I don’t believe in “luck”. If you care to look closely, you will find that people who are “lucky” are those who are best prepared when opportunities arise. To increase your “luck factor”, there are two things you should do:
- Prepare yourself for opportunities so that you can take advantage of them when they come.
- Put yourself in a position that makes it easier for opportunities to come.
While both are important, the first is more important because it is what makes the difference. What’s the use of getting a lot of opportunities if you can’t take advantage of them?
At this point, most of the world knows that U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps broke the all-time record for most medals won by an Olympian. And, there is a very applicable lesson about preparation we can all learn from Phelps. You may recall that in Beijing in 2008, Phelps won one of his medals while swimming with his goggles full of water. He couldn’t see a thing and still won gold. After that race, Phelps said that while he had never competed before with water in his goggles, he had practiced that way. Bob Bowman, Phelps’ coach, made sure he had the water in the goggles experience to prepare for that scenario in Olympic competition.
When it happened in real time, Phelps’ preparation enabled him to stay calm and start counting his strokes. He knew how many strokes he needed to touch the wall and didn’t stop swimming full out until he did.
So, how can you prepare yourself for opportunities? Here are three ways to prepare yourself for future opportunities:
1. Be curious
Curiosity makes you eager to know more about the world out there. If you are curious, you won’t be satisfied with what you already know. You will want to know more. As a result, you will see more potential opportunities. It’s like being in a building with windows. The more windows the building has, the more you can see what’s out there.
2. Educate yourself
When you find something interesting, start educating yourself about it. Don’t worry if you can’t do anything about it right now. Remember, you are preparing for the future. Educate yourself in whatever it is that you find interesting. Read blogs, subscribe to magazines, watch videos, read books. Build a prepared mind that “luck” favors.
3. Build an “opportunity fund”
Warren Buffet makes sure that Berkshire Hathaway has at
least $10 billion in cash in reserves. Why? So that when the opportunity comes
for an attractive deal, Berkshire can immediately act on it. If they didn’t
have the money, the opportunity could be gone forever. Similarly, you should
prepare an “opportunity fund.” Prepare a certain amount of money that you can use
to take advantage of the opportunities that come your way. Don’t let
opportunities slip by just because you don’t have the cash to act on it.
So that’s how you prepare yourself for future opportunities.
Don’t wait until it’s too late. Prepare yourself early and years from now
people will be amazed at how “lucky” you are.
