A random person on Facebook messaged me wanting to get some feedback on an app he was working on and I agreed to hear him out. We tried to connect over Skype, however, he was at his 9-5 and could only connect over Facebook or text. I asked him to pitch me his product and how it worked. His idea was not brilliant or innovative and his approach was a very high level overview which made it hard to really understand the depth or progress that had been made. He did however say this one thing that simply pissed me off enough to not want to really look into it…
He said “I know you can’t really get anything to get real big without LUCK.”
This really upset me because in this day and age, with thousands of examples of how normal entrepreneurs have leveraged hard work, dedication, and innovation to drive their brands forward, many of which without a dollar to their name, there is still an idiot out there that emails me saying the only way he’ll ever become someone important is “luck.” So for that reason, I decided to write an entire article on entrepreneurial luck dedicated to that guy.
What is Entrepreneurial Luck?
Its when an entrepreneur magically gets a phone call from a magical place and suddenly realizes that his project has now grown so much that he sits back and reaps the rewards of sitting around, not doing shit but answering the phone because he was magically chosen. Sound about right?
To some people, entrepreneurial luck is when a person gets featured on the cover of Forbes or perhaps when a celebrity to uses their brand.
Here is everything you need to know about the law of luck and how to apply it to your business:
1. Luck stands for Laboring Under Correct Knowledge: A great strategy is key to getting lucky in business. The more systematic and scalable your approach is, the luckier you will get. Remember that even those whose programs get picked up by celebrities are not always at random. If it wasn’t for their effort growing their reach, that same celebrity wouldn’t have known anything about it. The same can be said about being featured on a major publication’s cover, you have to do work and get news coverage by smaller people in order to catch a big fish’s attention. At the end of the day, directly or indirectly, it is your effort that leads to the outcome created.
2. The harder you work the luckier you get: The beauty of hard work is that it typically pays off, even if not in the measure that was anticipated. Every entrepreneur will tell you that their life didn’t revolve around an easy journey up to the top. Instead, it was a maze of obstacles and barricades that they had to learn to navigate around. They will also tell you that despite working smart, there is still no substitute for working hard. Nothing can replace your effort, and your so-called “ luck” depends on your effort first.
3. Don’t confuse luck with the Law of Left Field: Actions have reactions, plain and simply and that’s the reason why certain random things may appear as luck to some. There are times when reactions don’t occur within a normal time frame from the actions you take. That said, it does not mean that they are not connected to the action itself. The law of left field, as described by our friend Bob Burg, is simply telling us that positive energy drives positive actions and that sometimes forces are at play that we cannot see or anticipate. In other words, a chain reaction of events that we did not anticipate may come out of the left field and sweep us off our feet. That said, it simply means that our actions start a chain reaction that leaves a residual effect that cannot always be seen.
If you are still a believer that being an entrepreneur and succeeding is about LUCK, then perhaps you might want to reconsider taking on entrepreneurship or being in business for yourself all together. Luck doesn’t have much to do with success. You and you alone determine your faith and success by positioning, leveraging, and driving yourself to succeed.
