Do you feel lucky? I do. I’ve been able to work at jobs I (mostly) love and with people I (mostly) enjoy. My family loves me, even if they do roll their eyes often. (That’s totally fine. I often deserve that eye-rolling.)
I also feel as if I’ve benefited from a ton of serendipity, especially with friends and professional contacts. Many of my jobs and consultant engagements arose from the relationships I cultivated with people over short and long periods of time. We offered each other insights and support, often without reciprocity.
With luck and serendipity, our lives (mostly) and our work (mostly) fit together.
But no one gets luck or serendipity for free. We have to work at it, either by helping other people choose us or when we choose ourselves.
Help Others Choose us for Luck and Serendipity
We mostly think about other people choosing us for new jobs or new roles. Those jobs can be literal jobs in organizations, open source, or volunteer positions. New roles might include speaking at conferences, and for any other place you’ve found success.
All of that requires networking or helping other people discover you.
We can network one-on-one, or one-to-many, with speaking and writing. However, if you want people to choose you, they have to know you exist.
That means we need to be purposeful in our networking and extend ourselves so other people know about us. Professionally, we can:
- Get together with friends and let them know you’re looking for something new.
- Speak internally. This requires a little subtlety about letting people know you want something new, but it works.
- Network at professional events. Offer value first, then ask for support.
There are plenty of other ways, such as different speaking engagements and writing, but these are all ways to network so other people choose you.
If I want other people to choose me, I need to practice various tactics to help people discover me, one-on-one or one-to-many. Knowing what I want and practicing helps.
Then, there’s choosing yourself.
Choose Yourself for Luck and Serendipity
I write a lot in many genres. Here, I write personal essays. On my other site, I blog, write professional articles, and books. And I write fiction across many genres.
When I speak with non-writing friends, they often tell me I’m “lucky” that I can write well and fast. (My writer friends just snorted out their coffee.)
No one writes well because of luck. Instead, it’s all about practice. Some of my practice works and editors buy my articles, essays, or fiction stories. Sometimes, these editors don’t want what I wrote. That’s fine. Even though I focus on what an editor might want, they don’t always like what I write.
That’s fine, because I can then publish my work myself.
I choose myself when I:
- Practice my writing in whichever genre.
- Publish my work even if an editor rejected it.
- Let other people know about that work.
Practice helps me with all of my other professional work, especially speaking and consulting. The more I practice, the better I am at that work.
If I want to choose myself, I still need to know what I want as an outcome. And I still need to practice all the various tactics.
In a sense, the tactics help identify the principles of luck and serendipity.
Principles of Luck and Serendipity
If you want more luck and serendipity, decide why you want them—or the purpose behind them. Then, pick something to practice.
Start small and learn from everything you do.
Because the world changes, you and I will have to change tactics. But if we start with a reason, an objective, and choose something to practice, we can learn from that.
That’s how I get more luck and serendipity. Not by looking for luck or serendipity, but by being open to it, and practicing in public. You can, too.