Created Luck

You create your own luck.

This was told to me constantly in a job I had a few short years ago.

The doctrine was that the more activity that you did, the luckier you got.

This fundamentally made no sense to me. Luck is luck. Period. How could doing more possibly impact your luck?

This line of thinking was further validated when I was doing half the work of one of my best friends but putting up the same, if not better, numbers than him.

If you create your own luck, how was it that I was getting luckier than he was?

But now… I’m starting to understand that line of thinking.

Though, I would like to shift the framing.

You don’t create your own luck, you influence it.

By putting in the effort, you may not guarantee that opportunity comes your way, but you expose yourself to more opportunities for it to.

It’s the same notion as not waiting to prepare for an opportunity until the opportunity has knocked.

You should be putting in the effort to ensure that you are ready, that you are primed for that opportunity, if it ever does come up.

You may experience a long waiting period, or a drought, but when the rain comes, you’ll be ready to reap the crops that you spent the period sowing.