The most dangerous assumptions that people make about their career trajectory is that talent rather than luck is responsible for the outcomes they are reaping.

Now this sounds a little anomalous. It’s not uncommon for people to assign an unnecessarily large proportion of their success to Luck. In fact, the BaZi consultant is most taxed when a client is overly superstitious, assuming that NOTHING can happen without the right luck.

Intermission for those who are not in the cosmic know: a fundamental tenet of Chinese Metaphysics is the idea of the Cosmic Trinity. The Cosmic Trinity’s explanation of the universe is 33% Heaven Luck (your Destiny, or Luck), 33% Man Luck (defined as your personal efforts to further your own goals, or stay out of trouble) and 33% Earth Luck (which is your personal Feng Shui as defined by the office you work in, the house you live in). Accordingly, at best, Luck, defined in it’s purest form, only really accounts for 33% of any outcome. 

The bottom line is, Luck does matter, but as does Talent. And it’s very important NOT to confuse the two. And also, not to confuse WHICH is the reason for where you are at right now in the Hamster Wheel of Life.

Talent is defined in the Natal chart of the person, through the composition of stars, the dominant elements and the interplay of elements. Problem solving is a talent. Management is a talent. Creativity is a talent. Networking is a talent. EQ is a talent. The ability to smell money is a talent.

You get it.

Now one could argue that based on the Cosmic Trinity, that talent and luck are in a sense, equal in terms of their significance to an individual’s career propulsion and success. On some levels, that is true. The world is full of talented people who simply never made it because well, the time was just not right for them. They lived in the wrong country. They lived in the wrong era. They were the wrong gender.

Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come (Victor Hugo).

Which basically means that a good idea also needs to be timed right. Timing is what we consider Luck in BaZi.

But on the other hand, timing or Luck only takes you so far, if you don’t have much talent. Arguably, when talent is in deficit, Luck becomes important in a whole new different way compared to when talent is in abundance. When talent is in deficit, Luck needs to come at the right time – if it comes too early, the absence of talent becomes noticeable and the person runs the risk of being ‘outed’ or falling from grace (especially if they didn’t know LUCK was what was propelling them instead of TALENT). If it comes too late, on some levels, that is not a bad thing – the person may well have ducked the bullet that comes when they (and the rest of the world) discover that they are not all that they are het up to be.

Every person knows someone like that in their workplace – an individual who apparently does not actually seem to know how to do their job or only marginally appears to know how to do their job but somehow seems to keep advancing. The answer is LUCK.

And the important thing to remember is that LUCK RUNS OUT.

Talent on the other hand, being fundamental in the chart, may actually improve as the person ages. That old 10,000 hours thing that Malcolm Gladwell likes to talk about (although that’s only actually applicable to stars represented by Geng Metal)

Why is failing to make the distinction between LUCK and TALENT so important?

When a career trajectory is powered by LUCK (and let’s say, modest talent at best), an individual can actually believe they have abilities and talents in excess of what they really have. If they never saw a BaZi consultant or never met an astrologer or never were told the limits of their abilities, they will believe that their success is down to their abilities (or karma or whatever in between that is not BaZi or some similar form of metaphysical science that can identify talent accurately)

In actual fact, all they have is LUCK. 10 years if they are not so lucky, 30 year run if they are VERY LUCKY.

When that Luck runs out, they are now imbued with the belief that their success is entirely due to their own abilities.

And so they over-reach. Or over-assume their own value. They cruise, even after the Luck has run it’s course. They try to keep going at 100mph when all they have is fumes. (a 10 year Luck Pillar will usually continue to have some residual effects, depending on the year that follows on from the final year of the 10 year Luck Pillar, and also, whether it is a drastic seasonal change ie: going from Summer to Autumn) or a inter-seasonal change ie: going from Horse to Goat.).

They dangerously drink their own Kool Aid…and start to think that maybe they are more than they are. (more on why this is dangerous further down)

The Lucked Out holds out for a higher paying job or a gig they think they deserve (without realising, the last gig was well, LUCK). They over-estimate their value and abilities, taking on responsibilities that they are ill-served to take on. In a worst case scenario, they never see the train coming, convinced that both their talent (and a little luck) will keep them safe.

And of course, it doesn’t.

But by this stage, so convinced they are of their abilities (and also, frankly, unable to bear the thought that they might actually NOT be what they think they are), they may end up continuing to hold out futilely or they may crash and burn, unable to pick themselves up again.

That is not to say that talent wins all the time. Remember that Nikolai Tesla was smarter than Edison, but it’s Edison who has the conglomerate he founded still going strong. Tesla has been relegated to the pages of science books (and the occasional fanboy). Talent needs luck, luck also needs talent, in order to create the best outcome.

This is not to say that talent must come first and luck comes after. In BaZi, the fundamental defining idea is that TALENT + LUCK is the equation but there is nothing that says one must come before the other necessarily. Just like the Cosmic Trinity is 33%-33%-33% – which came first? Well, why did the chicken cross the road exactly? (cue useless meme)

Some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley like Bill Gates and Peter Thiel and the Paypal Mafia had Luck come first. But then what they quickly did was to figure out what their talent was – and sometimes that talent was not what they thought it was. For example, imagine if Bill Gates had been adamantly convinced that his gift was coding or making product (which based on his chart, it probably isn’t – between Gates and Jobs, Jobs is clearly the true product man (strong, intense EG), Gates was the business man (Wealth structure)). Gates would have parlayed his Luck incorrectly if he decided he was a product man. Similarly, with Jobs – he has the talent but he needed the right Luck to parlay his talent into exponential success.

So the trick is like all things in BaZi, it is never about the game, but how you PLAY the game.

If you’re riding on Luck and Luck alone, the most important thing to be is honest with yourself, and always keep your feet on the ground. But most importantly, recognise that Luck will run out, and the Emperor’s New Clothes may well become obvious to all. This of course requires a monumental effort – who wants to know that they are not the hot star they imagine they are in the office?

Self-awareness is not some mumbo-jumbo new age thing – it’s an invaluable aspect of success in any field. That’s how you avoid being a turkey at Christmas. Cognisance of your weaknesses and the possibility that your success is not purely your own effort (or blessings – please, blessings seems like a nice word to use but there’s nothing like putting someone in the to-be-slaughtered turkey zone than the notion that their success is because they are blessed. Because the blessed never THINK they will ever fall to earth with a thud ala Humpty Dumpty).

If you are there because of Luck (and let’s be real, Luck is a part of everyone’s equation), then be very very frightened all the time. Because Fear is what is going to keep you from sitting pretty and imagining you are more than you are. Fear is going to keep you improving yourself, striving to be better, keeping you one step ahead of the game.

Because if you are there because of Luck, and you haven’t figured out the Talent or know what it is, then you better start putting in those 10,000 hours. Don’t be LAZY.

(and as you will soon learn, those who rely on LUCK tend to be Lazy for a simple reason: Luck = Resource = Lazy)

Conversely if you are NOT where you are yet but you feel you have talent, then it behooves you to figure out the Luck element. Now you might be wondering, does that stuff come in a jar? How about some bucket that I can place at degree x and y and all will be well? Can I bloody buy it on Amazon?

We tend to think that Luck cannot be ‘MADE’ as it were. This is true to some extent. You need the right Luck Pillar to unlock the chart, and sometimes, that Luck Pillar doesn’t come for some time. So what are you supposed to do in the interim?

First is to continue to hone your talent. Honing your talent isn’t about just doing it 10,ooo times. It is about looking at the ancillary skills that are required to support your talent. It is about working on the parts of your skillsets that are crappy. But you already know this stuff.

Second is to OPEN YOUR MOUTH AND ASK. Not the universe. But to spend time thinking about who can help you, how you can be helpful to these people, so they can be helpful to you. Most people never really bother to sit down and think about their network, or who are the people who can make a difference to their work or where they want to be. Most people sit passively and wait for the phone to ring from the headhunter. Or worse, spend time making applications through Linked In imagining that this is active. (active is ringing up the company and talking to the HR person yourself, passive is thinking that clicking on your mouse is doing something to change your outcomes).

Making luck is hard work. It involves a mix of pig-headed dogged determination, research, effort, shamelessness, and at the same time, figuring out a way to make yourself valuable without being irritating. Yes, it’s about paying money to fix your Feng Shui. Or moving to a place with better Feng Shui. Breaking the trend of ownership to rent in an area that is going to make a difference. Being prepared to move to a new city. Being uncomfortable.

But here’s the beauty of talent first before luck (okay, I am a tad bit biased). You can be READY for luck. You can prime yourself to press the button. You can reach further then you are ready, rather than using your good luck to reach the ‘ready’ stage. You can be great, so that when Luck arrives, you attain GREATNESS.

By contrast, trying to attain talent when luck has arrived is a greater challenge. Trying to find out what you are good at or your skill is hard to do when it is easy to hide behind other people who can make up for your shortcomings. It is harder when you are in a high position to admit you don’t know something (or find the time to learn because you are too busy doing the job). This is not to say you can’t hone Talent in the right Luck Pillar, but it just means you have no luxury of time to spend finding out what it is that is your gift or ability. You’ve kind of got to know already and work double-time. Perhaps the smarter trick if you have Luck but perhaps less in the Talent department is to learn to parlay. In short, to avoid over-reaching unnecessarily but also, to try your best to avoid putting yourself in situations where your non-abilities will be exposed. Sometimes this means for example, dropping down to a different position (but without compromising on pay or perks)

For example, you go from CEO to COO (of a bigger company). This looks like a downgrade but what it really means is you get to shadow someone who probably actually can do the job (or if they got there by Luck too, then avoiding being the turkey at Christmas). If you are smart, you’ll learn from that person whilst you hone your own actual talents without running the risk of dropping to earth like good old Humpty. You will also use that time to effectively work out what your best abilities are, and then make sure that you milk those whilst avoiding the others like the plague. OR, you will never stay too long at a given job and overstay your welcome (and thus expose the fact that you might not be as skilled as you seem to be).

 

Regardless of whether you are LUCK FIRST or TALENT FIRST, the idea is to understand that there cannot be one without the other in life any more. In today’s highly competitive globalised world, the days of sitting around and never fearing being dislodged from your cushy gig are over. We are all sharks – stop moving and you’ll die (or get eaten).