4 ms·

Most of the time you have to work hard to be lucky...

chx 7y ago
Or if you are lucky you need to work hard to do something with it. Quite a few years ago I lived a few bus stops from the venue of the yearly PHP conference in Hungary but somehow I never went. Just didn't seem worthwhile or something. In 2004 May, a friend of mine called on a Sunday he is going to attend the roadshow of said conference in a shitty rural city in Hungary with his brother driving and whether I wanted to tag along. I shrugged and went. Still have no idea why. That's when I first heard of Drupal, it wasn't visible at all back then despite I was heavily researching CMSes just then. Being present at that roadshow was luck. My meteoric rise from financially struggling Hungarian web developer to internationally acclaimed Drupal developer and architect of a Top 100 web property only five years later was, however, the result of me pouring practically every awake moment into Drupal (I believe it was a Google Summer Of Code mentor questionarie which asked how much extra time are we spending with our project and I still remember when I was like, I am not spending any extra time because that'd be impossible). The finances aligned. When I attended my first Drupal developer come together in 2005 February in Antwerp I needed to borrow money from my parents for the plane ticket and couch surf for I had no money. I bought a apartment right down on the beach in Vancouver in 2009... And yes, this seemed unreal and it still does, walking home every time fills me with a sense of "this is too good to be true".
- nemo44x 7y ago
  > That's when I first heard of Drupal, it wasn't visible at all back then despite I was heavily researching CMSes just then. As the old saying goes, "luck is when opportunity meets preparedness". You were prepared for this by evidence of you research into CMS's at the time. This enabled you to see the opportunity Drupal created. You clearly ran with this and your success followed. How many other people were there that didn't find the type of success you did? They were just as lucky to be at that conference at that time as you. If anything, you were lucky to have had the insight to see the potential an investment in Drupal could make and clearly it went beyond your wildest dreams in terms of financial and professional success. But even then I'd hesitate to call it all luck since you clearly saw that CMS's were becoming an important technology and Drupal in particular must have fused what you knew about CMS's and what could be possible.
  - chx 7y ago
    > How many other people were there that didn't find the type of success you did? They were just as lucky to be at that conference at that time as you. Ha that's right. What I must have seen but failed to put into words is https://dri.es/drupal-sucks-less https://dri.es/drupal-sucks-less: > All content management systems suck, Drupal just happens to suck less. — Boris Mann at DrupalCON Amsterdam, August 2005. Typo3, Tikiwiki, Phpnuke (heaven forbid), XOOPS, even Mambo/Joomla, these were the systems of the day. Drupal ... sucked less and gained a lot more marketshare.
OnlineGladiator 7y ago
I think that only applies to the category of success. But some people are just born rich. Some people are just born healthy, attractive, and even happy! Research suggests half of life satisfaction is determined by your genes. https://positivepsychology.com/is-happiness-genetic/ https://positivepsychology.com/is-happiness-genetic/ What's luckier than winning the genetic lottery?
james_s_tayler 7y ago
That's working out real well for Africa.
- foogazi 7y ago
  you don’t think people are successful in Africa?
  - james_s_tayler 7y ago
    In aggregate? No. By virtue of not being born there I'm better off than the vast majority. Sure, I work hard at what I do. I'm also lucky a series of lucky and unlucky events transpired the way they did in order for there to exist an opportunity for me to work hard at something and do well. Luck is 90% of it for pretty much everyone.
    - foogazi 7y ago
      better off !== success
      - james_s_tayler 7y ago
        Keep telling yourself that.
Neil44 7y ago
Plenty of people work like slaves their whole lives and don’t do all that well.

chx 7y ago

Or if you are lucky you need to work hard to do something with it. Quite a few years ago I lived a few bus stops from the venue of the yearly PHP conference in Hungary but somehow I never went. Just didn't seem worthwhile or something. In 2004 May, a friend of mine called on a Sunday he is going to attend the roadshow of said conference in a shitty rural city in Hungary with his brother driving and whether I wanted to tag along. I shrugged and went. Still have no idea why. That's when I first heard of Drupal, it wasn't visible at all back then despite I was heavily researching CMSes just then. Being present at that roadshow was luck. My meteoric rise from financially struggling Hungarian web developer to internationally acclaimed Drupal developer and architect of a Top 100 web property only five years later was, however, the result of me pouring practically every awake moment into Drupal (I believe it was a Google Summer Of Code mentor questionarie which asked how much extra time are we spending with our project and I still remember when I was like, I am not spending any extra time because that'd be impossible). The finances aligned. When I attended my first Drupal developer come together in 2005 February in Antwerp I needed to borrow money from my parents for the plane ticket and couch surf for I had no money. I bought a apartment right down on the beach in Vancouver in 2009... And yes, this seemed unreal and it still does, walking home every time fills me with a sense of "this is too good to be true".

nemo44x 7y ago
> That's when I first heard of Drupal, it wasn't visible at all back then despite I was heavily researching CMSes just then. As the old saying goes, "luck is when opportunity meets preparedness". You were prepared for this by evidence of you research into CMS's at the time. This enabled you to see the opportunity Drupal created. You clearly ran with this and your success followed. How many other people were there that didn't find the type of success you did? They were just as lucky to be at that conference at that time as you. If anything, you were lucky to have had the insight to see the potential an investment in Drupal could make and clearly it went beyond your wildest dreams in terms of financial and professional success. But even then I'd hesitate to call it all luck since you clearly saw that CMS's were becoming an important technology and Drupal in particular must have fused what you knew about CMS's and what could be possible.
- chx 7y ago
  > How many other people were there that didn't find the type of success you did? They were just as lucky to be at that conference at that time as you. Ha that's right. What I must have seen but failed to put into words is https://dri.es/drupal-sucks-less https://dri.es/drupal-sucks-less: > All content management systems suck, Drupal just happens to suck less. — Boris Mann at DrupalCON Amsterdam, August 2005. Typo3, Tikiwiki, Phpnuke (heaven forbid), XOOPS, even Mambo/Joomla, these were the systems of the day. Drupal ... sucked less and gained a lot more marketshare.

OnlineGladiator 7y ago

I think that only applies to the category of success. But some people are just born rich. Some people are just born healthy, attractive, and even happy! Research suggests half of life satisfaction is determined by your genes. https://positivepsychology.com/is-happiness-genetic/ https://positivepsychology.com/is-happiness-genetic/ What's luckier than winning the genetic lottery?

james_s_tayler 7y ago

That's working out real well for Africa.

foogazi 7y ago
you don’t think people are successful in Africa?
- james_s_tayler 7y ago
  In aggregate? No. By virtue of not being born there I'm better off than the vast majority. Sure, I work hard at what I do. I'm also lucky a series of lucky and unlucky events transpired the way they did in order for there to exist an opportunity for me to work hard at something and do well. Luck is 90% of it for pretty much everyone.
  - foogazi 7y ago
    better off !== success
    - james_s_tayler 7y ago
      Keep telling yourself that.

Neil44 7y ago

Plenty of people work like slaves their whole lives and don’t do all that well.