“I was really lucky.” The words were spoken by a physician panelist talking with a group of medical students about her successful career. She reflected on the important mentors, timely opportunities, and other external forces that influenced her rise to the position she was in that day. The audience was awed at her story, hoping they would be so “lucky” someday. 

We do learners a disservice when we frame our success with luck. Stories that credit happenstance rather than our own doing teach that circumstances have more control over our success than we do. Surgical success looks like a birthright rather than thousands of hours of intentional practice and perfection. Awards of patient excellence appear like a popularity contest rather than the skill of relationship building that took years to hone. And leadership roles appear as a reward for simply knowing the right people rather than the reality that you showed up time after time when no one else would. 

A gymnast doesn’t nail a floor routine because of luck. A baseball player doesn’t hit a home run due to luck. A runner doesn’t finish a marathon because of luck. And physicians who are the best at what they do didn’t get there because of luck. Hard work, persistence, sacrifice, and showing up – these are what take one from good to great. Many of us weren’t the smartest students in the room or had a free ride to where we are today. We lived on little, learned from countless failures, and did our best to outwork everyone else. 

This isn’t to discredit the value of mentors, sponsors, and groups that aided in propelling us forward in a career. We also must acknowledge the gross injustices that continue to pervade medicine due to biases of gender, race, and stature, to name a few. These issues certainly play their part. 

The point here is that the over-emphasis of luck in everyday conversations doesn’t serve the future of our profession. “I just got lucky” may apply to lottery tickets and casinos, but let’s not use it to sugarcoat the struggle and often failure that influenced where we are today. Telling stories of rainbows and butterflies only sets an expectation that we each stumble into our success. Let’s talk more about the struggle, the sacrifices we’ve made, and the risk it took to face challenges and failures. Let’s reflect on and share the small, often forgotten moments and decisions that changed the course of our careers. By romanticizing our successes and how we achieved them, we create unrealistic expectations of what this profession demands of those who choose it. 

Thomas Jefferson reportedly said, “I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” When we tell our stories to learners, let’s tell the true stories of our efforts and stop simply giving luck the credit.