The Probability of Manufacturing Success

I came across a short clip recently discussing the difference between being lucky and getting lucky.

At first glance, it sounds like one of those catchy, inspirational quotes crafted for social media. But as someone who likes grounding intuition in math, it made me pause: Is “manufacturing luck” actually a mathematically sound concept, or just clever phrasing?

Let’s unpack it together.

The Gambler’s Fallacy & Independent Events

Suppose you take on a challenge where your odds of succeeding on any single attempt are just 10%.

You try once and fail. You try a second time, and fail again.

When you step up for your third attempt, what are your chances of succeeding?

Intuitively, a small voice in your head wants to whisper: “Surely after two failures, I’m due for a win!” But probability has no memory. The third attempt still carries an exact 10% chance of success. That is simply the nature of independent events. Buying a second lottery ticket does not alter the numbers printed on your first ticket. Each individual trial stands alone.

If every attempt remains stuck at a modest 1/10 shot, how can anyone claim to “manufacture” luck?

The secret lies in shifting our perspective from a single outcome to cumulative probability.

The Math of Showing Up Repeatedly

Instead of asking “What are the odds this specific attempt works?”, let me ask a far more useful question: “What are the chances of getting at least one success across multiple attempts?”

To find out, it helps to flip the problem on its head and look at the likelihood of total failure first.

If you have a 10% chance of succeeding on any single try, you have a 90% (0.90) chance of falling short. For you to fail across n consecutive independent attempts, you have to hit that 90% disappointment outcome every single time:

Since eventual success is simply the opposite of failing every single time, we subtract total failure from 100%:

Look at how the numbers evolve as you increase your number of attempts (n):

• 1 Attempt: 10.0% chance of at least one success
• 5 Attempts: 40.9% chance of at least one success
• 10 Attempts: 65.1% chance of at least one success
• 20 Attempts: 87.8% chance of at least one success

Here is the beauty of the math: while no individual roll of the die gets any easier (it remains a 1/10 shot every single time), the probability of walking away empty-handed drops dramatically. Moving from 1 attempt to 20 attempts transforms a long-shot 10% gamble into an 87.8% statistical likelihood of achieving a breakthrough.

So while we cannot force any individual attempt to succeed simply by repeating it, we can make eventual success much more likely by creating more valid opportunities for it to happen.

Applying This to Life

This statistical principle is not just an abstract math problem. It explains how so much of real life actually unfolds.

Rejections feel heavy because human psychology treats failure as cumulative, whereas probability treats attempts as independent. When we send out a single job application or pitch one idea, we pin our hopes on that single outcome. If it gets rejected, it feels like a personal setback.

However, if you submit twenty well-targeted applications to solid roles, you are not making any single company more likely to hire you. What you are doing instead is shifting the overall odds of securing at least one offer heavily in your favour.

The exact same dynamic plays out across almost every area of personal growth:

• Building businesses or side projects: Most initial ideas pivot or fail, but founders who keep launching accumulate trials until one hits product-market fit.
• Networking and mentorship: Reaching out to a single busy person usually yields silence. Reaching out thoughtfully to fifteen relevant people almost guarantees a few insightful conversations.
• Creative work and writing: Not every article or video will resonate, but publishing consistently builds a portfolio of shots on goal.

From the outside, when someone finally breaks through, people often call it “luck.” In reality, that luck was manufactured through volume, iteration, and basic math.

Applying This to Investing

Investing operates on a similar frequency, though with an important distinction to keep in mind: a 25% IRR is a return target, not a probability of success.

When evaluating investments, we deal with expected returns under conditions of uncertainty. Suppose our investment thesis leads us to opportunities that we believe can compound at a 25% IRR, while accepting that some of them will inevitably disappoint due to unforeseen execution risks, poor management, or macroeconomic headwinds.

If we place all our capital into just one opportunity, we remain heavily exposed to bad luck and single-point failure.

However, if we build a disciplined process that repeatedly uncovers high-conviction, sufficiently independent opportunities, our reliance on any single outcome falls. We grant our underlying investment edge room to compound over time.

The goal for an investor, then, is not simply to hunt for one home-run investment. It is to construct a system capable of repeatedly producing high-quality investment opportunities.

The Recipe for Manufactured Luck

Manufacturing luck isn’t about magical thinking or blind optimism. It comes down to a simple two-step formula:

1. Improve the quality of each attempt (raising your baseline odds from 5% to 10% or 20%).
2. Increase the number of good attempts you make (giving cumulative probability the space to work its magic).

Control the quality of each shot, scale the number of valid attempts, and let the math work in your favour.

Disclaimer: The ideas presented in this post are solely my personal perspective and have not been substantiated by any verifiable evidence. Please form your own opinions on such matters.