With the monthly full money extra, I'm Chris Hill.

The old saying, I'd rather be lucky than good is attributed to lefty Gomez, a picture

for the New York Yankees back in the 1930s.

Gomez was good.

He's in the baseball hall of fame, but his quote does raise an interesting point.

Derek Thompson is a writer at the Atlantic, an author of the best-selling book Hitmakers.

How to succeed in an age of distraction.

When I talked with Derek a couple years ago, I asked him about the role that luck plays

in determining success.

Some people read my book and were frustrated because I couldn't give them a perfect formula

because I take so seriously this issue of luck.

And you can't have a foolproof formula if luck is a huge part of this equation.

So a quick story about luck.

In 1954, an artist named Bill Haley recorded a song called Rock Around the Clock.

It was the B side to a song called 16 Women and One Man about a hydrogen bomb exploding

and the world being left with just 16 women and one man.

You can kind of guess where that was headed.

This song, completely flopped.

It was not popular at all, even though Bill Haley was a relatively popular artist.

It came out, people had a chance to listen to it.

The label pushed it as hard as they could.

It just had no uptake.

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