How to engineer your own luck (and the exercise I do every single year to do it)

0:00Are you tired of living in pain, going to the doctor, and left feeling completely dismissed and alone? Ever wondered whether anyone else lives the way that you live? They do, and I do. I'm Lindsay Soprano, and this is Giving Pain Purpose. Every week, I sit down with people who've walked through chronic pain and trauma and come out on the other side and talk about how they do it. You don't have to do this alone. Find Giving Pain Purpose wherever you get your podcast.

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1:22What is up? I'm Grace Beverly and welcome back to Working Hard, the podcast-shaped guidebook on how to improve your own life and achieve what you actually dreamed of doing, because life's too short for boring podcasts and bad advice. What is up, guys, and welcome back to Working Hard. We did an Instagram post on the Working Hard account a few weeks ago about the concept of engineering your own luck, and off the back of that, so many people asked to expand that into a solo episode. So as I am your humble podcasting servant, I thought we would do exactly that because I have so much to say on this topic.

1:51And so if you haven't seen it already, the whole post was inspired by a brilliant sub stack piece by Alexa Rose, which I will link in the description. But the main idea of it is that so many of us are stuck in a kind of passive waiting mode without even realising it. We're waiting for the right time or we're telling ourselves that we're manifesting something when really, if we're being honest, we are just waiting for something to come that never will until we actually take the steps to get there. And of course there is a middle ground. I think there is absolutely a middle ground. I think that usually you can probably tell which side of this you rely on because I do think that in some circumstances we're waiting and expecting things to fall into our laps when actually there are a lot of proactive steps you can take to put yourself in the position where the specific luck that you want is going to find you.

2:35All of this has really got me thinking and I think it's worth unpacking the idea of getting out of your own way and noticing when we're the ones doing the waiting and figuring out how we can stand somewhere that that luck can actually find us. I really wanted to talk about this especially as we get towards the 8th of August which is the Lionsgate portal for manifestation which I will explain later. You know me, you know there is one day a year where I do something very specific around manifestation and the whole rest of the time I will tell you I'm not woo-woo but this works every time so maybe I need to change some of my opinions.

3:06I do before we get into this episode want to be really upfront about something because I think there is a very important differentiation here. I think it's important to say that when we are speaking about luck that I am very aware and think it is very important to discuss the fact that not everyone starts from the same place. I want to be really clear that access, privilege, circumstance, all of those shape opportunity in a way that a mindset shift alone cannot fix and I do not want to pretend otherwise. I think that that's really important as the baseline for what we come into this episode discussing but I do believe beyond that once you have that base case it is possible then to engineer your luck from that point to a certain extent which is what I want to go into today.

3:43Right, let's get going. But if you're not already following the podcast, wherever you are listening to it on, please do that. It takes two seconds and it takes a huge amount to put these episodes together each week. A follow is honestly the simplest and best way to support us. Plus, it makes sure that we can keep this podcast free for you to listen to every single week.

4:04We're all often told that the best things in life are supposed to find us. The right job, the right opportunity, the right relationship. How many times have you seen a TikTok while you're doom scrolling saying, if it's meant for you, it won't pass you by? And generally I agree with this statement, but as Alexa says in this Substack piece that I mentioned earlier, I do think we've misunderstood what that actually requires of us. I think the reality of this is that something can't find you if you are not in the right place to be found. And I believe that two things can exist at the same time. Trusting in universal timing and actively engineering how luck shows up in your life and the luck that you want to garner, the lifestyle you want to live.

4:44Because there are many different forms of luck. There's something someone else would consider lucky and consider amazing, which might be something that you might not consider super lucky. You have to be in the right position. You have to put yourself in the right place to receive that. This hunch that I'm talking about is backed by the data too. In fact, psychologist Richard Wiseman, who wrote the book the luck factor and spent over a decade studying lucky and unlucky people found that 80 % of those who described themselves lucky changed their lives for the better within a month just by changing their behavior in a few very small ways.

5:13He found that lucky people maximize their opportunities. They are out in the world. They're open to new experiences. And because of that, they are constantly in the path of interesting possibilities. They increase the surface area for luck to be able to hit. Interestingly, they also listen to their gut more. In fact, almost 90 % of the people he studied who described themselves as lucky said that they trusted their intuition in personal relationships and nearly 80 % said it also played a vital role in their career decisions as well. Then there's optimism. He found that lucky people genuinely expect good things to happen which means they try more things, they push through setbacks and they persist when unlucky people are more likely to give up.

5:51And then finally when things do go wrong lucky people handle it differently. They do not dwell on bad luck. They look for the lesson, they stay constructive, they move forward faster. And what I love about all of this is that none of it is innate. He was actually able to make self-described unlucky people luckier by having them practice these four things, which makes all of this incredibly actionable and something that you can actually learn from, even if maybe you are more naturally a glass half empty person. Because there will be elements of luck and privilege and all of this that will have led to us believing our lives are a certain way as well.

6:24If you can change certain aspects to be able to increase your surface area for luck, why wouldn't you want to do that? And I think all of this is a nuanced chat to have and it comes with a lot of conditions. And so today I really wanted to have a conversation about how we can think about luck and a few things we can actually all do to make ourselves luckier, to bring together the scientific side of things and the more woo-woo manifestation side as well that I know so many people rely on. Okay, so the first framework I want to walk you through comes from Alexa Rose's Substack piece. This is the piece I mentioned at the start of this video and she calls it the luck surface area scorecard.

6:56A quick bit of context though because I went down a bit of a rabbit hole on this. The actual term luck surface area was coined by a guy called Jason Roberts in 2010. His original idea was basically that the amount of luck you have equals what you do multiplied by what you tell people about. Alexa has absorbed that idea and made it actually really actionable which I love. So here's what I want you to do. Grab a notebook or your notes app and draw four boxes. In each box, write one of these words. Exposure, proximity, openness, and initiative. Then you score yourself out of five in each one. And I want actual evidence as to why you've given yourself that score, not just like finger in the wind.

7:34Like zero is doing absolutely nothing. Five, you believe you are going to the absolute max in that area. Obviously, the ideal would be getting all fives in each category. But honestly, the real point of doing this isn't the score. It's seeing the areas where you could be missing out on generating luck for yourself if you were to act a little bit differently and if maybe you were to change some of your innate predispositions towards acting a certain way. So I'm going to run through this quickly with you so that you get the marking of it right and so that we can understand how to improve as well.

8:02So exposure is essentially how visible you are right now. I'm going to start with some of the social media examples but really important to say that this doesn't link back to this fully. Exposure wise are you posting online? Are you engaging with new people on LinkedIn while you're wanting to grow your career? Are you writing on Substack? Are you going to events? Are you messaging people. And outside of social media, are you contacting the people in your office that have the job that you aspire to? Are you finding out more about them? Are you making it really clear to them that that is where you want to get to?

8:29This is the telling people half of Jason Roberts formula. It's not about becoming an influencer. And I think it's really important to say that so much of this luck and putting yourself out there seems to be associated almost directly with social media when talked about online. Whereas in reality, there are so many ways to do all of these things that don't need to be about putting yourself out there online. just putting yourself out there in your industry or in the circles you want to be in is incredibly important to get to where you want to get to. Proximity then is about who and what you're close to.

8:59So who you spend time with, what rooms you're in, what you're kind of around all of the time. And the reason this is important is there's a really interesting bit of research here from a Stanford sociologist called Mark Granovetter. Basically, he found that the vast majority of life-changing opportunities and job offers don't come from your best friends. Instead, they come from acquaintances, like the person you met at a party two years ago. So proximity isn't just about your inner circle or becoming everyone's best friend. It's really about widening that outer ring. And again, it's all about that surface area.

9:30You can visualize how this plays into the surface area because you never know who's going to be able to come back around and help you or be in a really interesting career in a few years or whatever it might be. An important thing to say here is that this doesn't mean you have to be the world's best networker. Even now I find networking hard and I don't necessarily want to do it at the end of a busy day. But networking doesn't have to be like going to an awkward drinks event where you know nobody and you're not actually going to end up speaking to anyone. It can be sending an Instagram DM, complimenting someone you meet at a friend's birthday or sending a LinkedIn message or congratulations when someone gets a promotion.

10:05Most of the time, some of these areas that you dislike, some of them you're just going to have to do anyway. Some of them you can do in a way that is more tailored to what suits you, your personality, your skill set, etc. Okay, the next category is openness, which relates to how fast you move when something actually shows up, which I think is really interesting. So when it comes to someone sliding into your DMs with an idea, are you the person jumping on it or are you waiting around to see if other people do it first? Honestly, I'd say that speed matters so much more than people give it credit for and sometimes we miss an opportunity because we didn't even reply to the first message about something completely different or you're waiting for other people always to validate an idea that might be good might not be good the trusting your intuition part comes into this as well that's not to say that every dm you get is going to be something you need to reply to in fact i'd say lots of dms are not worth replies particularly unsolicited certain ones but actually i would say so many of the best opportunities i have ever got have been just through initial discussions exploring it further and then making a decision replying to That first DM isn't about making a decision.

11:04It's about finding out more information. And I think so many of us are so worried to put ourselves out there that we don't even get past that hurdle. Then finally, the last box is initiative. And this is all about whether you wait for permission, get scared, tell yourself you can't, or you just go and actually do the thing. And I think initiative is crucial. It is so important to stop waiting for the green light to start something. Particularly nowadays, because we're seeing so many different people's careers, we're seeing so much out there about what other people are doing and how they're doing it and all of this, it's really easy to put ourselves into other boxes.

11:36Like it's really easy to say, okay, well this person does what I want to do and therefore I can do this and I can't do this. And actually you're designing your career, you're not designing their career. Realistically you need to build your intuition to be at a point where you can make your own decisions and you can just jump to take opportunities and find out what happens later. Some of the best opportunities in my life have just been about saying yes to something and then just seeing how it works. You can always opt out later if it's not the right thing. Then once you've scored yourself on this, do not be disheartened if you didn't score five in everything.

12:04As I said, I wouldn't score myself five in everything. In fact, I think that you're probably not being that accurate if you're scoring yourself genuinely a five in everything. But I want you to pick your lowest scoring box. And if you want to work on your luck, just think a bit more deeply about what you're doing in that category. So maybe that's saying yes to one thing that you would normally turn down or following up on a pitch or an idea from three months ago or doing a monthly LinkedIn post or reaching out to someone new. Jot those potential actions down because doing something small is so much better than doing nothing at all.

12:35And actually what you've just worked out is where you are under indexing. Because there will be certain areas where you are over indexing and that is incredibly impressive and that is really exciting. But maybe your surface area for luck is decreased because of one specific thing. So what are the things you can do to change that thing? Are you tired of living in pain, going to the doctor and left feeling completely dismissed and alone? Ever wondered whether anyone else lives the way that you live? They do, and I do. I'm Lindsay Soprano, and this is Giving Pain Purpose. Every week, I sit down with people who've walked through chronic pain and trauma and come out on the other side and talk about how they do it.

13:13You don't have to do this alone. Find Giving Pain Purpose wherever you get your podcasts.

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13:58Okay, so we've covered the science of luck. We've covered some actionable points. Now it's time to get into the slightly more woo-woo side of things. So next week is August the 8th, which if you follow me, you probably will have heard me talk about before because it is genuinely one of my favorite annual rituals. Now, August the 8th is the date of something called the Lionsgate Portal in astrology. I'm not going to pretend to be an astrology expert. I do not know shit, but I've done some research for you because this works every single year for me. So this is when the star Sirius aligns with Earth and Orion's belt.

14:28And for those who are into manifesting, it's basically considered one of the most powerful days of the year for harnessing your intentions. To be upfront, I don't identify as someone who fully buys into the whole of astrology, but I do this exercise every year and it has given me more clarity on what I want than almost anything else I've tried. And it's such a key part of how I decide what I even want for my life, like how I visualize opportunities and luck. So if you are a total skeptic, I'm asking you to hear me out because even before I knew about this, I used to do a very similar exercise for my career, which is essentially to write my professional bio a year in the future, but it's in the present tense.

15:05And I've done that for like probably since I was 18 in terms of what I wanted to get to the next year. It's going to be a useful exercise anyway. You can pretend it's nothing to do with with astrology if that makes your brain feel better. But here is what you do. On August the 8th, so next week, you are going to open your notes app or a blank piece of paper. I prefer to do it on paper. I find it very therapeutic. I find it cathartic. I find it helpful. I think it's a lovely ritual to do with a little coffee in the morning. And basically, you're going to write a diary entry for August 8th next year in the present tense.

15:33So this year, if you are watching this around when it went live, it's August the 8th, 2026, right? Which means you are going to be writing a diary entry for August the 8th, 2027. But that diary entry is going to be in the present tense. So you are writing about all of these things as if they are happening or have already happened when you're talking about your past year. You are writing from 2027. It needs to be a realistic diary entry. So where are you waking up? Who are you with? What does your morning look like? Where do you go to work? What does the day feel like? Who do you see in the evening?

16:05You need to get into the details and usually what I like to do as well is set aside a number of different areas that I want to touch on just to make sure I touch on them. So I always have things like relationship, friendships, finances, career, home, family, like all of these different things just so I can make sure I touch on them because probably if I was writing a diary entry I'd be like hey long day bye and actually it needs to be more thorough than that. And you need to get into the full details, you want to make it a full normal day in the life I guess of what you hope you would actually be writing at that time.

16:34And the reason I love this so much is that it kind of connects everything that we've talked about in this episode. Wiseman found that lucky people expect good things to happen. That optimism is one of the four core traits that separates them from unlucky people. Writing a future diary entry trains your brain to expect a specific version of your future rather than vaguely hoping for it. And doing this in the present tense forces you to close the gap between where you are now and where you actually want to be. It makes you ask like, what would I actually need to do in the next 12 months for this day to be real?

17:05What would I need to have started? What would I need to have tried to shown up for, be invisible enough for? I remember doing this the first time and I realised that half the things that I wanted for the next year were not even relevant goals anymore because there were so many different things that there was no way it was going to happen within a year and that again really helped me to prioritise what I actually wanted to do. I remember speaking to psychologist John Amache about why this kind of exercise works And the short version is that when you write something in vivid specific detail, your brain starts treating it as part of your existing reality rather than a distant fantasy.

17:39And once it's in your reality, you start moving towards it differently. So this year we are balancing the science with the woo-woo. Put the frameworks into action this week. And then on August the 8th, sit down, make yourself a cup of something nice and write the diary entry. What does the version of you who has been consistently visible, who has been taking action, who has been trusting the process, What does her August 8th, 2027 look like? We don't usually do podcast homework, but that's actually your homework. I mean, it's actually non-negotiable. It is compulsory. And I genuinely can't wait to hear what you write.

18:10I am so excited right now to go home and find my last year's one because I am sitting here very nearly full term with a baby. I know I spoke about that last year. I know I spoke about even being in the position possible to take a maternity leave within my work, like all of these different things and I just can't wait to go back and read and see where we actually got to. That is pretty much it for today. As I said at the start, I don't want to pretend that mindset alone fixes everything because it absolutely does not. Privilege and access shape luck in a really significant way and I would never want to gloss over that at all.

18:43It is so important but at the same time we need to be able to talk about the fact that whatever your circumstances are, I want you to feel empowered to set yourself up for the best possible success. So if you take one thing from this episode, let it be this. There is a genuine science behind being lucky. You just need to be visible, take small actions each day, stay consistent, and then trust that good things will come in good time. Because yes, that is true, but you need to increase that surface area for luck. And as always, I will be popping some of my favourite reads from this episode in the Working Hard newsletter this week, and we will be going into everything in depth so that you can actually see the research behind it and the really interesting conversations that have been had online about this recently on the Working Hard pod Instagram.

19:22I hope you have an amazing week, And as always, I'll see you next Monday.

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