S03E72 How to Make Yourself Lucky

Ever wondered why some people seem luckier than others? That's what we're diving into today. We're here to debunk the common myth that luck is purely a game of chance. Through engaging discussions, we explore perspectives from past presidents and a captivating Wall Street Journal article, all leading us to the idea of 'smart luck'. Challenge your preconceived notions of luck and learn how expanding your social network, seeking assistance, and persisting towards your goals can increase your odds of stumbling onto fortune.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, we also take a moment to pause and express gratitude for our blessings.

Engage with us on our Instagram and YouTube and let's foster a community where we can learn, grow, and succeed together. So, tune in to this episode of Botox and Burpees podcast for an enlightening discussion on life, luck, gratitude, and the essence of Thanksgiving.

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S03E72 HOW TO MAKE YOURSELF LUCKY

[00:00:04] Sam Rhee: Can you make your own luck? Do you know people who are insanely lucky? And when I mean lucky, I don't mean that every lottery ticket they buy wins, or that they make fortunes playing the slots in AC. That's blind luck. I mean they seem to move upwardly so effortlessly. Each job is better than the one they had before. They always seem to know the right people, and even when something bad happens, it seems to break better for them somehow.

Our former president Donald Trump once said, "Everything in life is luck." And sometimes when things aren't going so well for us, it does seem that we can't catch a break. How many "if only" situations have we seen in our lives?

If only I didn't catch a cold this week, I could have done better on the college admissions interview. That was bad luck.

Or if only they didn't program a one rep max thruster in the CrossFit Open, I could have made it to quarterfinals. That was bad luck.

Or, if only Aaron Rodgers didn't tear his Achilles tendon minutes into the season, the Jets wouldn't suck so much this year. That was bad luck.

Yup, I know I've seen my share of bad luck. Most of us have.

But is luck really out of our control? Another former president, Gerald Ford, once said, I like the definition of luck where the harder you try, the luckier you get.

And that's a great quote. But honestly, if good luck was just hard work, then why did the Jets stink so much this year? I thought they worked just as hard as any other team this preseason.

Or maybe I might have worked really hard for that promotion, but then my boss happened to favor the new hire who was 15 years younger than I was.

Hard work doesn't always seem to translate into good luck.

Then recently I saw this article in the Wall Street Journal from Rachel Feintzig, titled, Some People Are Just Lucky, You Can Make Yourself One Of Them. And I immediately thought, I've never been really lucky, this is perfect. I'm going to have Rachel's article make me the luckiest person in New Jersey.

So let's take a look into what making your luck really means.

First of all, let's put aside blind luck, which is the kind of luck that we really can't control, like winning the lottery. No one really has tips on controlling truly random chance.

The luck we can make ourselves though is defined as smart luck, which is where you see something unexpected and you can connect the dots to make it a positive opportunity for yourself.

Okay. There are four fundamental concepts about how to increase this kind of smart luck. And these concepts are all ones in which I definitely need to work on for myself.

Number one. One of the most important concepts about becoming smart lucky is that you have to increase your chances and opportunities to see smart luck. As they say about the lotto, you gotta be in it to win it. That means doing more things where you have an opportunity to become lucky.

For most of us, that usually means meeting more people. A lot more people. You don't get lucky by sitting at home playing video games. The bottom line is the more people you meet, the more connections you make, and the chance for opportunity grows. Networking is important.

Sociologist Mark Granavetter calls this the strength of weak ties. Strong ties are our close friends and colleagues, but the social circles between you and your best friends are usually very similar, or at least they overlap to a great degree.

But the people we don't know as well, maybe we meet them at a gym, a PTA meeting, or at a professional conference, or even the random person we run into at a hotel elevator or at the coffee line at Starbucks.

They probably have different social networks than you and your close friends have. So reaching out, saying hello, introducing yourself to these weak tie people will increase your chance of in connecting on some level.

Those stories of people who meet their future spouse on the subway platform or waiting at a Dunkin Donuts, those happen only if you don't look down at your feet and ignore everyone around you.

And when you are looking for that new job or person to date, you will find more luck finding someone who can connect you to what you might be looking for. Plus, you may be able to connect your close friends to someone who can bring opportunity to them as well.

So the opportunity for spreading luck around you can grow depending on your friends and their so called weak ties as well.

When you get that cocktail party question, "So what do you do?" You can always throw out some hooks that might increase the chance of growing that weak tie. For example, entrepreneur, Dr. Christian Busch, suggests you could say, "Well, I'm a real estate agent, but I recently started reading about philosophy, and what I'm really interested in is exploring science." That gives three hooks where you might find a connection with someone, and thus increase the potential for finding an opportunity.

Now, my daughter has always enjoyed meeting new people. I always thought she was just incredibly lucky in landing opportunities in school and out of school. But her luck has been in large part because she does so well navigating large groups of new people. The other thing is, is that my daughter's never afraid to ask or at least tell people what she's striving for.

She will discuss her goals with her teachers and ask for help achieving them. And I know if she wants something from her parents, she's not afraid to ask for it. Now she doesn't demand things like Veruca Salt wanting an Oompa Loompa. On the contrary, she's very persuasive. She's got rizz. See what I did there? Little callback.

And she is very good at asking nicely and maneuvering into situations where people want to say yes to her and to help her reach her goals. And I can envision someday she may be asking people to say yes to her idea, to her pitch, to her proposal, to her request, or to her startup. And true, she may be turned down many times, but I'm sure a few people will say yes, where they will be willing to help her achieve her goals. And when she succeeds, some people are going to call that luck.

Now on the contrary, for someone like me, who's very much the opposite of my daughter, as a hermit, as an introvert, who likes nothing more than staying at home, I mean, why do you think I like podcasting so much?

This may be one huge reason why I never considered myself lucky. It's rare that I put myself out there, and I hate asking people for things or talking about my goals. And even now, as much as I realize how important it is to network and create opportunities for myself, it will always be a challenge for me to put myself out there and yes, also to ask for things.

But no doubt, I will work on it, and I hope you do too.

The second concept about making yourself lucky is to expand your boundaries. So doing the same things over and over again every day will likely result in the same results. Trying different side projects, or learning new skills, or trying different experiences may open up unexpected opportunities.

There's a movie starring Jim Carrey called Yes Man where his character attends a motivational seminar and then believes that he is obligated to say yes to everything that is presented to him. So he goes to see alt rock bands, he takes Korean language lessons, he learns how to play the guitar, flies out to Lincoln, Nebraska for a spontaneous weekend vacation, and not surprisingly because it is a movie, his life is richer for being forced to say yes to all these activities and in doing so he meets his true love.

It's a really funny movie. But the premise, that good things can happen unexpectedly if you try new things, does hold true. It doesn't have to be dramatically different, but think about all the routines we have every day, and what would it be like to change it up a little bit?

Be curious. Not every attempt will work out swimmingly, but as Wayne Gretzky once said famously, you miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take.

The third secret to making yourself lucky is to be generous with luck to others. Make opportunities for those around you. Connect your old friends with new ones.

Be the person who makes luck happen for someone else. And when you give to others, you create relationships. And other people will respond in kind. With advice, connections, or any other kind of help that we might often call good luck. SIncere giving without the expectation of receiving something in return will earn you the friends and connections that will help you become lucky in return someday.

The last and most important method to make yourself lucky is what's called a serendipity mindset. That means you have to see the unforeseen or unplanned occurrences in our lives, not as distractions or problems that need to be dismissed, but to take these events and think more deeply about what they might present.

Expanding our awareness to our surroundings and keeping an open mind is not an easy skill to develop, especially for us, like myself who tend to rigidly plan and stay focused on our goals. But the ability to stay positive despite the unexpected setbacks and to be flexible enough to consider other possibilities, even if they weren't within our original objectives, that's the serendipity mindset that can create luck.

An article by The Guardian written by Sharon Walker mentions two examples by which having a serendipity mindset makes all the difference between those who consider themselves unlucky and those who make their own luck.

The classic example is Alexander Fleming back in 1928, as a professor of bacteriology at St. Mary's Hospital in London, where he returned after holiday to his laboratory and looked at his petri dishes where he was growing Staphylococcus, a type of bacteria. Unfortunately, one of the petri dishes was contaminated with a blob of mold, and the Staphylococcus colony had a large empty zone around the mold growth.

Now, if it was me, I probably would have thrown away that ruined Petri dish, annoyed that my goal of growing these perfect Staph colonies was messed up, and I would have started another fresh cleaner Petri dish. But Alexander Fleming saw this unplanned mistake, and he wondered, what was the mold secreting into that area where the Staph wasn't growing?

And so he took that liquid goop that the mold was producing, and after a great deal of effort, and also help from his network of connections, he developed the first true antibiotic, penicillin.

The other more modern example that this Guardian article mentions is about an entrepreneur named Nathaniel Whitmore, who was stuck in London in 2010 after an Icelandic volcano erupted, releasing an ash cloud, which grounded all flights over Europe for almost a week.

He realized there were probably many other people that were also stuck in London just like he was. And in 36 hours, he organized a TED Volcano conference with 200 attendees, world class speakers including eBay's first president Jeff Skoll, and a live stream watched by over 10, 000 viewers.

Now, do you always have to be such a tryhard in order to make luck happen for you? No. But if you feel like you could do more to reframe your way of thinking, shift your perspective a little bit, and open your eyes a little bit more to the positive possibilities out there, then you too, and same goes for me, could go a long way to making more good luck happen.

So there you go. The four principles on how to become incredibly lucky. Who knows, with a little bit of luck, we could all be having the luck that we dream about.

My weekly thankful is Thanksgiving, originally a day of giving thanks for the harvest. To me and many others, it is a time to bring friends and family together to acknowledge the blessings bestowed upon us and to express our gratitude for the good things in our lives.

Whether you're riding a recent high or challenged by stresses and sadness in your life, I hope we can all take a moment to give thanks during the holiday season and to help others to celebrate regardless of our circumstances.

Thanks again for listening and please, as always, DM me @BotoxAndBurpeesPodcast on Instagram or leave a comment at YouTube.com/@BotoxAndBurpees. Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving.