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Do you need luck in business to succeed, or is it more about the drive to keep going and take advantage of opportunities?
It’s certainly an interesting question, and it’s easy for those with luck to say no chance was involved and everything resulted from their hard work. On the flip side, it’s easy for people looking for that breakthrough to say they haven’t had any breaks.
But it’s clear to me that when you keep pushing ahead, so-called lucky breaks do happen.
You also see this in sports. Championship teams do many right things and sometimes are superior to the competition. And every once in a while, they have a lucky break because the ball bounces their way.
Luck in business is no different. You end up being in the right place at the right time and maybe have the chance to spot an opportunity before somebody else. Maybe part luck, part preparation, and part gamble.
Certainly, lucky breaks happen. But what also happens is that luck is mistaken for hard work and keeping at it.
For example, when it comes to content strategy and dominating your niche, for lack of a better term, timing can include luck. Let’s say nobody else is the top thought leader in that niche yet. You were able to grab that spot. Is that luck, or is that perseverance?
Probably a bit of both.
Strategically planning luck in business
Peter Hollins discusses how “lucky” people find the “flow and position themselves within it” on an episode of his “The Science of Self” podcast. It’s true. Success has an element of timing attached to it. It’s really hard to get that lucky break when you are swimming against the flow.
And there are other ways to increase your luck besides just catching a lucky break.
In “The Luck Factor,” author Max Gunther outlines five traits “lucky” people have and how you can implement them to increase your luck.
Nick Trenton discusses the science of being lucky in his book with the same title.
Creating habits to be luckier
To an extent, luck happens when people work on it, are involved, and, as Peter Hollins calls it, take “measured risks.” For any “lucky” break after taking a measured risk, there are likely just as many – maybe more negative outcomes when something didn’t work.
I think about the rollout of products or even strategies. Sometimes the timing is wrong for the team or consumer. They just aren’t ready for it … yet. Is that bad luck or just bad timing? I pitched some strategies a decade or more ago, and nobody was interested. Then years later, those same strategies took off, and people wanted them. Was I just lucky? Did I persevere? Or where is the line to stubbornness?
To create the right habits to increase your luck, you might also consider daily affirmations through a daily affirmations handbook. In a nutshell, affirmations help us focus on what we want to accomplish and where we want to go. It’s structured positive self-talk.
It’s not about faking it until we are making it. But it’s about creating the future we want to create, and to do that, a certain level of what some people call luck might be needed.
