"Aren't you tired of having to think about things to write about every week and ending up not having any huge turnover after being published?" My brother asked me during a dinner one day.
"Yeah, I do", I said. "However, I enjoyed it because it keeps me sharp and up-to-date with the field." I wasn't thinking about the value of preparation and creating luck.
Nonetheless, some indirect luck happens to me when I put in the work and write constantly every week.
More individuals are contacting me for job opportunities and collaboration projects, most resonating with my blog articles.
Consequently, I was lucky to be invited as a senior engineer in the company for having three years of professional experience. However, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to come my way without writing weekly.
We overemphasize hard work and perseverance in the work culture. However, we oversee the huge factor of success - luck.
Luck is the number one indicator that helps us achieve our goals. Luck also plays a huge factor in our career.
Let's take a look at career growth. For example, in one of my previous articles, "How to Grow Fast as a Software Engineer," many software engineers have an impressive growth trajectory mainly because they are in the "right" boat. They are in the company on the breakout list, growth phase, where the company experiences exponential growth in revenue and market share.
Can we deconstruct luck?
It is hard or almost impossible to control luck because luck constitutes randomness. You cannot analyze random because …. it is random!
Many people want to deconstruct and understand how to control luck, but the only thing you can do is understand how to have a higher probability of getting luckier in your life.
In this article, I wanted to give you these three elements that you can do to increase your chance of getting luckier in your life.
Getting More Exposure For Luck to Come By Your Life
One way to create luck is to expose yourself to many things.
Do you know why Gary Vee and other Content creators try to re-post their content on as many platforms as possible? Aside from gaining more exposure, they are also trying to become lucky!
Because we are operating in a stochastic world, exposing yourself out there as much as possible increases your chances of getting lucky. You cannot profit from opportunities unless other people, including those of influence, know who you are and what you are doing. This does not mean becoming a slave to social media or a tiresome self-promoter. Rather, you must honestly make your actions and enthusiasm clear to others. Keeping your head down is feckless and self-defeating. And it is poor ethics:
Many people who keep their heads down never learn.
They rarely take responsibility.
They make others carry the load for them.
In the software engineering career, you will want to do something outside your job if you find that luck. For instance, working on something outside your scope creates exposure, frequently leading to a promotion. They usually said you should be "acting at the next level" before you get that title. Sometimes, you will find a new title created because you have fulfilled that role. Nonetheless, these are acts of getting yourself noticed in your company so that they can see your impact.
Content creation is also another way to increase your exposure to become more lucky. I got a contract gig because the hiring manager discovered my article online and liked my writing techniques. I got contacted by a recruiting agency, and one of the hiring managers was interested in my profile and asked me if I would be interested in interviewing the company.
The company uses the Scala technology stack, and they encountered a similar problem that I encountered at Disney Streaming Service. I told her that I would be interested in moving forward. During the initial interview, the hiring manager told me he was pleased to discover my blog post about solving recurring payment failures through a rule engine. He also wanted me to spread the knowledge of Scala and help scale their notification stack better because he knew that I have a deep understanding of Scala languages and technology stack around distributed systems through my blog.
I was flattered to hear such a great compliment. The interview ended up going well, and I got the contract gig.
Always Prepared to Catch That Luck
My dad always tells me, "Luck will come by like a horse, and if you want to ride the wave of luck by getting onto the horse, you must be prepared to jump onto the horse when the horse is coming your way."
When Joe Rogan interviewed David Goggins, "You are training every day, seven days a week, even when you don't have any competition lineup. Can you illustrate what is going on in your mind? What are you training for?"
David Goggins said, "There is no break for me, man, because I am always preparing. When the time comes that I need those skills and those aptitudes, I will get them faster than everyone else. Because I am prepared."
Being prepared can increase the likelihood of encountering favorable circumstances. It also puts you in the right frame of mind to notice and take advantage of opportunities. It's important to have a strong understanding of your field, including both general knowledge and specialized expertise.
It's also crucial to stay up-to-date with the latest technology and developments. Most importantly, strive to become an absolute authority in your field. Like a martial artist who practices a routine until it becomes second nature, continually hone your skills and knowledge until they become ingrained.
A proverb in Chinese says, "One minute on the stage needs ten years of practice off stage." Dale Carnegie, author of the best-known book " How to Influence People," observed that you should amass so much material that you discard ninety percent of it when speaking. Your preparation gives you the confidence and power to speak without notes and to deliver a relaxing, enthusiastic, and freestyle performance.
Knowing all these benefits of luck preparation, what kind of preparation should you focus on?
You can start by evaluating your assets and figuring out what you wanted but have not acquired. It may be hard to contemplate your assets without knowing what you want. Therefore, you can start working backward by thinking about your goals.
For instance, if I want to create a software as a service business, I could start by looking at a SAAS product I admire. From there, you can work backward to discern any asset that prevents you from becoming like that SAAS product.
Let's say you want to start a SAAS product to create financial reports for creators and want to get your first five customers. You can look at another SAAS product that is similar to yours and start asking yourself,
"What are some of the assets that I need to create this SAAS product?"
It can be:
Knowing Programming Skills
DevOps Skills
Marketing Skills to promote the product
Capital asset (if there is an upfront cost in building this SAAS business for server cost or ads)
Network asset (any existing network or followers that helped you gain that first customer)
Then, you can evaluate your assets vs. what you need to acquire. For instance, I have programming and development skills and know I have the capital assets. However, some assets I don't have are marketing (since I have never done marketing in my day job) and network ( I don't have any VC network or network that help me understand the problem regarding financial report for creators).
Once you create a gap analysis, you can start researching similar SAAS products and how they get their first five customers. Then, you can have a set of items to work on to acquire assets to reach your goal.
Suppose you are a software engineer and aspire to be promoted. You can start looking at those software engineers in the company who just got promoted and do a similar gap analysis.
The best thing you can start is by asking your manager what opportunities they noticed prevent you from climbing up to the next title. You can also contact the software engineers who asked them how they got promoted and if any step they took made them get promoted. These are good ways to understand the guidelines and preparation items you can work on to become luckier.
Distraction is needed To be Lucky
You need leisure time to create luck. Distractions must be interrupted.
Getting too caught up in pursuing career advancement can lead to missing out on potential opportunities and distractions. For instance, if you receive several recruitment calls for a software engineer position, you may not give it a chance if you're too focused on your current job. But taking action could increase your chances of becoming more successful. Climbing the career ladder may be easier in another company, or you could learn new ways of solving problems due to the new culture.
You need to leave some space for that serendipity moment.
Jack Dorsey, one of the co-founders of Twitter, initially had a different project in mind. He was working on a platform for scheduling appointments and events when he noticed that people were using it to share updates about their daily lives. This unintended use of the platform led to the development of Twitter, a social media giant.
I am not saying that being focused is discouraged. You need deep focus to achieve greatness in your project. However, the problem with goal setting is rigid goal setting. For instance, setting a goal to finish writing a book by the end of 2023 is a great idea. However, the downside of setting such a specific goal far in advance is that it may cause people to focus solely on achieving that goal and ignore any other opportunities that come their way. This could result in missed opportunities, such as a speaking or freelance opportunity, which may be a distraction from the main objective of writing a book.
You don't want to do that because all opportunity lies in randomness. You want to get distracted if that distraction is a good opportunity.
It's important not to fully book yourself so you can jump on these opportunities.
Conclusion
When they say that you need to work hard, what they mean is that working hard helps you have a higher chance of becoming lucky.
Remember, you can increase the chances of your luck if you appreciate randomness in your life by:
Creating Exposure: Share your work and passions widely, just like content creators. In a stochastic world, exposure increases your chances of encountering luck. It's not about being a self-promoter but honestly sharing your actions and interests so influential people notice.
Preparation: As David Goggins said, "There is no break for me because I am always preparing." Being prepared heightens your ability to recognize and seize opportunities. Know your field inside out, stay updated, and be an expert.
Distraction: Don't be too narrowly focused on your goals. Allow for distractions and interruptions. Some of the best opportunities can come unexpectedly when you divert from your planned path. Jack Dorsey's accidental discovery of Twitter is a prime example.
While we often stress hard work and perseverance, luck is a significant factor in success. You can't entirely control luck, but embracing these three elements can increase your chances of getting luckier.