It has been said that luck lies in the intersection of preparation (hard, smart work) and opportunity (Seneca, 4 BC-65 AD). While the saying is certainly true, there are subtle, hidden, far less well-known aspects to it. The major subtexts are threefold: Receptivity, Momentum, and Appreciation. We must not only be open to opportunity, but we must also actively participate in the world around us, swimming, moving, creating momentum, not just observing. Also critical is cultivating an Attitude of Gratitude, a belief in and awareness of the vastness, the abundance, of the sea of possibility that surrounds us, the serendipitous good fortune that potentially lies before us.
Your goal is ‘engineered serendipity’: building the habits, outlooks, and relationships: the systems that make it easy for good things to keep finding you. Luck favors the attentive. Visualize that you live inside a flow of positive, unplanned opportunities and are enthusiastically engaging with them. Good things frequently compound; one opportunity often leads to another. Your desired skill set is to create the conditions where ‘luck’ becomes ever more likely.
Closing Quotes:
“Chance favors the prepared mind.” – Louis Pasteur, 1822-1895
“Look and you will find it—what is unsought will go undetected.” – Sophocles 496- 405 BC
“I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826
As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier
Note: Every effort has been made to properly source any 3rd person material. I am, however, a voracious reader. If anyone finds any unattributed material, pls let me know asap and I will be delighted to give credit where credit is due.
“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832
