"Making luck" trope is used by people to justify their self-importance to themselves. There are a few things that make it more likely to be able to take advant

"Making luck" trope is used by people to justify their self-importance to themselves. There are a few things that make it more likely to be able to take advantage of an opportunity, but those are available to a huge number of others who are not as lucky. And there's no guarantee that what you're doing will prepare you for the opportunity at any given time. Suppose next 20 years 2/3 middle managers will get replaced by AGI. They may have been lucky before but it does not hold. Combine with people who lost a lot of resources by investing. There is an old adage about not investing what you cannot afford to lose, they thought you could not lose that job, but it happened anyway. Nobody likes to hear about hundreds of thousands of losers every day, who will be then unable to follow up on opportunities. Unlike games of skill, life is much more of a game of chance with a lot predetermined from outset. It's closer to a deck builder but sometimes you just get trash picks.