The older I get, the more I realize how little I have to do with whether I’m “successful” or not.

Sure, working as hard as possible is important.

But here are some things that matter a lot more than that.

• Having a stable enough home environment to be able to show up consistently

• Having parents who supported you at critical times in your career and relationships

• Being born at the right moment when what you want to do is actually a profession, and not a hobby

• Not having to constantly fight debilitating emotional or physical barriers that you have not control over

• Being the color skin/gender that most people associate with what you want to do

• Having been taught an an early age that the world is predictable enough that if you work for something, you might get it.

• Having spouses that choose to grow emotionally and support you even when times are tough

• Being born into an area where you were exposed at an early enough age to cool stuff that sparked your interest

• Growing up in a house that values learning

• Having great teachers who inspired and gave unselfishly to make your life better

• Being born at the right moment in history where we’re politically stable enough that you actually have the time to do your profession and not try to survive

• Being born in a country that’s stable enough to allow you to do something other than survive

• Living in a time period where the tools you need to succeed are inexpensive and readily available

• Being born into a family with a long history of behavior that leads to the accumulation of wealth or skills

• Not being exposed to drugs or debilitating addictions at an early age where you don’t have the developmental skills\ to resist

• Being born so that you were exactly the right age at the right time in the market that what you are specifically trying to do for a living is considered valuable.

If you’re keeping track, not one of the above involves being born into a wealthy family, which could be an entirely separate list.

Combine this with luck, or the odds that if you keep showing up with something that’s valuable in the marketplace you will get picked sometimes, and I feel like hard work has less and less and less to do with it.

Sure, it's easy to blow it by being lazy, but pretending like the reason we're where we're at today because we "earned it" is ridiculous.

It’s crazy not because we didn’t work hard (I’m sure we did) but because it marginalizes how much people have invested in us and how blessed we really are.