Luck Is Real. It Also Has a Mailing Address.
People who’ve done well like to say luck had nothing to do with it. People who haven’t like to say it had everything to do with it. Both are telling a story that lets them off the hook, and both are wrong in the same way.
Luck is real. I’ve had a lot of it. The instructor who mentioned a license I’d never heard of. The client whose brother needed exactly what I did. The chance remark at a dinner that became a business. I didn’t earn any of those. But here’s the thing I noticed when I lined them up: every one of them arrived at a place I’d chosen to be, doing a thing I’d chosen to do, often for years, before anything came of it.
Luck has a surface area
It lands on people who are out where it can find them. The man at home waiting for a break has a surface area of zero. The man who takes the class, goes to the trade meeting, writes the letter, says yes to the dinner, has a large one. Neither controls when luck arrives. One of them has made arrival possible.
I had a decade with almost no luck. I was also, during that decade, doing almost nothing that put me where luck could reach me.
Preparation is what lets you catch it
The license was mentioned to a roomful of people. I was the one who went and got it, because I’d been studying anyway and had the habit of following up. The client’s brother talked to several people. I got the work because I’d spent years getting good enough to be recommended without hesitation. Luck knocked on several doors. Mine was the one that opened quickly, and that was years in the making.
Most luck looks like nothing
A chance remark. A name mentioned. An email you nearly didn’t answer. The big breaks almost never announce themselves; they look like small, optional things, and the people who get lucky are the ones who treat small optional things with a little more attention than seems reasonable. Reply to the email. Go to the coffee. Ask the follow-up question. Nine times nothing happens. The tenth is the story you’ll tell for thirty years.
Bad luck has the same address
It also finds you where you are. The business that closed was bad luck in part: a market shift I didn’t cause. But I’d also built it with one big client and no reserve, which is to say I’d arranged my life so that ordinary bad luck would be fatal. Preparation doesn’t prevent bad luck. It decides whether bad luck is a setback or an ending.
What to do with this
Stop waiting for luck and stop pretending you don’t need it. Increase the surface area: more rooms, more letters, more small yeses. Keep preparing so that when it lands, you can catch it. And build the reserve, so the other kind doesn’t finish you.
This week
Say yes to one small optional thing you’d normally skip. Follow up on one conversation you let drop. Luck is out there. Give it somewhere to deliver.
Launch list
Be there on day one.
One email when the book opens on Kickstarter. Nothing else. Already reading the book? Your Cheat Sheet is at wisdomdeck.com/free.
Coming soon on 
The book itself — 40 laws in ten parts, 320 pages, each ending with The Work — is funded first on Kickstarter.