Does it come from talent, hard work—or luck?

At a campaign rally in Roanoke, Va., before the 2012 election, President Barack Obama opined: “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life&8230; . Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

Although Obama was making a larger point about the power of collective action, such as building dams, power grids and the Internet, conservative heads exploded at the final sentiment. “I did build that!” is an understandable rejoinder to which I can relate. I research my books, edit my magazine, teach my courses and write these columns (this one is my 200th in a row for Scientific American). If I don’t make them happen, nobody else will.

But then I started thinking as a social scientist on the role of circumstance and luck in how lives turn out. It’s a sobering experience to realize just how many variables are out of our control:
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The inverse square law trumps the law of attraction

An old yarn about a classic marketing con game on the secret of wealth instructs you to write a book about how to make a lot of money and sell it through the mail. When your marks receive the book, they discover the secret — write a book about how to make a lot of money and sell it through the mail. (continue reading…)