I believe that's what he was trying to address by discussing the "random component" - he omits the opposing nonrandom and controllable component. The only situation I was able to find to match this bias was in the workplace, where working harder can compensate for random components to a limited extent, but not sufficiently to erase variability altogether.

Which I guess is what should be emphasized - the distinction between the random and the nonrandom component, and their apparent convergence.