🧂How to attract luck and opportunities in life

You've probably noticed it—some people seem to stumble into amazing opportunities while others, equally talented and hardworking, struggle to catch a break. We call it luck, but what if luck isn't actually random? What if the people who seem "lucky" are doing something specific that attracts opportunities to them?

The secret isn't what you might think. It's not about networking better, having the right connections, or being in the right place at the right time. It's about something much simpler and more profound: taking action before you feel ready, and doing it in a way that makes others want to help you succeed.

The readiness trap

Most people approach big decisions by trying to calculate their way to certainty. They make pro and con lists, research every possible outcome, seek advice from everyone they know, and wait for the "right" moment with perfect conditions and guaranteed success. But here's what they miss: opportunities don't come to people waiting on the sidelines. They come to people who are already in motion.

When was the last time someone offered you an amazing opportunity while you were sitting at home, perfectly prepared but not doing anything? Opportunities find people who are already committed, already taking action, already proving their dedication through behavior rather than intentions.

This insight reveals why waiting for readiness actually kills opportunity. While you're perfecting your plan, someone else with a decent plan and strong execution is already building relationships, gaining experience, and positioning themselves for the breaks that seem to fall from the sky.

The 99-1 principle

When I graduated from undergrad, I had a dream that seemed financially impossible: studying abroad in the US. My family was never financially ready for such an undertaking. I could have waited years for perfect conditions, but instead, I decided to do everything within my control and leave only the final piece to chance.

I prepared my portfolio, took the TOEFL test, and applied to schools. When acceptance letters arrived from different universities, suddenly everyone could see I was just one step away from accomplishing my goal. That's when something remarkable happened. My parents, seeing how far I had come on my own, found a way to borrow money from relatives to cover my first year of tuition.

But here's the crucial part—I had no idea how I would afford the second year. No financial plan, no family support lined up, no guarantees. I was jumping into the water without knowing if I could swim the full distance.

Once I was in the US, actually living the challenge instead of imagining it, opportunities began appearing that I never could have predicted or planned for. I searched relentlessly for paid internships and visited every office on campus asking about additional scholarships. Eventually, the university president himself created a special scholarship specifically for me to complete my second year.

None of this would have happened if I had stayed home waiting until I could afford both years upfront. The opportunities only revealed themselves because I had already committed to the path. I had done 99% of the work—the preparation, the applications, the leap itself—and that's when others were willing to help with that final 1%.

This taught me something crucial about how luck actually works: people want to help, but they're not going to carry you 90% of the way while you contribute 10%. They want to see that you've already done the hard work, that you're committed, that you've taken all the steps you possibly can on your own. Then, and only then, will they step in to help with that final crucial step.

Problems become stepping stones

Here's something counterintuitive about opportunity attraction: the challenges that seem insurmountable from the outside become manageable stepping stones once you're actually facing them. When you're contemplating a big leap from the sidelines, your mind conjures up every possible difficulty simultaneously. You imagine juggling all the potential problems at once, and it feels impossible.

But when you actually take the leap, those same challenges don't hit you all at once. They come one at a time, in the order you need to solve them, at the pace you can handle them. More importantly, each challenge you solve creates new connections, new skills, and new opportunities that wouldn't have existed if you'd stayed safe.

Standing in my home country, the second year tuition felt like an insurmountable obstacle. But once I was actually in the US, facing that challenge in real time, it broke down into manageable pieces: research scholarship opportunities, apply for work-study programs, meet with financial aid officers, demonstrate my value to the university. Each step was doable, and each step opened up the next possibility.

This pattern repeats across every major life decision. Starting a business seems overwhelming until you're actually solving real customer problems one day at a time. Becoming a parent feels impossible until you're actually learning to care for your child through daily practice. Moving to a new city seems scary until you're actually building a new life through small daily actions.

You don't attract opportunities by avoiding challenges—you attract them by willingly entering challenging situations and proving you can handle them. People notice competence in action much more than competence in theory.

Action as research

One of the most powerful principles of opportunity attraction is understanding that action creates data that thinking alone never could. When you're stuck in planning mode, you're operating on assumptions and hypotheses. When you start taking action, you get real feedback from the real world, and that feedback often leads to opportunities you never could have planned for.

In my design business evolution, I attracted different types of customers at each stage, and each stage taught me something valuable about what I actually wanted to build. Initially, I attracted designers going through transitions. Then indie hackers who needed design but had limited budgets. Then funded startups who could invest in strategic design work.

I couldn't have planned this progression, but each stage created the foundation for the next stage. The indie hackers taught me about business constraints and helped me realize I wanted to work with clients who could implement bigger visions. The funded startups taught me about strategic thinking and showed me I enjoyed solving confidence problems as much as design problems. Each "mistake" or "wrong turn" was actually gathering data that led to better opportunities.

This is "doing as research"—using action as your primary method for discovering what's possible. People who wait for perfect information never get it because perfect information only comes through experience. But people who act on good-enough information create experiences that generate better information, which leads to better opportunities.

The truth about timing

What we call "lucky timing" follows this same pattern. The entrepreneur who lands the perfect investor wasn't just lucky—they had been building relationships and proving their concept for months or years. The writer who gets the perfect book deal wasn't just in the right place at the right time—they had been developing their craft and building an audience consistently.

Good timing is usually the visible result of invisible preparation and action. The luck comes to those who are ready to recognize and act on opportunities because they've been actively engaged with their field, their goals, and their growth.

Start swimming

The truth about attracting luck is that it's not really about luck at all. It's about understanding how opportunities actually work and aligning your behavior with those principles. Opportunities come to people who are already in motion, already committed, already doing the work. They come to people who are clear about their direction but flexible about their methods. They come to people who are willing to be vulnerable about what they don't know while taking full responsibility for what they can control.

Most importantly, opportunities come to people who understand the 99-1 principle: do everything within your power, and others will help with the rest. Don't wait for someone else to do 90% while you contribute 10%. Show up fully, commit completely, and take action before you feel ready.

Whether you're pursuing education, starting a career, building relationships, or making any major life change, the path forward reveals itself through walking, not through planning. Jump into the water and start learning to swim. The opportunities you seek are looking for someone exactly like you—someone who's willing to act despite uncertainty, learn through doing, and persist through challenges.

They're just waiting for you to show them you're serious. Not through your words or your plans, but through your actions. Start moving, and watch how the world begins to move with you.

Summary

That’s it! Creatives often fail in business because they focus too much on perfecting their projects, stick rigidly to their rates, lack a clear focus, and get stuck in unscalable models. I hope you learned something through this newsletter and let me know what topics I can cover next!

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