Cover Photo by Jack Hamilton on Unsplash
Is a person’s success simply the result of many happy accidents?
I’m a very “lucky” guy. Everything great happening to me is a happy “accident”.
The more I talk to other successful writers, and other successful people in other disciplines, the more obvious it becomes:
We rarely achieve what we set out to do.
And it’s not all bad. Think about it.
Go five years back in your thinking:
Back then, where did you see yourself in five years?
Is it where you are now?
Let’s add to it:
If it is where you saw yourself, are you happy with it?
If it is not where you saw yourself, are you happy with it?
If you are where you thought you would be, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows like you thought it would be.
On the other hand, if you are not where you thought you would be, well, it could go either way. You can be happy or unhappy.
What is luck?
To some degree, luck is fabricated. Luck is a perspective. One thing someone calls a misfortune, I call luck. The opposite holds true too.
10 years ago, when pitching my startup to investors, I didn’t get the funding. Many would see this as a failure: “I didn’t get the funding!”, they would scream. These people’s thinking could now fork into two directions:
“These investors have no clue what they’re talking about!”
“I suck at this and I’ll never get any funding!”
I saw it differently. I was lucky.
I ended joining a company that did get the funding as the first employee. I had access to the network without the stress of running a startup. I learned way more than I had ever learned in school.
This may also have happened if I got the funding. I’ll never know and I don’t care because there’s nothing I can do about it. I can choose, however, that this was a happy accident and I’m better for it. A lot better I’d say.
What would have happened if I chose options (1) or (2) from above?
The cycle would simply continue. I’d stay unlucky for the foreseeable future.
Are you really unlucky?
A while back, I read this fascinating story:
Richard Wiseman surveyed a bunch of people to find out who considered themselves lucky or unlucky, then performed a very interesting test:
[Wiseman] gave both the “lucky” and the “unlucky” people a newspaper and asked them to look through it and tell him how many photographs were inside. He found that on average the unlucky people took two minutes to count all the photographs, whereas the lucky ones determined the number in a few seconds.
How could the “lucky” people do this? Because they found a message on the second page that read, “Stop counting. There are 43 photographs in this newspaper.” So why didn’t the unlucky people see it? Because they were so intent on counting all the photographs that they missed the message.
Granted, this is only one test, but a revealing one nonetheless. This also confirms a quote I resonate with:
“What you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you create.” — Buddha
How to skill your luck up
Luck can be fabricated.
Fabricated luck is something unintentional that happens as a result of doing something else, but in a related — yet seemingly unrelated — matter. It’s not that different from serendipity.
If you take a moment to think about it, can you visualize moments where that happened to you?
When I set out to improve my writing, I didn’t aim for the top.
I only cared about self-improvement. I didn’t research how to make money by writing. I didn’t go for cash-grabs or quick fixes.
Being world-class at anything requires tons of effort and careful planning.
When I chose to improve my writing, I studied how to write compelling stories. I was consistent in my writing. I was authentic. I was honest. I was vulnerable. I wrote from my own experiences.
If you are hoping to become a writer, that’s your recipe for success. Heck being consistent, authentic, and honest is a damn good way to succeed at anything!
But that’s not all you need.
The month before I started writing, I researched how to become better at public speaking and storytelling. I practiced those skills for a full month.
“The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways.”―Robert Greene, Mastery
That is how you skill your luck up!
When I got my first “top writer” tag, I thought I was lucky. After peeling down the layers, it wasn’t that surprising it happened. By that point I knew how to tell stories and be vulnerable.
All the components were there for it to happen, I just arranged them in a way for it to trigger.
Pretty much every happy accidents in our lives can be traced back to a way we set ourselves up for it.
Wanna be luckier?
Here are the simplest steps to skill your luck up:
Realize that not everything is a misfortune;
Constantly learn new things;
Get out of your comfort zone as frequently as possible;
Take action.
You’ll be surprised how fortunate you can be.
Conclusion
Luck can be fabricated. To be lucky, you have to take consistent action. You have to get out of bed, put some pants on, and get crackin’!
The more you do, the more things will align and provide a path for you.
Seemingly unrelated skills will come together in ways you never thought they could. They will make you authentic. They will make you interesting. And they will ultimately make you world-class, in ways you never thought you could be.
You can do this!
Ready to Skill Up?
If you want to become more skilled and be prepared for a better tomorrow, check out SkillUp Academy.