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Is Luck Real? How to Create Your Own Luck - WSLT#9

Is luck real?

It is a million-dollar question we ask ourselves often. When we see our coworker rise to shine or a neighbour become more successful and in many more scenarios, we wonder how lucky they are. 

Most of us wonder why, despite the hard work, opportunities seem to go to people who appear to do the same work, even less.

Why some people are luckier than others?

Let's take an office example. Two people with same designation, doing similar work, perform well. But one gets more opportunities than the other. 

At first glance we may think it's because one is lucky and other is unlucky. Maybe the difference is, one is prepared and other is not.

This view may challenge the centuries-old beliefs about luck. But my opinion is, luck is not something super natural blessing, but the ability to identify the opportunities others miss.

You don't have to believe what I say but let's see an experiment conducted by Dr. Richard Wiseman, professor at the University of Hertfordshire who experimented luck.

He gave a newspaper to volunteers and asked them to count the images in the paper. A few people completed the task in a few minutes, while others took more time. 

Surprisingly, the people who completed in a few mins considered themselves lucky while the people who think themselves as unlucky took more time.

Because Wiseman put a half-page ad in middle of the newspaper that no need to count more and there are 43 images in the newspaper. 

In another half-page ad, it is mentioned to collect the $250 and they can leave immediately. 

The lucky people noted them and left but unlucky people missed them. 

It suggests that what we experience as luck can partly depend on our ability to notice opportunities around us. 

Luck and Opportunity:

There is one popular saying, "When the disciple is ready, The master will appear".

Most of us interpret it as when a student is ready to learn, the universe will send a master. 

But I see it differently,

Perhaps the masters are everywhere. The disciple becomes ready and so identifies the master. If the disciple is not ready, even if the whole world is full of masters he may not recognise any of them.

The same may be true for luck. The opportunities may be around us always. But we don't recognise them until we are ready to see them.

In the book "The Psychology of Money", the author Morgan Housel talks about the luck factor. One example he handles is, the luck of Bill Gates.

When Bill Gates was studying in school, their school bought a computer and he had the luck probability of 1 in million (taking in account that at least 303 million high school age people would have been in world wide, and the Lakeside had around 300 students who had access to the computer in early stages).

But I have a different view. Not to dispute with the luck factor in the book, but out of 300 with same opportunity, only Bill Gates and Paul Allen explored the computer which led to Microsoft later. 

300 people had an opportunity which was not available to the 303 million students but only two made use of it.

This also leads to one other question I had at this example. If luck is not random, why wasn't the same chance available to the remaining students world wide? 

Then I also remembered, Steve Jobs who didn't have that same opportunity but he had a different opportunity which he grabbed. 

At the age of 12, when he needed some parts for a school project, he found the number of Bill Hewlett, the CEO of HP, cold called him and asked him.

Surprised by the call, Bill gave him the parts and offered a summer job at HP.  The experience became one of the many early influences in Jobs's journey, which later included his partnership with Steve Wozniak at Apple.

Many students might have the phone book and the need for the parts but how many would dare to call a CEO in a cold call? The one who did eventually became the co-founder of Apple.

The opportunities presented before both were different. The same opportunities were before more people but these two grabbed them and became successful.

Just for comparison I took two tech legends but theoretically, every one of the student may have had different set of opportunities which wouldn't be available to others.

Whoever grabbed those opportunities shined later and who missed that, weren't ready in my opinion.

Why luck is not random?

From the above stories we can come to a conclusion that not everything we call as luck is purely random that happens to specific people who are lucky.

Luck is sometimes an opportunity recognised and grabbed by people who are ready. Logically, if it is an occurrence which happens randomly, then why some people always seem to be part of that randomness while others just watch it from the sidelines?

Because the people who are prepared, who grab the opportunity won't stop with just one success. They keep on looking for opportunities and so grab whatever they find.

From the surface it may look like luck favours them. But if we look deep, perhaps their preparation put them in a place to find the opportunities they need.

We can see this from another story.

The young Napoleon Bonaparte was an artillery captain during the Siege of Toulon. The port city was held by Anglo-Spanish troops with naval supply by British.

Taking back the port city was a strategic necessity for French but the tactics used were very conventional.

Napoleon had an idea that was initially dismissed by the General. Instead of giving up, Napoleon found another route to get his idea heard.

His strategy gained support, and the French captured Toulon after cutting off the defenders' position around the harbour.

It became a turning point in his military career. The story we have to observe is, he may not have been the first one to see the flaws and may not have been the first one to come up with an alternate strategy. 

Even if someone did and got rejected by a general, most would keep quiet. But he saw an opportunity and went behind his general.

It was one of the bravest moves in the army since insubordination in the army was treated seriously.

Despite that, he tried and succeeded at something others wouldn't even dare attempt.

We can't simply call it luck. Throughout his career, he used opportunities like this to eventually become the Emperor of the French. If we call it as luck then we have to attribute it to his hard work and the opportunities he created.

There is a tamil song 

Nalla poluthai ellam nadi keduthuthudan thanum kettar

Allum pakalum therukallai irunthuvittu athirshtam ilayrndru solli vaithar.

In essence, it tells some people waste good times and waste their potential. They were idle for day and night and in the end justify themselves that they have bad luck

How can we create our own luck?

Till now we saw the psychological and philosophical arguments. What good it can do if it doesn't help in our daily life?

So let's see how can we practically implement the views to create our own luck.

The first step is to believe that a lot of opportunities exist and you are always ready to grab them 

This task may be as easy as possible or as difficult as it can be. It depends on only one factor, that's you. In Personal development, there is no get-rich-quick scheme. 

We already discussed about the internal Calculator, which may play a role in this.

If you feel unlucky till today, you can't make your mind to believe you are lucky. It's not simply waking up and changing your belief.

It requires constant effort. 

Second step is having an open mindset

Most people think the opportunities are limited. If some grabbed one already we can't get any - with this kind of mindset, one limits oneself. 

But the possibilities are far greater than what we initially see. A potato when sold raw, makes less money. But when it sold cooked, it can make more money. If you process it as chips or fries , you can make way more than cooked potato.

The same potato, but different people see different opportunities. One can make vodka using same potato and earn more than what others earn. The ideas may not be limited, but our creativity limits what we can see and what we can make.

This is a sample for open mindset. Be prepared but don't think the opportunities are limited. If others had an opportunity it doesn't mean yours is hindered.

When you are really ready and open, you can identify your opportunity.

Third step is Practising optimism 

Practising optimism is one of the most misunderstood ideas in personal development.

Many think that being optimistic means, always thinking positive and so positive things will happen.

Actually it is quite opposite. Being optimistic is, when nothing goes according to your plan, trying to stay positive and checking for the next step.

If I have to, then I will describe it as, "Irrespective of the situation, finding the next best course of action without emotionally blinding ourselves"

By doing so, we acknowledge that practicing optimism won't always bring positive results. But even if something negative happens we have to move on to the next possible target without bias. 

If we train our mind to do so, we may find  opportunities we would otherwise miss and won't think that it happens because of bad luck. This will change the mindset in how we view the failure.

The last step is "more action"

When I say more action, it doesn't mean doing lots and lots of action, hoping some will succeed. Because I also believe running fast in opposite direction won't let you finish first even if you run with more speed.

When we move into right direction in our goal, if we increase the amount of action we put, we find more opportunities than others.

Grant Cardone discusses massive action in his book The 10X Rule, arguing massive actions can produce massive results. I believe it can also produce more opportunities.

But massive action doesn't mean acting blindly. Preparation and analysis are important too.

It means even if you put a lot of massive action, you can't fill a bucket with a strainer. Before  moving to massive action, the right analysis is important.

Checking what's working and what's not working, then doing what's working in large quantity will bring more opportunities.

In the end, my view of luck is simple:

Circumstances create opportunities. Preparation helps us recognise them. Action turns them into outcomes.

And sometimes, we call the result “luck.”

This is part of our WSLT series and I hope I've given clear picture on what luck is and how can we create our own luck. Please subscribe to the newsletter if you feel this post is worth reading.

Key Takeaways

  • Luck is not always random; preparation helps us recognise opportunities.
  • Different people see different opportunities in the same circumstances.
  • An open mindset helps us see possibilities others may miss.
  • Optimism is finding the next best course of action, even when things go wrong.
  • More action creates more opportunities, but direction matters.
  • What looks like luck from the outside may be preparation meeting opportunity.

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