(TSE #029) - How to Build the Life Skill of Luck

I read a post on LinkedIn this week that got me thinking about the concept of luck – how important is luck in determining the quality of our lives?

The post from Sahil Bloom mentioned a series of simple experiments conducted in 2003 by Dr. Richard Wiseman, designed to explore why some people seem to consistently “get lucky” while others struggled with seemingly bad luck their whole lives.

Is Luck Genetic?

Dr. Wiseman placed adverts requesting participants for a study on luck—specifically asking for people who considered themselves very lucky or very unlucky.

The series of experiments he ran concluded ...

“lucky people’s daily behaviours, habits, and actions led them to come across “chance” opportunities, while the unlucky people seemed to miss them. Both groups had equal access, but the lucky group saw what the unlucky group tended to miss.”

Is Luck a Skill?

I believe luck is a skill we can all nurture and grow – let me explain.

When I talk about “luck”, I’m talking about my conceptualisation of L.U.C.K.E. – the Living Union (of) Curiosity, Knowledge, and Experience.

It is the interaction and continual change in the underlying variables (Curiosity, Knowledge, and Experience) underpinning this acronym that we each can use to?proactively manage the level of luck that manifests in our lives.

Why is being L.U.C.K.E. important?

Because the level of L.U.C.K.E in our lives directly correlates to the quality of our lives. I discussed this concept in a previous newsletter where I talked about the “Life Quality Equation”.

As we head towards the end of 2023 and the start of 2024, it’s a useful time to reflect and take stock of how much L.U.C.K.E. we are creating in our lives and how much we are simply letting things happen.

4?Examples of Self-manifested L.U.C.K.E.

Here are 4 examples of how I created my own L.U.C.K.E. at various stages of my life.

1) The unneeded contractor

When I had my registered training organisation (RTO), I was approached by a guy through a mutual contact.?

The guy worked full-time elsewhere?and wanted to earn some additional income to help pay for family holidays. He asked if he could facilitate a course for a few days each month.

At the time, I didn’t need him. I had enough trainers. But he worked for a company we wanted to secure as a client but could never break in to. So, I hired him.

My philosophy has always been to give without the expectation of return. Hiring him, ultimately, positioned my business to win a lucrative contract with his full-time employer when circumstances arose resulting in the company needing a new training provider. I won the contract uncontested which delivered $500,000 in revenue over 18 months.

This was possible because I had been curious enough to learn more about him when he first reached out and took an educated guess, based on my knowledge and experience, that it may create a commercial opportunity in the future.

2) The unsolicited offer

A few years after starting my RTO, we included a mortgage broking course in our offer. I had been watching the space for a while and admired a gentleman by the name of Michael, who ran an ASX-listed mortgage broking group. I’d only ever known him through the media and LinkedIn still wasn’t very prominent in Australia at the time.

Then one day I saw an advert that he was running a session in Melbourne for a new mortgage broking group aimed at anyone wanting to become a mortgage broker. He had left the ASX-listed company and was the head of this small startup venture. I registered for the session and went – not to become a mortgage broker but to introduce myself and for him to be aware of who I was.

As a result of being curious about his new venture and putting myself into a new experience, I was able to secure business for my training company. However, ultimately, the luck I created from this deliberate decision to foster a relationship manifested when he made an unsolicited offer to purchase 49% of the business a year or so later, at a time when an injection of capital was sorely needed.

3) The job that did not exist

After I sold my RTO, I spent some time looking for a corporate job. I had not worked in corporate for over 15 years and applied for several jobs.

In my job search, I came across a “Compliance Manager” role with a company that had been founded by a person I went to university with. I reached out and had a chat, and he suggested I apply for the role – which I did.

What started as a conversation about a?Compliance Manager role soon turned into a Head of Business Development position and, ultimately, led to me becoming CEO of the RegTech business. My curiosity to find out more about the role, backed by my knowledge and experience, led me to create my own luck and become CEO of a fast-moving technology business.

I would never have become CEO of any other RegTech business through a more traditional pathway.

4) Acceptance beyond myself

The greatest shift in L.U.C.K.E. occurred in 2014-15 when I made the deliberate decision to reshape and redesign my life.

In 2013, I hit the lowest point in my life in many ways. I had come to a sliding doors moment – would I go down path ‘a’, a self-destructive pathway, or would I choose path ‘b’ and realise my full potential? I chose path ‘b’.

How did I create L.U.C.K.E? I found the magic of audiobooks and began to devour content.

I am a lazy reader so this was the perfect solution for me, and it also helped with my newfound goal of becoming more active. So, I listened to audiobooks when I was running, at the gym, or in the car – I listened whenever and wherever I could. Some examples include:

? “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek ? “How to Win Friend and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie (this was a revisit after having originally read it in 2004) ? “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries ? “Anything You Want” by Derek Sivers ? “The Escape Manifesto” by Escape the City ? “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius ? “Crushing it!” Gary Vaynerchuk ? “The Courage to be Disliked” by Koga & Kishimi ? “The Miracle Equation” by Hal Elrod ? “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield ? “The Infinite Game” by Simon Sinek ? “This Could Be Our Future” by Yancey Strickler ? “Think Like a Monk” by Jay Shetty ? ”Life is in the Transitions” by Bruce Feiler ? “Limitless” by Jim Kwik ? “Essentialism” by Greg McKeown

The true game changer for me was discovering Stoicism.?

Initially, I avoided stoicism as I thought it was “fluffy and stuffy” ancient philosophy and would be of no use to me. But then, I began to realise that some of the best books ever written were based, in some parts, on the key principles of stoicism.

Once I embraced the concepts of stoicism, it literally freed up my mindset and way of thinking. I began to understand the world through a new paradigm and, as a result, I understood myself better. From this position, I implemented positive changes that were meaningful to me.

What are Common L.U.C.K.E Threads?

In Dr. Richard Wiseman’s 2003 study about ‘lucky people’, the study concluded that people who thought themselves ‘lucky’:

• noted that they often took alternate routes to and from work so that they would meet new people and see new things.
• bounced back from seemingly negative encounters and maintained a positive outlook for the future.
• talked about unique strategies for talking to different groups of people at parties.

If L.U.C.K.E. is the Living Union (of) Curiosity, Knowledge, and Experience, then it makes sense that for you to be lucky you must “live” and be active in your pursuit of life. You must be curious and look to expand your knowledge of life through lived experiences.

Being L.U.C.K.E. (lucky) is a skill that you can nurture, develop, and enhance through proactive control of your decision-making process and choosing to put yourself outside of your comfort zone to learn new things.

Staying in touch – newsletter

A powerful way for you to create L.U.C.K.E. in your life (at scale) is to publish regularly online (say, via LinkedIn) and/or a newsletter via a platform you control (eg website, course platform etc).?

I won’t go into detail here about how to create a newsletter, as I wrote about that here “4 Steps to Launch an Online Newsletter”.

By publishing your ideas, thoughts, and insights consistently, you attract an audience with whom your message resonates. Creating an audience creates interest in what you are doing and, boom, you create L.U.C.K.E.

Give it a go – you’ll be surprised how many opportunities you can create in your life if you play the long game and are willing to put in the effort to nurture a connection with an audience.

If you like my newsletter, please feel free to share it with anyone?who can?sign up here https://joelronchi.me/newsletter/