How to Make Your Own Luck

By Lon W. Schiffbauer, BA, MBA, PhD, SPHR

There are any number of quotes out there, either real or apocryphal, that talk about the idea of luck. General Douglas MacArthur is purported to have said that “The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself.” Then if Pinterest is to be believed, President Thomas Jefferson said, “I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”

These and other quotes have a common thread: the idea that luck is not some external capricious force working upon us, but rather an environmental condition we create for ourselves by way of hard work. It’s a very western, internal-locus-of-control approach to the whole idea of luck, one to which I subscribe, at least in part.

I believe that luck is an outcome of the convergence of several environmental factors; some external and some internal. For the most part, the external factors we can’t control, such as what family we were born in to or the resources made available to us as we grew up.

On the other hand, the internal factors—hard work and determinization being the most quoted—are within our sphere of control.

This brings me to a favorite but rarely cited quote regarding luck. It comes from a character named Buliwyf in the movie The 13^th Warrior. The scene takes place in the age of Vikings and involves an altercation between two characters: Buliwyf, a great Viking warrior, and a young, spoiled prince of the local village who sees Buliwyf as a threat to his eventual rise to power. In this scene the young prince challenges Buliwyf’s stories a valor, attributing any victories he may have had to luck rather than greatness. Buliwyf, being too cool and self-assured to squabble with the whelp, says in response, “Luck often enough, will save a man, if his courage hold.”

I like this line because it assumes hard work, but it adds another ingredient, which is sustaining that hard work when your courage begins to faulter.

You see, things are not always going to go our way. We’re going to run into obstacles and disappointments that are bound to leave us dispirited. It’s at times like these when we may be tempted to throw in the towel and call it a day, but then we would be closing ourselves off to the opportunity for luck to see us past the finish line.

Okay, so a cool line from a criminally under-rated movie. But is it possible to actually increase our odds of attracting luck? Well here are seven ways I believe we can attract luck:

First, know that luck is out there, and that with each passing day, you’re that much closer to your lucky break. Sometimes it’s just a numbers game. Do something often enough and eventually you’re bound to find some level of success, even if by accident. As Buliwyf said, “Luck often enough, will save a man, if his courage hold.”
Second, face your fears and recognize that, as the saying goes, “luck favors the bold.” I believe that luck happens when we take action, not when we hold back and wait passively for something to happen to us. Problem is, sometimes we lack the courage to take action in the first place. As hockey Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky once said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Work to overcome this and step outside your comfort zone because it may be out there that your lucky break is waiting.
Third, show up, which is to say, put yourself in places where serendipity can take place. This can mean many things, such as showing up early to work, broaden your social networks, or taking classes and attending seminars. The point is you want to go out there and look for luck, as well as open yourself up to those opportunities for luck to find you.
Number four, develop the ability to convert bad luck into good luck. In business it is often remarked that there’s no such thing as a problem, only an opportunity. Even if something is straight-up broken, you now have the opportunity to root-cause the deeper issue and resolve it so that it doesn’t happen again. When I was about 12-years-old my parents divorced and my mother moved to England. So yeah, bad luck I suppose. However, each summer and Christmas my brother and I would go off and live with my mother in England. Then when I was 15 I decided to move to France, live with a friend of my mother’s, and attend a French high school. I also made other friends and basically couch surfed for a year. Then that summer my best friend came out and the two of us, a couple stupid 16-year-old Americans, spent a month hitchhiking around Europe, sleeping in fields, juggling for food, and basically starving half to death. Even as a kid I knew this was all a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity afforded me by an albeit less than optimal family circumstance.
Number five, be willing to go off-script now and again to shake things up. It’s sometimes said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Well if our current systems, processes, and procedures aren’t delivering moments of “dumb luck” then maybe we need to upset the apple cart and create new conditions and paradigms.
Number six, stay focused on the desired outcome, not the specific path to that outcome. If you’re overly focused on a singular way of achieving your goal then you may not be able to recognize opportunities to accomplish the very same thing but in a different way. When I left the corporate world my goal was to write, teach, and consult. Well the opportunity to do some contract work came up. Is that the same as consulting? Probably not, but the idea behind consulting was to choose the sort of work I do and for whom, and, well, contract work fills a lot of those boxes.
Finally, number seven, learn to recognize luck when it does occur. Afterall, you can’t take advantage of luck if you don’t see it in the first place. This is similar to adopting an attitude of gratitude. Truth is, you’re already pretty lucky. You have the time and resources to listen to this episode, which means you’re probably not worried about where you’re getting you next meal or where you’ll be sleeping tonight. Now I don’t want to be dismissive of those of us struggling with some very real challenges, but for the most part, in aggregate, we live lives today that those in the past couldn’t even dream of. We have so much, so what are you going to do with what you have? Take the Internet, for example. It has democratized so much, making available to schmucks like me power and potential for influence that only the rich could afford just a few decades ago. It’s easy to take things like the Internet, access to knowledge, mobility, and good health for granted rather than as some incredible stokes of luck to be leveraged for greater effect. Learn to recognize those things that create opportunity.

So there you go. Give these seven tips and tricks a try and see if you don’t experience more serendipitous bouts of luck!

Lon is an Associate Professor of Business Management at Salt Lake Community College and holds an MBA, a PhD, and is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR). In addition to his academic background, Lon spent close to 30 years working and consulting for such companies as FedEx, Intel, eBay, and PayPal, as well as a variety of small to mid-sized companies around the world.