"When people succeed in life, it is because of hard work. Being lucky has nothing to do with success in life." Do you agree or disagree with the quotation above? Use specific reasons and examples to explain your position.

Nowadays, many self-help books or novels with subliminal messages help people become successful. Similarly, several conferences, videos and workshops about the best way to achieve success have been frequently published on television; however, nobody is able to explain how success is exactly achieved in life because it depends on many factors. Although many external variables affect a person's success, a particular attitude will help significantly to achieve it: hard work. Personally, I agree that people succeed in life due to hard work, and being lucky has nothing to do with their success. Persevering and always doing my best will help me to achieve success, and both attitudes are consequences of hard work. To endure in one's studies, an important step to be successful, is very related to hard work because it means to repeat a particular action many times if it is necessary until it can be done well. For example, in the academic field, if I failed a biology exam, I would have to re-take this exam again until I could pass it. In fact, if this exam were the final exam, I might have to retake the course in order to develop full competency over the subject matter. Without a doubt, a great number of study hours would be needed to improve my performance; hence, hard work is mandatory in order for me to be academically successful. In addition, to do the best I can every time is important to be successful considering that it guarantees an ideal performance, especially when complemented with suitable instruction. For instance, if I want to score high on the TOEFL exam, it will be instrumental that each time I take a practice test I do the best I can by applying all my previous knowledge, and, each time I retake those practice tests, I have the same attitude; however, it will be also useful to have a good mentor who will do his/her best to help me to identify my weaknesses and to give me suggestions in order for me to minimize or eliminate my problem areas. Consequently, if this kind of instruction were not included in my preparation process, no matter how many times I retook the exam, I would never improve my performance on that test. In fact, that was what happened to me a few months ago. Therefore, the importance of hard work again is highlighted since both my mentor and I will need to do the best we can in order to foster success. After having shown the importance of persevering and doing the best I can in classes and when preparing for the TOEFL exam, both of which involve hard work, undoubtedly, hard work is one of the main causes of being a successful person. Hardly ever does being lucky have something to do with success in life.