Many wealthy, successful Americans regale us with stories of how they worked their rears off to get to where they are. Living proof, they say, that hard work can propel you to heights you cannot imagine.

I don't doubt their stories; I worked hard too. But along with that hard work came something no one seems to acknowledge -- luck.

Understandable, for luck says nothing about your smarts or talent or beauty. Luck is a happy accident. Seize it and make it work for you and nine times out of 10, you're golden.

I'm not saying only luck brings success. Hard work is necessary too, but it is not sufficient. Did I work harder or think better than hundreds of thousands of others? I would love to say yes, but although I tried to outsmart my competitors, I know I would not be sitting at CNN without Lady Luck on my side.

I know. I hear you. "You make your own luck!" Yes, you can, but it was a lot easier for me to "make my own luck" than it was -- is -- for many others

Bear with me.

I grew up decidedly middle-class. My father was a steelworker, my mother an office manager and occasional bookkeeper. Neither parent attended college, but they managed to carve out a comfortable life for me, my brothers and sister. There was no money to set aside for college, but I knew my parents expected me to be a college graduate.

Lucky me?

Yes. Because my father, a high school graduate, was able to find a well-paying job. Back in the day, manufacturing jobs were plentiful, and they paid well, as did many traditional middle-class jobs. Today, not so much. An article in The New York Times on September 18, 1987, reported the average wage for an automaker was $13.50 an hour. In today's dollars, that's $28.47. (Annual inflation over this period averaged 2.8%.) More than two decades later, thanks to the 2008 recession and the erosion of union power, entry-level unionized autoworkers were paid between $14 and $17 an hour, while veteran workers earned between $28 and $38 an hour.

So, I was lucky to be born to parents who could afford to feed me, clothe me, house me and, as an added bonus, expect me to make something of myself.

Also, my mother was not an alcoholic, and my father was not an ex-con. We lived in a variety of middle-class neighborhoods -- some middle, some lower -- but there were no drug dealers on the corner, no gunshots in the street. There were no metal detectors at the doors or armed security guards patrolling the halls of any of the schools I attended.

I did work hard to get through college, though. I worked two jobs for minimum wage -- one in a cafeteria and another at SeaWorld -- to pay my way through school.

In addition to those jobs, I interned at WAKR in Akron, Ohio, for free and attended night classes to finish my degree.

Ah, you say -- finally -- proof that if you work hard enough you will escape that minimum-wage job and achieve your goals.

Except luck played a part here too. According to the College Board, there was little to no growth in college prices in the 1970s. College costs actually just started to rise in 1980, the year I entered Kent State University. I just missed the massive sticker shock students face today. Since I went to school, college costs have risen at twice and sometimes three times the Consumer Price Index.

Still, I was happy to apply and accept government grants and loans to help pay the bills.

That internship in Akron paid off too.

WAKR-TV hired me. I made minimum wage in my first professional job, but I was not a single mother and did not have to care for aging or sick relatives. I just had to worry about myself.

Luckily, a news director in Cleveland named Ron Bilek offered to mentor me and eventually hired me in Columbus, Ohio. Four jobs later, I was off and running for CNN.

So yes, I worked hard. I put in long hours.

But millions of others have as well.

Luck, by definition, means a chance happening of fortunate events. And I would argue that far too few middle-class Americans are now experiencing the same "happening of fortunate events" that I did.

The majority of middle-class people are struggling not because they don't work as hard as the most successful Americans, but because it takes more than sweat to succeed and the odds are tougher in 2014.

It's time for our leaders to help people turn their luck around


http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/04/opinion/costello-not-just-hard-work/

Guess it depends on which "leaders" you are speaking of turning their help to mentoring the bright and capable youth today?

Personally I think Government or industry funded so called work/learn internships/subsidies are way to often thinly veiled exploitation of workers to justify paying them less and creating an underclass of employees that are treated little better than slaves to do drudge work that teaches them little or nothing and leaves them open to senior employees harrassing them to use sex and other ways to escape including overlooking fraud and senior employee theft. This also is making it harder on the legit employees that do their own work, do not steal, and should be getting the few promotions these so called "mentored" and over favored employees get.

As far as set asides for any population for work positions I see that as failed also. I have seen it generate tremendous stigma/resentment for these populations and create a glass ceiling for them. Any employee that gets these kind of "breaks" usually has it follow them in their work resume and often since they are picked on it does not make their career path that much better because even their true hard efforts and successes are tainted. "Of course they are successful they are the token" is not only an external but internal demon.

If you are talking about allowing peer self development incubators some kind of tax break for results then that might be a different story. I am particular favorable to the SBA programs and even the newer group funding concepts that truly up and coming leaders seem to do very well with.

I also agree that colleges and other training programs have to become way more accountable for the skyrocketing costs versus what they are contributing in actual working citizens and I see that sentiment growing. I do think heads are beginning to roll as more and more people are saying hey wait a minute if you want my education money you have to live up to your contract; get me in, out, and employed at a living wage. And industry is saying send me someone who actually has usable skills besides how to beat a drug test and live off of Mommy and Daddy or being a prostitute for a decade. Some of the earlier diploma mills are falling out and people are finally getting smart and training for fields that are not already glutted.

I have to disagree that luck has very much to do with it at all and actually you your case history as proof. You managed to educate yourself, find employment and move into a desirable hopefully well paying job. Least the CNN employees I knew in Atlanta were.

I really don't see luck having much to do with the success stories I personally know. Yes many actually watched, prepared (educated and saved for even sacrificed for) opportunities they hunted out but nobody gave them a dime that did not have a return for. Some of them actually just didn't blow the basic opportunities that exist for anyone in the USA such as free education, even a few that went back and got GED's or learned to read and write after growing service businesses, that lived with friends/family by actually getting along with friends/family, put in their time in public service, lived below their means to save, bought businesses or homes, and tools and used books or hit the free public library's and internet before luxuries. Some built small businesses to sell to buy better more profitable businesses or stuck their necks out and took educated risks on good ideas. Many actually learned by painful failures and then were successful. Luck had nothing to do with it.

double post

The OP of this thread presents a straw-man argument.

Successful people aren't saying "Hard Work = Success", and it isn't "Hard Work + Luck = Success".

Instead, it is "Work + Wise Decisions + Risks = Success".

Anything that comes from outside of one's self isn't luck. Instead it is divine providence.

I got fed up working for other people, while they sat on their arse and benefitted from my hard graft. So I reversed the trend and now i'm my own boss. Hard work, knowing my field of work inside out, luck and treating my workers right, have got me to where I am in life at this moment in time. My house is paid off, I drive 2 nice cars, I owe nobody anything and that's the way I want to keep it. You get a chance in life then take it, as why regret what you could've done at the time? Do it, don' t shirk it?

are you sure that there aren't people making the argument that all it takes to make it is 'hard work'?

because Im sure I have read plenty of posts pretty much saying that....

I haven't read a post which says "just hard work".

IM sure I can dig some up,, later

A body in motion, tends to stay in motion.

One important factor in success is, drum rolllll, a healthy work ethic.

Another is, take what you can get until ya find what ya want.

As an employer, I will take into consideration the amount of time between jobs, how many jobs and the types of personal references their prior employer tells me. I do call and talk with them.


I see chronic unemployment, they stay that way.

Shows me lack of self motivation. To change my mind on that, they'd have to pitch me a line of truth that is not only believable but verifiable as well.

I make no bones about firing and telling them to go on and walk home. One mile or twenty.