Out Here Makin’ My Luck

Sure, I believe in luck.

Luck’s a controversial concept. It’s one people scoff at. They roll their eyes internally and can’t believe you’re saying that you hold truck with woo-woo junk.

First, people who scoff tend to be rude dingdongs who aren’t very confident in themselves, so they find solace in trying to scuff up the ideas of others.

Second, my perception of luck — specifically, the good variety — doesn’t mean a four-day Netflix binge while waiting for magic to settle on you in a gentle mist. It means leveraging the opportunities life presents so that you’re at a vantage point where bigger, more improbable breaks are visible.

It’s you being primed and ready for the next chance to equip yourself when it crosses your path.

The intersection of Chance St. and Knuckle Down Ave.

I tend to regard good luck as extreme preparedness colliding with unique opportunity. Since you’re in control of your level of preparedness, you can totally bend the odds in your favor where it comes to good fortune.

I also believe there’s no such thing as good luck without an element of vision. You have to work at honing your senses, to be receptive to them when they’re tugging at you and telling you that something’s afoot. Trusting your gut is scary, especially if it’s telling you to head down the less-traveled route. Do it anyway.

In short, consistent good luck takes some work. But in my experience, it’s a fun sort of work.

‘Magic formula’ is a froufrou term for ‘steps’

There are stepping stones to any undertaking, and I think this holds true for making a pile of good luck for yourself as much as anything else. Leveling up is not an all-at-once proposition. It contains little side trips, and maybe a tantrum here or there, and a whole lot of the kind of education that can’t be represented in fancy frames gracing your walls.

Here are some ways I’ve found to broaden my luck.

Remain teachable.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve found myself in the right place at the right time by being open to the possibility of being taught. You’re never as knowledgeable as you could be. There will be things that you pick up along the way just out of curiosity, and you’ll be surprised to find those new insights or skills serving you in another capacity down the road.

Remaining teachable says, “I’m humble enough to receive new information from someone more adept than me in order to grow.” For some reason, opportunity finds humility enticing.

Be vocal in your quest for knowledge.

There are people so geeked about their passions that they’ll happily enlighten or mentor you out of sheer love for their subject. They don’t know you exist if you don’t speak up. If you want to know something, go where subject matter experts are. If you’re too shy to say outright, “HEY TEACH ME,” (no worries, most people are) then hang out on the periphery observing.

When you get your footing, ask questions. Questions get you noticed. Being noticed has been known to open doors.

Look for opportunities to gift some luck to others.

There’s no science I can point to that quantifies what I’m about to tell you, but I’ve seen it in action over and over: Meet others’ needs with no expectation of anything in return, and your own needs will get met. In spades, even.

The teacher or benefactor I’ve needed at any given point in time has never failed to find me. How selfish would it be, then, if something I have could benefit someone else and I hoarded it up or hid it out of shyness?

You have something to contribute. We’ll all be better for it if you do.

Scan the landscape for dust clouds.

The better part of luck is timing. The time to arrive at a ruckus is just before it’s actually a ruckus.

Look for where the action is starting to stir. Be ahead of the curve on equipping yourself to be ready to serve in this situation. What pain points are beginning to emerge, and how can you address those and improve things?

Be receptive to the pivot.

What if your greatest, best outcome involves going down in flames once or twice? I have this theory that sometimes we shortchange ourselves when it comes to the best possible result. We don’t necessarily underestimate ourselves, we just kind of whoopsy-daisy into having limited vision.

Then when something upsets the apple cart on our (inadvertently small) plans, we slog through frustration. Except that upset happened because those plans were supposed to be bigger.

What if that disappointment was necessary to pinball you into your One Great Thing? What if there were lessons in that failure that informed your Fuck Yeah Breakthrough?

Viewing these instances as the positive redirects they often are is freeing. I ain’t gonna front, though; for lots of us that sort of thing takes practice. And even after a metric ton of said practice, you may still want to drive out to the middle of nowhere with a box of dishes and spend the afternoon flinging plates at trees while shouting nonsense and swears.

Not that I’ve ever done that, or anything.

Speaking of preparedness and such

We’ve got a resource page in the works for our private community members. That’s where we’ll house things we think are useful and beneficial to you. Our plan is to share things that’ll help you get where you’re going easier and cheaper. For instance, Bri’s first contribution is a steep discount on useful software. She came out of the gate strong, but I’m stumped for the best gift to shower you with. I’m probably just going to have to knit you socks or something. (You’ll need to wait for me to learn to knit, though.)

We’ll announce it in the Facebook community when we push that resource page live.

“By the way,” the Queen of Non-Obvious Segue said, “we have some tremendous badasses hanging out with us on Facebook. You should join us over there.”

Originally published at ragstobitch.es on March 2, 2018.