I know - how boring. But wouldn’t you say this is a more accurate representation of how life actually is? There are so many things that contribute to your and others’ failures and successes, that it’s practically impossible to boil things down into the specific reasons why.

BUT…that’s what I’m here for.

So what are those confluence of factors?

First off, I’d say there is luck that is out of our hands - like where you’re born, who you’re born to, and acts of God. (Sahil Bloom’s newsletter)

These are out of the scope of this.

But then there is luck that is in our hands. Luck that we have agency over. This is in scope.

The first aspect to inspect is the words “success” and “failure.” What is success really? What is failure really? In very rare instances of our adult life is there something tangibly written or expressed that something is a success or a failure. Success means we had a goal / purpose and we achieved that goal. i.e. Reality met expectations. Failure means we had a goal / purpose and we didn’t achieve that goal. i.e. Reality did not meet expectations.

I’m not saying to get rid of your expectations. We need that drive and purpose to put it into motion. What I am saying is success and failure is just how we perceive it to be. It’s our mindset that determines whether something is a success or failure. By that logic, you could be lucky to have a success. But, you could also be lucky to have a failure.

Success and failure is just data. It was an experience that you were grateful to have.

Gratitude.

That’s the key word here. If you feel grateful for all of your experiences, no matter how reality stacked up against your expectations, then you’ll feel luckier. This is an input that you have control over. You get to decide how much gratitude you have in your life.

More gratitude = feeling and being luckier.

“I’m so lucky to be alive.” “I’m so lucky to play the sport I love.” “I’m so lucky to have an amazing family.” ‘Lucky’ and ‘gratitude’ are interchangeable here.

Gratitude is a luck factor based on who we are, and how we feel.

Next up, there are 4 luck factors that you can take direct action on. These are

• Who luck

• When and where luck

• What luck

• Why luck

“Who luck” is your connections. Your network. Your social circles. That’s why “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is a saying. When you know more people who you have some sort of meaningful connection with, you’re increasing your who luck.

Let’s take the example of finding a job. Networking with people in the company you want to work at, in the industry or field you’re in, potential mentors, among others are ways of increasing your who luck. You could go about applying to all the jobs on LinkedIn, but how many people do you know that they got a door opened for them because they knew someone? It happens all the time. They just increased their who luck in those situations.

“When and where luck” is essentially right place right time. You’re putting yourself in the right physical places at the right times to make yourself luckier. Some might call this an opportunist, but it’s just increasing your when and where luck. If you want to meet financial professionals, living in New York City increases your when and where luck dramatically compared to living somewhere in the woods. Similarly, if you’re into outdoors activities, you could make a case that it’s better to live in a smaller city in the Mountain West than a large urban metropolis like a NYC.

You could also apply this on the day-to-day times and places. For example, if you’re looking for a job, going to job fairs increases your when and where luck. Going to various Meetup and Eventbrite events also puts you in a better position to find those jobs than just applying online. (It also increases your who luck).

“What luck” is the content of your activity or action. It’s putting in the work to achieve your goal. It’s also confirmation bias, which is the tendency to seek evidence that confirms your existing beliefs and hypotheses.

If you’re attention goes to spotting business opportunities, then business opportunities will arise. If you’re looking for things to be melancholy about, then you’ll find them just as frequently.

You could be in the right place, right time, and even with the right person, but you could never actually talk about the thing that would bond you both.

In the context of finding a job, increasing your what luck is expanding your skills and proficiencies. It could also be as simple as applying to jobs on LinkedIn, Indeed, etc. You could know all the people in the world and go to all the job fairs, but if you don’t have the skills or you don’t simply do the work to apply to the jobs, then you’re doing yourself a disservice.

“Why luck” is your intentions and how clear and aligned you are to them. If you don’t really have a direction in your life that resonates with you, then your why luck is really low. You don’t have a strong enough why. It’s okay to not have a why (I explore that in the Start with Why Not Newsletter) for some time, but eventually the lack of drive will impact you in a way that doesn’t serve you.

In the job search example, to increase your why luck, write out why you actually want a specific type of position or to work at a specific company. Write out your ideal job description. Visualize being at your dream job. How do you feel at that job.

These exercises all make your intentions that much clearer. And when your intentions have more clarity, the universe knows what to give you. So focus on your intentions to increase your why luck.

These are the 4 luck factors that you can take direct action on.

A small caveat here that they are all related. I’ve just deconstructed these factors that are in your control so you have awareness of each of them and can recognize them in your daily life and take action on them. But they all interact with one another.

All these factors contribute to how much luck you have. This is my second main point - luck being expressed as probabilities. Instead of thinking of luck as binary (e.g. “I have luck; I don’t have luck), it’s somewhere in between the 0 and 1.

Gratitude + Who Luck + When and Where Luck + What Luck + Why Luck = How Much Luck You Have

Think of it like this. If there were 100 universes with just your actions being the difference in each of them, how can you increase the number of universes in which you are successful?

Successful is a loaded term here but let’s put that aside for now.

All the factors mentioned above — gratitude, who luck, when and where luck, what luck, and why luck — are ways to increase your probabilities.

Let’s say you had a 1% chance of landing a job just by applying online. Add on some when and where luck by going to career fairs and putting yourself out there. Then reach out to people on LinkedIn, people at the company, or other events you go to to increase your who luck. Take a quick YouTube course or other certification program on the skills that your desired position would prefer to increase your what luck. Then write down the purpose of you wanting to be in that role, industry, profession and visualize and internalize those feelings to increase your why luck. I call this Luck Stacking. I would say that 1% chance then jumps to 15%. Which is massive!

You go from 1 out of 100 universes of getting the desired result to 15 out of 100 universes.

Luck can feel like times when the odds were against your favor and you still came through. That’s what it is in sports. We call that an underdog. But we focus on the result, the outcome of that luck. Not what the odds were at the beginning of that event. My call to you is to focus on increasing the odds at the beginning in your favor. Be the favorite. Not the underdog.

Increase the odds so much in your favor that when you succeed, it’s irrational for someone to say that you were lucky.

Luck is not increasing the number of times you succeed. (1 vs 15). It’s decreasing the number of times you fail (99 vs 85).