.” I always question that, because there’s a lot of luck in this thing.
But when luck does present itself, be extremely prepared to capitalize on it.
– Jeetu Patel, CPO and President at Cisco on Lenny’s Podcast
In a lot of ways, I grew up with a tremendous amount of privilege, which then afforded me a chance to experience luck. I was born in the US. I’m white. And on and on and on. In middle school, I happened to attend an assembly that taught me about a specific magnet high school. Going to that high school opened my world to new possibilities, including the idea of going to college. In college I met people who gave me introductions that led to my first job, and on and on and on.
At the same time, I also had a lot of decidedly unlucky circumstances and disadvantages. My family has no generational wealth (quite the opposite). I was the first person to graduate from a four year college in my mom’s family. I went to multiple elementary schools as a result of moves across many states and my mom’s ability (or lack thereof) to afford housing as a single parent raising three kids. I went the first three decades of my life with undiagnosed ADHD. I’ve managed anxiety and depression for as long as I can remember.
I can assure you that I did not feel lucky or privileged for the first part of my life. I also didn’t spend a lot of time considering I was disadvantaged in any way. I grew up thinking that we were solidly middle class. Surely, every kid shopped exclusively at thrift stores. Surely they were all deeply aware about the price of clothes and school supplies, and stopped themselves before asking for things that were too expensive. It was completely normal that we lived, at multiple different points, with my grandparents, an uncle, cousin.
When I got to high school, my world opened up a bit. Some people, it turned out, actually did get new cars when they turned sixteen (a concept I previously thought specific only to the people on My Super Sweet 16). When I was a junior and it came time to take AP tests, I conveniently “forgot” when the deadline was to sign up to take the Spanish exam so that I could take the art one instead. Each AP exam came with an $85 fee just to take the test. We couldn’t afford both. If I had told my mom about both of them, she definitely would have picked the Spanish one, which was counterproductive to my goal of applying to art colleges. Then, when applying to colleges, I worked up the courage to ask my dad to pay for my applications, of which I had seriously pared back to only the schools I realistically thought I could get in so money wouldn’t be wasted.
I had another Big Brain™ moment a month or two into my freshman year in college when I realized most of my classmates were focusing on their social lives and I was desperately going into restaurants and coffee shops trying to get a job (remember handing in physical applications!?) Throughout my four years in school, I simultaneously had two or three jobs while also taking a full course load. I pieced together hours at various part-time jobs, and stacked my class schedule to be in as few days as possible to give me flexibility to work. Once, after a teacher found out I was working multiple jobs, she told me, “You can’t have a job and be successful in my class. You need to dedicate at least ten hours every week to homework from this class alone.” I don’t remember what I said to her in the moment, but I do remember she didn’t offer to pay for my groceries. Even with all of that, I was only able to attend school because my dad graciously offered to pay my rent as long as I did well in school, and in turn I agreed to cover every other expense myself. Hence the jobs.
I landed my first paid internship because an upperclassman at my school recommended me to their team, and after a quick interview I was offered a summer internship. That internship turned into a full-time job (eventually), and between that job and the next I went from an intern to a VP in ten years. I rode the tech and media wave, and ended up in a really lucrative career with high salary potential. I was able to pay off my student loans and live in New York City, in part, because I had a partner who was also financially stable and also in tech.
There’s another, unluckier, version of this story that could have happened. I could have pursued print media and assumed digital was ‘a trend.’ I could have left that internship before it became a full time job and missed out on connections that are still affording me job leads to this day. I could have lived anywhere except New York City and been limited in my job opportunities.
That’s what gets me when successful people ignore (willfully or ignorantly) the role their privilege and luck plays in their lives. There are a hundred other ways their lives could have gone and not all of them end in success. Successful people aren’t successful because they work harder than everyone else. If we all were a little more up front about the privilege we have and the luck we’ve experienced, I feel like our understanding of the world would become a little more shared and little less divisive.
Listen. I’m not saying you didn’t work hard, or you don’t deserve your success. Well, some of you. I’m also not suggesting that I tripped and fell into my current life. I worked really, really hard. My now-husband and I have spent our whole adult lives saving aggressively and living below what our salaries could have afforded. I lost a lot of sleep because I worked late. I said ‘yes’ to too many things.
I’m just saying that I was lucky, too. And you probably were as well.
There’s a whole other essay to be written here about when people say the word luck but mean privilege, when people don’t acknowledge either, and what all of that says. That’s a rabbit hole I am pulling myself away from (for now).