// HOW FAILURE, LUCK & GROWTH SHAPE SUCCESS.
Success is a lonely road, and not because people don’t root for you, but because they don’t understand the path you’re on. It’s a road paved with failure, course corrections, and sacrifices that no one sees until suddenly things start falling into place. From the outside it looks like luck, but luck isn’t random. It’s just success catching up to the work you’ve already put in.
Lately, I’ve had my fair share of both good and bad luck. For a minute, I questioned if I was just treading water. If you keep your eyes open and your heart to the sky, the right people will show up. Opportunities sometimes feel like they land in my lap, but what I have learned is that the universe has been waiting for me to be the person who wouldn’t waste them. Luck, as it turns out, isn’t some cosmic lottery. Luck is the reward for making the right choices when no one is watching.
A lot of those choices aren’t about what you do, but what you stop doing.
People think success is about adding more; more hustle, more connections, more knowledge. Just as often it’s about subtracting. Cutting out distractions, toxic people, bad habits and the endless bullshit that pulls you away from the work that actually matters. The second you start eliminating the things holding you back, the right doors will swing open, because you’re finally ready to walk through them.
Success isn’t a lightning strike, it’s a slow burn; It’s the result of countless, seemingly insignificant decisions stacking up over time. Choosing discipline when no one would blame you for slacking. Choosing consistency when the results aren’t immediate. Choosing to double down on your craft instead of wasting time on things that don’t move the needle.
It’s easy to forget that failure isn’t just a possibility, it’s a prerequisite. The more you fail the more you learn, it is your greatest teacher. Each misstep deepens your understanding. Every lesson refines your approach. With every adaptation new doors open, waiting for the version of you that’s ready to walk through them. The problem is most people see failure as a stop sign instead of a detour. They think one setback is the universe telling them to turn around. But if success was supposed to be easy, everyone would have it.
The real deal is that nobody can take those steps away from you. The knowledge, the experience and the growth you gain through the process is yours forever. You can lose money, opportunities and even people along the way, but what you’ve learned will stay. Every failure that taught you something, every skill sharpened through struggle, every sacrifice that forced you to level up, it all belongs to you. THAT’S why the process matters more than the result.
The world doesn’t give out participation trophies for ambition. It tests you over and over, until you prove you’re ready. The hardest concept to accept is that most of that growth happens alone. The sacrifices, the self-doubt, the discipline – it’s all done in the dark, long before the world claps for you in the light. You lose friends who don’t understand why you’re obsessed. You watch people take shortcuts while you stick to the long game. You deal with the weight of wondering if it’s even worth it.
Yet, every time I look back, the answer is always yes.
Self-sovereignty will always be worth every minute of sacrifice in the present moment.
When you commit to becoming the person who can handle success, you also commit to a certain level of isolation. You outgrow old mindsets, old excuses, and sometimes, old relationships. It’s not easy, but it’s necessary. The path to anything worthwhile is meant for the few who have the resolve to walk it.
The reward has never been the success itself, it is knowing you earned every step of it.