"Luck Is Where Preparation Meets Opportunity"

I love one line quotes, proverbs, long quotes, poems, etc. There is so much insight to them. In particular, one of my favorite quotes is the title to this blog entry: "Luck is where preparation meets opportunity." It was first said by a Roman philosopher known as Seneca. What a profound statement. It completely redefines what the word luck has been known to mean. Since I have a fascination with words I would like to break this down word by word with some help from dictionary.reference.com, give definitions for each word and in what form each is being used. I would then like to analyze what it means and how it applies in a business sense.

1. Luck: noun; good fortune; advantage or success, considered as the result of chance
2. Is: verb; state of being, to exist
3. Where: noun; a place; that place in which something is located or occurs
4. Preparation: noun; any preceding experience considered as a mode of preparing for the future
5. Meets: verb; to come into the company of
6. Opportunity: noun; a good position or prospect, as for advancement or success

Basically, the quote completely contradicts the very definition of luck which is that it is completely based on chance. The quote is saying that luck is not really luck at all and disregards the fact that such a thing could even exist. Interesting, because the quote is a logical fallacy--although I would have to consult my Joseph Spider book to be certain which logical fallacy it is. (Although I have pointed out that it is a logical fallacy, I am sure that throughout each of my posts there are plenty of logical fallacies to be pointed out, but we will ignore those for now.)

The reason I like this quote so much is because it is essentially the reason this blog exists. In a business sense, there is no such thing as luck. Only opportunities. Although, opportunities contain a component of luck in that it is left to chance whether or not the opportunity will arise, the opportunity itself is not left to chance. In the context of the quote, luck would mean that everything happened simply by chance, not only the opportunity. Luck would mean the success or failure would have happened whether or not you were prepared. It is nearly impossible to credit luck when something works out in business. An opportunity arises and you are either prepared for it or you are not. It very well may be that you prepare along the way, but you certainly must have had more preparation to begin with than you thought. So the only real part of luck that has to happen, according to the quote, is the luck that an opportunity will present itself.

Spend time preparing yourself to be ready when opportunities arise. Know your strengths and the strengths of the people on your team and work with those. Leave as little to chance as possible.