CLICK HERE to play a fun game that only takes 30 seconds.
It guesses your number and you’ll think it’s magic.
After it has guessed your number,  CLICK HERE to see how it’s done.

One of the theories in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers is that luck plays a big part in success, for example, having the luck of being born in the right place, or at the right time, or into the right family. However, my research shows that luck has very little to do with success. In my book Stupid, Ugly, Unlucky, and RICH there many examples of people who had incredibly bad luck, but they followed the Eight Success Principles and achieved extraordinary success.

During his speech on stage at the TED conference, Bill Gates attributed his achievements more to the sixth Success Principle – IMPROVE – than to luck. He said, “When I was young, I got to use computers. That was very lucky.” But then he highlighted a more important reason for his success: “I got to work at a computer company where, because I was pretty good, these senior people looked at my code and told me, ‘No, that’s not as good as it can be,’ and so I got better. And then I had another experience where a great developer looked at my code and told me how to do it better.”

Yes, making the effort to IMPROVE and get better at something was more important to Bill’s success than luck. After all, many other kids also had the luck of using computers in those early years, but they did not achieve Bill’s level of success. Therefore, luck was not the differentiator. The difference was that Bill got good at it, kept improving, and took it further than the others, regardless of the luck he had. So the good news is, our success is NOT determined by this thing we have no control over called luck. Our success is the result of doing things that we do have control over – the Eight Success Principles.

Click here to see Bill Gates interviewed by Chris Anderson at TED

When I was talking with Bill Gates at the TED conference, we were discussing the “Eight Success Principles” on the back of my business card. Pointing to WORK, I said, “One thing I like about Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers is the research that shows it takes 10,000 hours of practice to get good at something.” Then pointing to the top of the chart, I said, “But didn’t Malcolm miss the most important thing, the number one factor for success – PASSION – finding something you love to do?” Bill said, “Yes, I agree. If you don’t love it, you won’t spend the 10,000 hours.” I said, “You found something you loved. There’s a quote of yours in my book 8 To Be Great where you say, ‘Paul and I, we never thought we would make much money. We just loved writing software.’” Bill said, “It’s true.” So take it from a man whose passion took him to the top, the number one thing is to find something you love to do. It may not be easy to find. It wasn’t for Bill. But that’s another story.