Increase Your Luck

"Diligence is the mother of good luck." - Benjamin Franklin

"Luck is where opportunity meets preparation." - Seneca

"Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get." - Ray Kroc

Have you ever met an agent that seems like they just have all the luck? It seems like they have clients call them, they always get offers accepted, and things just work out their way.

Most people would just write this off as luck but I think there is something we can learn from these people.

Dr. James Austin proposed that there are four types of luck:

1- Blind Luck

2- Luck from Motion

3- Luck from Awareness

4- Luck from Uniqueness

Let’s look at these to help you increase your luck and be that agent that everyone thinks things just work out for you.

Blind Luck

This is the luck that occurs completely accidentally. Zero effort is required here. Examples are where you are born or things that are completely random like winning the lottery.

You might not think about this, but you have already had this luck happen to you. You are a real estate agent in the US. We have a mortgage market that allows us to buy houses with loans rather than only cash. We have structure and laws to make sure we get paid commissions and it is usually baked into most transactions so you get paid on the buy side and it is the norm on the listing side.

Congrats. You are already lucky.

Luck from Motion

I bet you can guess what this is and the examples. Luck is a result of you doing. A great example of this is the movie Yes Man with Jim Carry. He always said no and was unhappy with his life. He never went out. It seemed like he was going nowhere. Then he took a seminar that made him say yes to everything. He began going out and meeting people, his job improved, and more. It’s a fun watch if you have some time.

I am not saying you have to say yes to everything (often I think you should say no to more things). I think the biggest take away is that you should be in motion.

Send out more emails. Post more often on social media. Do random lunches or coffees with more people (your sphere, vendors, and other agents). Teach more classes. Talk to more people. Hold more open houses.

The more you are out there, the bigger your surface area of luck.

This is the most important part of getting lucky! My biggest (small) epiphany from 2023 was that I should talk to more people. I need to get out and do rather than plan and perfect.

Before real estate, I sold security systems door to door. My first week, when I had no idea what I was doing, I knocked on a door and the owner said I had knocked at the perfect time because she was looking into getting a security system and she was the easiest sale of my year.

A broken clock is right twice a day. Go get into action so you can get lucky.

Luck of Awareness

This is something you can improve at. You get good at seeing clues or potential opportunities that exist around you.

I have a friend who has been flipping and whole selling houses lately. I asked him where he finds his deals, figuring he would have some crazy marketing strategy I could learn. He told me that he finds about half his deals from the MLS. All those deals are available to everyone but he tends to find the ones that have more potential and he can get for a steal.

To get better at this you need to develop a depth of knowledge and experience. You might get a gut feeling about something. Stop and listen to it. It might be the clue for luck coming your way.

Luck from Uniqueness

You are unique and your skills and experiences are unique. You will find luck by combining these.

For example, I have a coaching client that works with a lot of investors. Before real estate, he worked on the corporate end of restaurants. He worked for Chick-fil-A for years. He has a unique skill of being numbers-driven in what he does (the corporate side) and having an insanely good customer experience (the Chick-fil-A side). As you can imagine, he gets a lot of repeat and referral business.

Some of you probably read this and thought, “Oh I should look at working with investors and creating a great experience for them.” You know that might be a strategy you want to do. But this was all luck for my client. He did it naturally because of his uniqueness.

What do your past skills and experiences point towards and how can you tap into that luck?

A writer, Sahil Bloom, says, “When choosing between two paths, always choose the path that has a larger luck surface area. Ask yourself: Which of the two paths is more likely to lead to me getting lucky? Act accordingly.”

Good Luck,

Cameron Wilson