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The Illusion of Luck: How the Prepared Build What Others Mistake for Luck
Paperback
Publisher Price: $16.99
Publisher: Long Horizon Press
Published: Jul 1 2026
Pages: 186
Weight: 0.51
Height: 0.47 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Even at the age of twenty-seven, Chase Sheffield had already been told many times that he was lucky when it came to his successes. He heard it from friends, family members, and especially near-strangers, but after hearing it so many times he could not help but think that luck alone was not to blame for all his progress.
The Illusion of Luck introduces an analytical framework for evaluating how and why repetitive, compounding successes take place, and it uses Chase's own life to showcase how even the most simple positive outcomes can be produced. Sheffield argues that what the world calls luck is actually the visible result of three forces working beneath the surface: Preparedness, Opportunity, and Action.
Drawing on a life that spans rural Georgia to Ivy League connections, military service to energy development, and fifty plus rejection letters to a career most people twice his age have not built, Sheffield shows that the distance between an observer and an outcome is what creates the illusion. Up close, luck dissolves into decisions, and the right decisions can be made more often when you know what to look for.
This is not a self-help book. It is a thinking framework for anyone who has ever looked at someone else's life and thought, They just got lucky, and wants to understand what actually happened, and more importantly, how to start producing those outcomes for themselves.
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