Luck as a Strategy
Why fortune favours the prepared.
There’s an older man I know who buys a lottery ticket every single day. I used to see him most mornings when I stopped by the local butcher to pick up ingredients for my takeaway business. Just recently, I spotted him again, waiting outside the same shop where he still buys his ticket.
I’ve never asked him about it, but he once told me that he spends $10 (sometimes $20) a day for years. I imagine he gets a thrill each week when he checks if he’s won the big prize. Maybe he has, but I really doubt it.
I wanted to write about luck because I think it’s a topic worth exploring. After six decades of experiencing both good and bad luck, I think I have some helpful insights to share.
Luck is a position, not an event.
Like my old friend, many people think luck is random. It seems to fall from the sky like rain, soaking whoever happens to be outside at the right or wrong moment. Some believe certain people are just born luckier than others.
This way of thinking can be comforting because it removes personal responsibility. If success is only about (good) luck, then failure is just bad luck, and neither really depends on how we live our lives.
But if you watch how things really happen, like in careers, relationships, wealth, and in the lives of people who always seem lucky, you might see a different story.
Think about people you know who always seem lucky. They find the right opportunities, meet the right people, and are often in the right place at the right time. You might notice they have habits that aren’t just about chance.
They notice what’s going on. They get ready. They put themselves where things are happening. They’re in the right place. Usually at the right time.
They are lucky.
But I suspect luck isn’t all random. There’s a pattern to the lucky, and we can learn how it works.
The anatomy of a lucky break
Think about someone who gets the career opportunity of a lifetime. From the outside, it looks like pure luck. They met the right person at the right time and were available when the job opened up. Everything seemed to fall into place.
But if you look closer, maybe that person spent years building skills that made them right for the job. They join groups where opportunities are and nurture relationships without seeking rewards. When the chance came, they were ready for it.
This pattern shows up everywhere. The person who found the right partner wasn’t just waiting. They did the quiet work of becoming someone “attractive”. Maybe they were healthy, emotionally mature, and financially stable. The meeting might have been a coincidence, but being ready was no accident.
Conditions, not predictions
A common mistake is trying to control where luck will show up. Some people focus on just one outcome, like a certain job or deal, and feel unlucky if it doesn’t happen. Others chase every new opportunity, never sticking with anything long enough to get good at it.
Both approaches lead to the same result. It’s not about lacking talent or effort, but about not putting yourself in the right position for luck. Not being well-placed.
The real strategy is to focus, and not to get stuck on one outcome, like my friend who buys lottery tickets year after year.
Focus means working hard to get ready and staying open to opportunities that might come from unexpected places.
Think of it as probability. You can’t know which opportunity will change your life, but someone with the right skills, good health, strong relationships, financial discipline, and a sharp mind will see more opportunities than others. More importantly, they’re ready to act when those opportunities arrive.
Luck comes to everyone, eventually. But it sticks around for those who are ready to receive it.
The conditions that matter
If luck favours the prepared, the next question is: how do you get prepared? It comes down to a set of habits that, together, make it much more likely for you to get lucky.
Self-control is a starting point. It’s the steady ability to manage your emotions, such as anger, arrogance, laziness, etc. Self-control means staying calm and clear-headed even when emotions are strong, because letting emotions take over often leads to poor choices.
Foresight also sets good positioning apart from mindlessly reacting. It’s the ability to read your surroundings, know what’s rising and what’s fading, and put yourself in the right place. Foresight isn’t predicting; it’s about paying close attention so you can spot where things are heading before others do.
The ability to delay gratification is an important extension of foresight. The degree or skill you work for helps open doors. Early-morning workouts, instead of sleeping in, condition your body and mind. Saving money diligently each month lets you take advantage of opportunities when they come. You delay immediate gratification for bigger, better rewards in the future.
A growth mindset keeps you from being stagnant. The willingness to be bad at something before you are good at it, to treat failure as information or knowledge, and to keep learning through multiple failures. Luck tends to find those who are still moving, still building, still open to what they do not yet know.
Finally, the willingness (and courage) to take risks is the last key. You can be prepared, patient, disciplined, and smart, but if you never take a chance, never “pull the trigger”, then having all the luck in the world won’t matter. Taking risks is the final act that turns preparation into a lucky outcome.
Luck goes both ways
Bad luck is real, too. Illness can come out of nowhere. An economic crash can end a career. A relationship can fail even if you did everything right. No amount of preparation can make you immune to bad luck.
But strategies of being prepared change how bad luck affects you.
Someone with savings handles losing a job better than someone living paycheck to paycheck. People with strong relationships get through tough times differently from those who are “difficult”. Good health helps you recover faster than if you’ve ignored your health for years.
Getting ready for luck isn’t just about catching good breaks. It’s also about surviving the bad times. If you build enough resilience and strength in your life, bad luck won’t knock you out. You’ll still be in the game, and that gives good luck a chance to find you.
The will it takes
None of this is easy.
Getting ready for luck means working even when there’s no immediate reward in sight. It means sticking with your plan when others are taking shortcuts. It means having a plan. It means investing in yourself during the slow times, when nothing seems to work and quitting feels tempting.
It takes determination to keep preparing when there’s no sign it will pay off. You have to keep building skills before anyone asks for them, and stay healthy and focused even when it would be easier to let go and give up.
The final truth about luck
If you think about it, great success almost always involves good luck. The right door opens at the right time. The right person showing up. The right conditions converged in a way no one could have planned it.
Lucky people are prepared. They’ve spent months, years, or even decades building the habits, the conditions, that let them spot the right door, get there in time, and walk through it.
You cannot control when luck arrives. But you can control what it finds when it does.