You're So Lucky: The Truth About Opportunity & Resilience
Some people seem to have great things fall into their lap. What if the people we call lucky aren’t magically blessed… just more open, observant, and willing to act when opportunity appears?
People say it to those they admire or envy all the time: “Wow. You’re so lucky.”
If I’m honest, that used to bother me… a lot.
I’ve realized over the last several years that most people mean no harm by it. For some, it’s just shorthand for that’s amazing or I wish I could do that.
There’s nothing malicious behind it whatsoever.
For a few, I think it’s a bit of a passive aggressive way of pointing out you’re no better than me… good things just fall in your lap.
But when you’ve spent years building a life that lets you travel and work from wherever you are… when you’ve worked factory shifts and waitressed and fought for $15-an-hour writing contracts and raised babies while figuring it out…
“Lucky” felt a little dismissive to me. Like this life just sort of… happened.
Like I woke up in a cute Airbnb in Guatemala one day and the universe said, Here you go, babe.
Cute, but that’s not how any of this went.
It took years of hard work, sacrifice, and risk. A lot of $0 income freelance months, unstable contract work, and being told to grow up and “get a real job.”
A lot of saying yes when I was scared and tired. And a lot of saying no when it would’ve been easier to stay comfortable.
So yes… “lucky” used to sting a bit. But I’ve softened around it, because I’ve realized that sentiment coming from others usually has very little to do with me.
Sometimes people are just expressing admiration the only way they know how.
And sometimes, I think they genuinely see luck as this magical force. It’s kismet, or chance. A thing some people are handed and others aren’t, determined by some cosmic force or deity.
Yesterday morning, I was listening to Jay Shetty on Calm. (As I do most mornings… even if the rest of the day goes to hell, at least I’ve had a bit of motivation and maybe even learned something over coffee.)
Anyway, yesterday Jay was talking about luck.
Specifically, he was discussing research by Richard Wiseman, a British psychologist who spent ten years studying people who considered themselves lucky and people who didn’t. He wrote about it in his book The Luck Factor, and one experiment in particular really stuck with me.
Wiseman handed participants a newspaper and asked them to count the photographs inside. Seems simple enough.
But hidden in the middle pages was a big bold message that said: Stop counting. Tell the experimenter you’ve seen this and win £250.
The people who considered themselves lucky tended to spot it almost immediately.
The people who considered themselves unlucky often missed it entirely.
Not because they were less intelligent. Not because they weren’t capable.
They were just so focused on the task they’d been given that they developed tunnel vision. They were counting photos and only counting photos.
ICYMI:
The “lucky” people, on the other hand, were more relaxed. More observant. More open to what else might be there.
And honestly… I laughed when I heard that.
Because isn’t that just life?
How many of us are so busy doing what we think we’re supposed to do — checking boxes, climbing ladders, surviving the week, chasing the “safe” version of success — that we miss the giant flashing signs sitting right in front of us?
Maybe it’s:
A conversation that could lead somewhere.
A new skill we could monetize.
A place we could go.
An invitation.
A strange little idea that keeps tugging at us.
An opportunity that doesn’t look exactly like what we thought it would.
I think about this a lot when people tell me I’m lucky. Because yes… I’ve had a lot of opportunities come my way.
But I’ve also spent years putting myself in rooms where opportunities could find me.
I said yes to a conference job that sent me to Australia and the UK when I had two young children at home and every reason in the world to say no.
I introduced myself to strangers. Took contracts that taught me skills I didn’t know I’d need later. Boarded planes without having every detail figured out.
I followed curiosity. I paid attention.
And yes, I’ve had bad luck too.
I’ve burned out. I’ve trusted the wrong people and lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’ve launched things that flopped. I’ve made expensive mistakes. I’ve had seasons where everything felt heavy and uncertain and honestly… kind of impossible.
That’s why resilience matters, too. Luck may open more doors, but resilience is how you bounce back from choosing the wrong ones.
Recommended:
That’s another thing Wiseman found: people who consider themselves lucky tend to be better at reframing setbacks. They’re more likely to turn bad circumstances into something useful.
It’s not because they’re pretending it’s all fine, or because they think everything happens for a reason.
But because eventually they ask: Okay… now what?
What can I learn from this?
Where is the opportunity in the mess?
How do I use this?
And I think that’s where luck starts to look a lot less like magic and a lot more like mindset.
More like… willingness to look up from the page.
So listen, maybe you can entertain that thought today, that people who seem lucky aren’t just blessed. Maybe they’re paying attention and putting themselves out in the world.
Maybe they’re willing to believe something good might happen if they move toward it.
And maybe… you can do that, too.
Something to think about today: What opportunities have been sitting in front of you over the last 24 hours that you didn’t quite register?
What have you brushed past because you were so focused on the task in front of you?
Are you meeting new people? Trying new things? Putting yourself in situations where chance encounters and ideas can happen?
Or have you been keeping your head down, counting photos?
Take five minutes and look for possibility. Journal on it, if that’s your thing. Write down:
One opportunity you’ve been ignoring.
One thing you could follow up on.
One place you could say yes instead of defaulting to no.
Who knows… maybe some day soon, people will call you lucky, too.
✌🏻 Miranda