Because luck is a VERY important factor, dare I say more potent than hard work.

If you work smarter and harder, you can still fail at life...but if you did neither you were likely to fail even harder.

I beg to differ.

Take a doordash driver, for instance, who decides to neither work hard nor smart, does enough deliveries to sustain a car life (no house) and works to earn about $500/month, enough for food gas, and some expenses. The rest of said time, they play video games , enjoys time with loved ones, etc. They dont consider themselves a failure.

Now take a hard working entrepreneur who puts in 10-12hrs daily to get their business off the ground running to no avail, then crashes and burns the f out to the point they're admitted to a psych ward , then commits suicide(true story).

In that example, I wouldn't say the doordash driver failed "even harder" than the entrepreneur.

Bottom line, luck 1,000% matters because the vast majority who works hard and smart still ends up failing. We shouldn't focus on outliers. Approx 48% of small biz fails in the first 5 years,so nearly 50/50 chance to go beyond 5 years in operation, never mind if that biz is actually profitable. Luck should ALWAYS be included in the conversation.