“There’s no such thing as luck. Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.” ~ Unknown
“There is no such thing as luck, merely opportunity meeting preparedness.” ~ George S. Patton
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” ~ Seneca the Younger
“I say luck is when an opportunity comes along and you’re prepared for it.” ~ Denzel Washington
“I’ve found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often.” ~ Brian Tracy
You may recognize some similarities in these quotes. Instead of luck being perceived as mythical that you have no control over. Luck is when the right things happen that you have put in the hard work for, resulting in a positive impact. It did not happen by chance. These are the five things you control that determine luck.
5 Things You Control That Determine Luck
Preparation
The first step is proper preparation. You can first prepare by becoming familiar with whatever topic or skill you find interesting. You then want to work to master that topic or skill. It will take you time, but eventually, you will become a subject matter expert on the topic you spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours learning about.
You can then discover other related skills you may want to learn to continue improving yourself and be a subject matter expert. Depending on your knowledge and skills, this can later turn into opportunities. While you lay the groundwork, don’t be afraid to take chances.
Take Chances
The second step is to take chances. Taking risks is how you get things that others people don’t. The greater the risk, the higher the potential return. Every opportunity you take may not pay off, but you may still learn something from it. At the very least, you may learn a practical skill that you can use later on.
Risks are needed because that is another way that you learn. You are putting yourself out there for others to see, which will attract haters to you, but you are doing something while others continue to do the safe thing. It can also open doors that can turn into opportunities.
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Opportunities
The third step is to be open to opportunities. As you prepare by always continuing to learn and improve your skillset, you are preparing yourself for opportunities that could come your way. It could be someone messaging you over LinkedIn who wants to talk to you, which could later spin off into a business idea. It could be discovering ways to turn your thousands of hours of work into passive income streams.
An opportunity could be an idea that comes to you in the middle of the night. It could be you sending or receiving an email from someone who can introduce you to someone. It could be taking a digital course where you learn another income generation strategy.
It could be talking with someone in a social media group that leads to the two of you working together on a project that is larger than both of you. That project could end up giving both of you a purpose more significant than what you had before doing what you were doing before.
You could decide to start something other people say you should not do.
You are open to the opportunity rather than turning it down. You act on the opportunity. You say “Yes” to the options instead of “No.” You can control the opportunities by responding to them when they come your way.
Be Active
The fourth step is to be active. This does not mean being as active as in exercise, although that can help you think more clearly. You can be active every day by working to achieve your goals. You may need to write a blog post daily, make YouTube and TikTok videos, grow your presence on social media, and always find ways to build what you are working toward. You want to be active where people are today, primarily by being involved online.
The problem is many social media platforms today, so you must figure out where to direct your time, attention, and energy. You want to be most active on the things that you have control over. Those things you want to work to grow as large as you can are the ones you have the most control over and best fit your strengths.
You can be active by directing your energy into growing the project that you are working on. It may not blow up overnight, but each little thing that you put out there is going out could reach someone. All of the energy that your directed can eventually snowball into a successful giant project because you never gave up. You put in the work each day. It may not have felt like it, but you started from nothing and then began to multiply until it was the point where it skyrocketed.
You don’t necessarily need a huge audience to succeed. It never hurts to work to grow it to as big as you can, though.
Show Up
The final step is always to show up. This requires you to develop self-discipline, time management skills, and never give up.
Self-discipline is critical to success because you practice self-control by directing your energy to things that could lead to the best results. You do the same things every day throughout the week. This can eventually become a habit.
Time management can help you to succeed. You can create a list of tasks you need to complete the next day and list five to ten tasks. The list can be a combination of small, medium, and tasks. Small tasks could be going to the grocery store to paying your bills. A medium task could be filming a video or writing an article. A large task would be a project that could take six months or longer to finish, like writing a book, creating merchandise, or creating a digital course to sell.
You can direct your energy where it will lead to the best return on your investment. That will require you to know and understand your strengths. When you are first starting, you will have to put in the sweat equity until you can make money from what you do. You always want to do something for yourself, especially something you enjoy and are good at. After all, you must pay the bills, save, and plan for your future.
“If you’re good at something, never do it for free.” – The Joker
Bonus!
You will be an exciting person to talk to because you took a different path than most people. People will more likely want to talk to you because you probably are working on a new project, discovering new ways to do something, and decided to take risks when everyone else took the safe option.
By taking these five steps, people will want to talk to you because they can learn things from you, and you may be viewed as unusual. In a society that wants everyone to be mediocre and creates hurdles that trap you, being unconventional is a superpower. There is nothing wrong with being weird.
Summary
Most people contribute to luck where hard work, showing up daily, and always being open to opportunities come together. You then want to find ways to monetize them. In the Internet Age, you have many options outside the traditional job route.
