Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is that you can make your own luck.
Speaker 1: While fortune seems to be this thing that bolts down
Speaker 1: like lightning from the blue, the truth is that you
Speaker 1: have more say in it than you might imagine. So
Speaker 1: this episode is first running on St. Patrick's Day, which
Speaker 1: has a long religious and cultural history, but in the
Speaker 1: U s at least, has become one of those holidays
Speaker 1: like Halloween and Valentine's Day that have been fully adopted
Speaker 1: by secular folks. People dress in green, decorate with shamrocks,
Speaker 1: and in the broader culture, the day has come to
Speaker 1: be associated with luck, you know, lucky leprechauns and such.
Speaker 1: We think of luck sometimes like a pot of gold
Speaker 1: at the end of the rainbow. It is magically out
Speaker 1: there and you stumble across it. Maybe some stuff does
Speaker 1: seem random. For instance, I met my husband in an
Speaker 1: Irish bar I happened to visit in New York City
Speaker 1: a great many years ago. I started talking with him
Speaker 1: as we were both ordering drinks. We got engaged a
Speaker 1: year later. What are the odds? But in fact, I
Speaker 1: had decided about two months before that chance encounter that
Speaker 1: I was really interested in meeting someone special. So I
Speaker 1: was asking friends to set me up, and I was
Speaker 1: saying yes to events and dates I might not have
Speaker 1: to maximize my chances. I was having lots of random conversations.
Speaker 1: When this gentleman at the bar began talking with me,
Speaker 1: I stayed with the conversation, and when he suggested getting together,
Speaker 1: I was up for it. Luck can be helped along.
Speaker 1: It turns out that a lot of luck is like that.
Speaker 1: You can hope that influential people notice your work, but
Speaker 1: they are a lot more likely to notice it if
Speaker 1: you are putting a lot of work out into the universe.
Speaker 1: You can hope to get a great new opportunity at work,
Speaker 1: but it's more likely to happen if you are actively
Speaker 1: cultivating relationships and telling people what you're interested in. You
Speaker 1: can want to meet great new friends, but they tend
Speaker 1: not to show up on your doorstep. Instead, you can
Speaker 1: do your research and find a really active volunteer group
Speaker 1: and start volunteering regularly with them, and your fellow volunteers
Speaker 1: well soon become your close friends. You feel lucky to
Speaker 1: have found them, and you are, but you can also
Speaker 1: make your own luck. You can make your own luck
Speaker 1: through your mindset too. Can you reframe what might seem
Speaker 1: negative and look at it through a positive lens. I
Speaker 1: am not talking about being pollyanna ish. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: recognizing that things could almost always be worse, and if
Speaker 1: they aren't, that can make you feel pretty lucky when
Speaker 1: you recognize it. You get audited, but you have a
Speaker 1: good accountant and you sort things out. You get hit
Speaker 1: by an uninsured driver in your car is in the
Speaker 1: shop for a month, but no one is hurt, and
Speaker 1: you have the money to pay for your deductible and
Speaker 1: a rental car. In some situations there isn't much luck
Speaker 1: to be found. I mean, deaths and serious accidents or
Speaker 1: illnesses come to mind, and broader geopolitical things as well.
Speaker 1: But in the minor annoyances of life, a mindset of
Speaker 1: looking for luck can make you feel a lot luckier
Speaker 1: in the grand scheme of things. So think about ways
Speaker 1: that you can make your own luck. How can you
Speaker 1: make yourself more visible in the universe. How can you
Speaker 1: make yourself open to more connections and more possibility. How
Speaker 1: can you put good systems and habits in place so
Speaker 1: that when bad things happen, they don't always turn into disasters.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear about ways you have made your
Speaker 1: own luck. You can reach me at Laura at Laura
Speaker 1: Vanderkam dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening, and here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod.
Speaker 1: That's b E the number four, then Breakfast p o D.
Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: Podcast at i heeart Media dot That Before Breakfast is
Speaker 1: spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much, I
Speaker 1: look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.