Luck? I don't believe in luck, I make luck. Same thing with connections. Want to know why connections mattered in every job I have had, including my current

Luck? I don't believe in luck, I make luck. Same thing with connections. Want to know why connections mattered in every job I have had, including my current one? Because I worked my ass off, did more than was asked of me, volunteered to do work outside of my immediate scope of work and most importantly made a point to always be on at least one cross-organizational or team outside my immediate work unit so I could actually be noticed by others. Yeah, you aren't going to be successful solely from "working" for 16 hours a day - what you do with those work hours matters too. And you know what? It worked. The best jobs are the ones that come looking for you. Another way to stand out? Become part of the internal expert network that exists within every organization. I ended up interacting with a lot of our contracting folks and I would always go out of my way to let them know I was available for "geek speak" translation - if they ever had something technical they didn't understand to just call me. Even if it wasn't for one of my contracts. Stuff like that provides dividends that can't be expressed by some silly metric. I'm pretty introverted but luckily those kinds of conversations tend to be one on one. I find it beyond hilarious that there are so many people who think luck and "connections" are how most successful people got to where they are. Keep telling yourself that if you like and good luck with that long term. Success is not accidental and yes, good old fashioned (meaningful) hard work will still pay off.