“A person does not seek luck, luck seeks the person”, Turkish proverb
“The harder you work, the more luck you have”, Dave Thomas
“Luck is when an opportunity comes along and you’re prepared for it”, Denzel Washington
“People make their own luck by great preparation and good strategy”, Jack Canfield
“Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity”, Lucius Annaeus Seneca
In 2004, Google launched its IPO for $85. On November 29, the shares were selling for $3000. The share price increased 3500%. Would you call this lucky? When Google’s IPO was launched meaning when it starting selling its shares on a stock market, it was common sense for me that the stock will be very successful. I was a software engineer and this was common sense to every person working in information technology. How many IT professionals took advantage of this opportunity. A few. I was not among them. Why? I knew nothing about the stock market, how to buy a share, or anything else on that subject. I was not prepared to take advantage of the opportunity. Preparedness is a pre-requisite to being lucky.
In the 2002 Winter Olympics, Steven Bradbury was clearly the worst of the five skaters contending for the short tack speed skating gold medal. He remained in the distant fifth position throughout the race. Just before the finish line, one of the four contenders lost his balance and the other three fell with him because they were racing just centimeters apart. This allowed Steven to cross the finish line before the others. He was lucky. Could I have had the same luck? I would need to qualify and participate in that race to have that kind of luck. If luck was seeking to help someone, I wasn’t there to be lucky because I did not quality or participate. You need to qualify to be lucky.
Opportunities come around all the time. Prepare yourself to take advantage of next opportunity. Qualify and participate. Then and only then will luck find you.