"I'd rather be lucky than be smart!" A lecturer in fund management for my Master of Science in Applied Finance course used to repeat this mantra in class. He used to say that some seats were luckier than others on the trading floor. And traders who occupied those seats usually did very well. The idea that you needed luck to succeed seemed like a good excuse. The fairy tale-like life of Forrest Gump, depicted in the hit movie starring Tom Hanks in the 1990s, added gloss to the notion. Wouldn't it be nice if we could stumble through life like Gump, and serendipitously encounter one positive event after another? In one part of the movie, the slow-witted Gump disclosed later in his life that he had bought into a fruit company on the advice of his superior in the army, and that he didn't "have to worry about money no more". The "fruit company" of course was Apple. Well, two decades on - the first decade as an observer and commentator on the markets, and the second as a practitioner - my view has flipped 180 degrees. The reason? Luck is not repeatable. In our life's journey, there are numerous decisions we make along the way. Where we are at any point in our life is the cumulative outcom...