Success - Achieving/Deserving

Heard a speaker at a presentation a couple of days back. He started the presentation with a rather unusual title 'How to deserve success'. Later, he justified the usage of the word 'deserve' as opposed to the more common usage of 'achieve'.

Achieving success depends on a variety of factors, some of which are not under one's control. There can always be external factors which may not let one achieve success. Some would prefer to call it luck. On the other hand, the elements which enables one to deserve success are completely under his/her control. So, no external factor can prevent you from deserving success.

In essence, a person can achieve success only if he deserves it; he may not always achieve it even though he deserves it.

Bottomline: One can only work towards deserving success, never towards achieving it. Matches tune with the famous Mahabharata shloka: Karmane vaadikaraste ma phaleshu kadachana?