The universe can be a friendly place, if you have the guts to make it that way. In fact, depending on the luck of the draw or success from the beginning in a lucky way is for fools and ignoramuses. When the saying comes up, knowledge is power, this is what it could mean: when you work and work hard and smart, progress happens.
What I mean by smart work is this: physical work sure is hard, very hard when it’s purely physical. However, mental work is creative when it is done intelligently and creatively.
I mention basic facts in that anecdote above, but that is the reality. Victories are not always for the strongest or the most forceful, great victories are for those with the greatest finesse, creativity, and realistic nuanced use of knowledge combined with skillful use of force.
When I think of “lucky to win the pot,” early luck, or “sneaky advantage like an ace up the sleeve,” I don’t want it. I would rather have repeated winning with skill instead of that kind of advantage that is “amazing”. In fact, skill, not luck, is the key to permanence, as the truly good and consistently productive investor is superior to the average lottery winner. Why do you think the return on investment is greater for wealth earned than wealth ultimately earned anyway luckily? It is not the “sweat of the brow principle”, it is the “principle of using knowledge in the right way” when you really think and finally act on it.
Winning and training go hand in hand, just as losing and luck ultimately go hand in hand. Good or bad, luck only lasts for an effort. The skill is forever etched in reality as a principle of said reality and as long as you make correct and consistent efforts and use the skill correctly, you will eventually beat everyone. That’s not my philosophy there, that’s what it is. In fact, any really successful person will genuinely tell you or admit that life works on the basis of law, natural law. Only deep failures depend on luck or a “permanent surreptitious advantage that makes things easier than the effort requires.”
Knowledge is not power then until it is combined with gained ability. That’s what it all comes down to. That statement is how learning and earning go together beyond luck and genuine failure to succeed.