If expectations rise with results there is no logic in striving for more because you’ll feel the same after putting in extra effort. It gets dangerous when the taste of having more—more money, more power, more prestige—increases ambition faster than satisfaction. In that case one step forward pushes

Luck and risk are both the reality that every outcome in life is guided by forces other than individual effort. They are so similar that you can’t believe in one without equally respecting the other. They both happen because the world is too complex to allow 100% of your actions to dictate 100% of your outcomes.

avoiding single points of failure. A good rule of thumb for a lot of things in life is that everything that can break will eventually break. So if many things rely on one thing working, and that thing breaks, you are counting the days to catastrophe. That’s a single point of failure.

the endurance necessary to put the quantifiable odds of success in your favor, you realize it should be the most important part of any financial strategy.

There is no reason to risk what you have and need for what you don’t have and don’t need. It’s one of those things that’s as obvious as it is overlooked.

“One lucky break, or one supremely shrewd decision—can we tell them apart?” Not easily.

The more you want something to be true, the more likely you are to believe a story that overestimates the odds of it being true.