What’s luck got to do with it?

Mar 10

“Oh you’re just lucky!” Yes…but what happens next is what matters most.

When someone builds a great career, launches a successful business, or seems to move through life with ease, it’s easy to assume they were lucky. They met the right person, they were in the right place at the right time, or they caught a good break. It is a comforting explanation because it removes responsibility. If someone else succeeds, it’s good luck. If something unfortunate happens to us, it’s bad luck. But the research tells a different story and it’s so important to your own story arc, I have to share it.

The Return on Luck

In the book Great by Choice, business researcher Jim Collins and his colleague Morten T. Hansen studied companies that dramatically outperformed their competitors for long periods of time. These companies succeeded in industries that were chaotic, uncertain, and constantly changing. The question the researchers wanted to answer was simple. Why do some organizations thrive in uncertainty while others collapse under the same conditions? One of their most surprising findings had to do with luck - and bear with me - this translates to individuals as well.

The great companies were not luckier than their competitors. When the researchers examined major events that could reasonably be called luck, both the successful companies and the struggling ones experienced roughly the same number of lucky breaks and unfortunate setbacks. Good luck appeared in both groups. Bad luck appeared in both groups.

The difference was not the amount of luck. The difference was what they did with it. Collins calls this idea ‘The Return on Luck’.

Luck, as he defines it, is an event that you did not cause, could not predict, and that has meaningful consequences. You meet someone who changes the direction of your career. A market shift suddenly favors your work. A project fails and forces you to rethink everything. A door opens that you did not know existed.

Good Luck Only Matters If You Use It

Most people assume good luck automatically leads to success. In reality, good luck itself doesn’t actually do anything at all. Examples:

You meet someone interesting at an event, but you never follow up.
You have a great idea for a project, and you never start it.
Someone encourages you to try something new, yet you tell yourself you will do it later.

Good luck by itself is just a moment that only becomes meaningful when you turn it into something concrete via taking action. The people who seem lucky are often simply the ones who move when the door opens.

Bad Luck Is GOOD Information

Shit happens. Plans fall apart, businesses fail, relationships end, markets shift and health issues arise. Everyone experiences periods when things do not go as expected. What separates people who eventually thrive from those who remain stuck is not the absence of difficulty. Again, the long term results come from the way they interpret what happened and use it to move forward.

Some people treat bad luck as a permanent verdict. They conclude that the situation proves they are not capable, not talented, or not meant to succeed, so they withdraw and stop experimenting. “I have bad luck!” It absolves them from any responsibility for taking direction of their life.

The trick is to treat bad luck as information. If something didn’t work, something needs to change. Difficult events force them to adjust course and often push them toward a direction that ends up being far more aligned with who they are. Which is why countless ‘successful’ people will cite turning points that initially felt like failure.

Increasing Your Own Return on Luck

If luck appears in everyone’s life, the real question becomes how to increase your return on it. The research suggests a few habits that make a significant difference.

Move forward consistently. The people who benefit most from opportunity are usually the ones already in motion. When you are actively learning, building, writing, creating, or experimenting, you are far more likely to notice and act on opportunities when they appear.
1. Small, doable, consistent actions no matter what the situation teaches you resilience as well!
Experiment more than you speculate. Instead of overthinking every possibility, try small tests. Start the project. Reach out to the person. Publish the idea. Small actions create feedback, and feedback reveals which opportunities are worth pursuing further.
1. Trying things will give you the information you need to decide to move forward 1000x faster than wondering about it.
Build stability in your life. When you have a strong foundation in areas like health, finances, and relationships, you can take thoughtful risks without feeling that everything is at stake. Stability allows you to respond to opportunity with courage instead of fear.
1. While my life may look like it’s super free-wheeling I have a very solid base and routine including a steady sleep schedule, keeping my nutrition on track, daily movement, journaling, an intentional relationship, and other grounding practices.

Parting Thoughts

None of us can control every variable (although some of us certainly try)! When we accept that there is always an inherent element of chance, we can shift back into a place of autonomy and sovereignty by taking control of our responses. We control whether we notice opportunities when they appear. We control whether we act or hesitate. We control whether we treat setbacks as dead ends or as information that can help us move in a better direction.

Act when doors open. Move forward even when conditions are imperfect. Take feedback as information not a personal insult.

When I look back at my own life I can see this so clearly in one situation in my first business. We started the business with nothing - no savings, no long term plan, only a lot of passion and a hard work ethic. From the outside our success looked like ‘luck’ to many, but the reality was that I was always willing to walk through the open doors and take the closed doors as a sign that it was the wrong way. We pivoted and pivoted and pivoted. We took business opportunities that sounded silly at first and then later became massively lucrative. And, when we clumsily navigated our buy-out that wound up far less amazingly than we wanted, that stung - but it was feedback too.

We’d worked hard and we trusted the folks we were working with. They were such a bigger fish that we were stuck between a rock and a hard place with very little leverage. We were also naive, exhausted, and excited. And if being a bit naive because I’m simply a good person meant that folks who aren’t as honest got ahead - I learned my lesson. It would be easy to keep that resentment, to blame the other party, and to feel as if they took advantage of me.

Instead, I took the lesson. In hindsight I can see what I could and couldn’t have done differently. I adjust my sails moving forward regarding who I work with, how much resources I’m willing to commit in any one direction, and to always make sure I’m spread out enough that I’m stable. This puts me in a much more powerful position - I create my own luck by maximizing the opportunities that come my way and trying to minimize the time I spend stinging from doors slamming on my toes.

Onward & Upward.

Xo,