Lottery

You buy a lottery ticket at the convenience store. Chances of hitting it big are poor, but you didn't invest much.

Now consider writing a grant application. Even if the odds are stiff, they are going to be closer to 10/1 than 10,000,000 to 1. But even if a grant process is stiff, you can do things to make yourself "luckier," like turning in a good proposal. Now you are are at more like 4/1 or 3/1 odds. The same goes with submissions of articles. You can look at the general rate of acceptance, (12% say) but you can improve those odds by sending them a good article. A good article might still be rejected, but you will face good odds in the long run. I've had plenty of articles rejected, but you wouldn't know it from my cv. Probably two of my best articles were never even published, but who would know?