Friday Weekly Nuggets 02: Risk taking and Creating Luck

The role of luck in success and how you can engineer you own luck.

We often underestimate the role of luck in success. But sometimes being in the right place at the right time is the key that opens the door of success.

 Most people think of luck as mysterious and unpredictable. This is true in some cases. There is a kind of luck that you have no control over. It is a type of blind luck that happens because of something beyond your control. Fortune, fate, etc. are examples of this type of luck. This type of luck can be crucial to success.

But luck is not always mysterious and unpredictable. You can engineer the likelihood of you being lucky. It is possible to set yourself up to get lucky. We have the capacity to create our own luck.

The easiest way to be lucky in this instance is to put yourself in positions where you are most likely to get lucky. Luck, when it comes down right to it is just an opportunity waiting to be taken advantage of. By being aware of opportunities around you and learning how to take advantage of them, you increase your chances of being lucky.

If you roll the dice often enough, you are most likely to be lucky.

Quotes from others

There’s luck [that is created] through persistence, hard work, hustle, and motion. This is when you’re running around creating opportunities. You’re generating a lot of energy, you’re doing a lot to stir things up. It’s almost like mixing a petri dish or mixing a bunch of reagents and seeing what combines. You’re just generating enough force, hustle, and energy for luck to find you - Naval

Luck plays a key role. Yes I’d like to publicly acknowledge the power of luck. Athletes get lucky, poets get lucky. Hard work is critical, a good team is essential, brains and determination are invaluable, but luck may determine the outcome. - Phil Knight

I have observed something else under the sun. The fastest runner doesn’t always win the race, and the strongest warrior doesn’t always win the battle. The wise sometimes go hungry, and the skillful are not necessarily wealthy. And those who are educated don’t always lead successful lives. It is all decided by chance, by being in the right place at the right time – King Solomon (Ecclesiastes 9:11 NLT)