"Luck is where opportunity meets preparation." - Seneca

If you’ve ever done a self reflection of life sometimes you come to realize some crazy things. This weekend after doing some thinking with my business partner I had the chance to reflect on my life.

This reminds me of a quote by Steve Jobs:

“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”

Some of the dots in my life seemed orchestrated. Others seemed purely out of luck. We all know what luck is. The way most of us understand luck is through events. Luck can be someone wins the lottery, they find their spouse, they hit payday, they land a good job…

The actual definition of Luck is: "success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions."

My thought process around luck was the same way but when I read “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant” that introduced me to a different paradigm of how to view Luck.

Imagine if you could control all the luck in your life. What if everyone around you thought that you were lucky, they envied you for the life you’ve created.

When in reality it was all designed by you because you chose to live life Against The Grain.

Today we’ll be covering:
Types of Luck, and my personal observation & a framework on how to create luck.

Types of Luck:

In 1978, a neurologist named Dr. James Austin published a book titled: “Chase, Chance, & Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty”

In the book, Dr. Jame Austin breaks down luck into 4 types:

• 😵 Blind Luck

• 🚂 Luck From Momentum

• 🧠 Luck From Perception

• 💎 Luck from Uniqueness

Here is how I look at each type of luck:

#1. Blind Luck

This is the type of luck that most of us are familiar with.

“...Luck that occurs is completely accidental. It is pure blind luck that comes with no effort on our part.”

Where we got lucky and it was completely out of our control.

This type is far and few in between, not the type of luck you want to rely on.

Examples:

• Winning the lottery

• Where and who you’re born to

• “Acts of God” or random occurrences of the universe.

For me coming to the United States at an early age was Blind Luck.

#2. Luck from Momentum

This type of luck comes from taking action.

Due to the action you are taking, from the persistence, the hustle, it creates energy and opportunities.

“Luck II favors those who have a persistent curiosity about many things coupled with an energetic willingness to experiment and explore.”

By creating momentum and energy, luck finds you through the process.

Example:

I decided to get certified and start working as a personal trainer. I said yes to every opportunity and learning experience. Through that momentum and action, I learned sales and prospecting, which led me to go out on my own.

That led me to opening up my gyms, then online coaching, then building multiple online businesses. By creating momentum and persistence, it created “lucky” events in my life.

#3. Luck from Perception

This is the type of luck that happens from awareness and depth of understanding.

There are 2 side of this coin as I see it:

First is the depth of understanding in a specific field or specific knowledge.

As Naval says “If you are very skilled in a field, you will notice when a lucky break happens in that field. So you become sensitive to luck and that’s through skill and knowledge and work.

Example:

When COVID hit, I knew the world was moving online. I myself had been studying how to do online coaching for years. As soon as the world shut down, my partner and I capitalized on the lack of coaches being able to transition allowing us to get 257 clients in 4 months

Second is the depth of understanding yourself and being conscious. Many of us live haphazardly through life never taking a step back to evaluate our options, making decisions emotionally.

Example:

I was conscious of the fact that the people in my life were limiting my growth. I decided to cut everyone out, move away and start fostering relationships with people who would help me grow. By having the awareness this helped me get “lucky” and build the life I wanted.

#4 Luck from Uniqueness

This is the hardest type of luck to find and can take years to foster.

“Which is where you build a unique character, a unique brand, a unique mindset, where then luck finds you.”

You get to a point in life where you create your own luck.

You put yourself in a position to be able to capitalize on that luck.

Example:

This is what the type of luck I am currently working on.

Through this newsletter through building a brand around sharing lessons and frameworks to help people live a healthier, happier, wealthier life.

This will compound over time and continue to grow allowing me to have more opportunities that many will call it “luck” but it was actually designed.

How To Create Luck To Win At Life

This is my personal observation about Luck, and it sums it up in a quote “Luck favors the bold”.

An average individual relies of Blind Luck the majority of the time and doesn't strike too often.

Very rarely do people use luck from motion or perception to navigate their way through life.

But why is it that there are those who seemed to be, just lucky. Those that have the star align for them all the time. This is my running theory for those that are looking to live Against the Grain.

2 Steps To Create Luck To Win At Life:

Step #1 Create Momentum:

This is all about creating luck through motion.

Simply by taking massive action, and creating opportunities for yourself as you stir the pot.

Whether it’s losing weight, working on your relationships, or starting the business you’ve been thinking about.

Get over the hurdle and just start. As long as you're directionally correct you’re set, you can course correct. It’s hard to steer a car that is in park.

Step #2 Develop Awareness

This is all about taking the lessons, skills, and experience from your actions and using them to make better decisions.

Developing the skill of thinking using mental models and frameworks to make better decisions.

In my opinion people do this one first 9/10 it slows them down. You have more perspective after you’ve been taking action rather than before.

Action Time:

While everyone else sits on the sideline and contemplates doing the things they want to do, or building the life they want to build…

Start creating your own luck and start taking massive action, create your own luck through motion.

If you’re an action taker, you’re taking massive actions towards your goals.

Might be time to step back and develop some awareness to course correct, pick the right games to play to continue winning at life.

If you found this newsletter valuable, feel free to share it using this link: https://mohammedmalik.com/newsletters/b/atgonluck

Keep living Against the Grain.

Until next time,