Are We Born Lucky?
Some folks seem like they're born lucky, while others feel cursed.
I’ve always thought we make our own luck through the choices we make.
It turns out there’s science to back that up. According to Richard Wiseman’s book “The Luck Factor”, making your own luck consists of four factors:
- Maximize Your Chances for Opportunities
- Listen to Your Gut
- Play the Glad Game: Expect Good Things to Happen
- Turn Bad Luck Into Good Luck
Let's leap into it like a leprechaun!
#1 Maximize Your Chances for Opportunities
Lucky people are good at paying attention, noticing patterns, getting out of their own heads, asking questions, trying new things, and being open to new experiences.
I’m a big fan of Disney’s 1960s film Pollyanna.
If you haven’t seen the movie, here’s the gist. Pollyanna loses both her parents, leaving her orphaned and sent to live with her cantankerous and rich aunt Polly. Over time, Pollyanna wins over her aunt and the cynical townspeople over with her kindness and optimism.
🍀 Make Your Own Luck Marketing Examples
Like Pollyanna, brands that put themselves out there . They engage with their community and stay open to new strategies and ways of thinking to make them successful.
Marketing your business or brand consistently can help you stay top of mind so that when customers need what you offer, they think of you.
Increase your brand awareness by:
- Attending industry events, meeting new people, and making connections,
- Engaging on social media, commenting on potential customers' posts, joining conversations, and asking open-ended questions.
- Creating an email newsletter to stay in touch with your audience.
Pro Tip: Luck isn’t random. It happens when you put yourself in the right places to be discovered. Where are the people you're trying to target? Go there. Attend events. Meet new people. Pick the social channels they're on. Etc.
#2 Listen to Your Gut
Unconsciously, our experiences inform our decisions, and “our intuition acts as an alarm bell,” says Wiseman. Pollyanna believes all people are good, even when they’re ornery on the surface.
In marketing, trust your gut, but verify it with data.
🍀 Make Your Own Luck Marketing Examples
- Get to know your customers and your industry. Create polls or surveys, attend industry events, and talk to your customers.
- Listen to customer feedback, industry trends, and your analytics to guide your decisions and even product development.
- A/B test email marketing, experiment with copy and images.
- Lean into insights from your social media analytics. If behind-the-scenes content works, try a few more spins on that.
#3 Play the “Glad Game”
Good luck comes from expecting good things to happen.
Pollyanna is the master of this. In the movie, she plays the “Glad Game,” where she finds something to be happy about, even in the most dire and depressing situations. Watch the clip below to see how it's played.
Pro Tip: Don’t confuse this with toxic positivity. It’s more about how optimism can help you overcome challenges and turn setbacks into opportunities.
🍀 Make Your Own Luck Marketing Examples
Address customer pain points and show them solutions to their problems.
Are you a log contractor who does log rot repairs? Show a before-and-after photo of the restoration. Or take a video showing the process behind the repair.
Maintain a positive attitude and forward-thinking approach in your branding, messaging, and customer interactions. By consistently showing up in this way you’ll build trust with your customers.
Big Waves, a nonprofit in Broomfield, Colorado, focuses on creating “ripples of positivity” in their community, and it's reflected in their social media communications.
#4 Turn Bad Luck into Good
Wiseman says, “Lucky people can turn bad luck into good fortune.”
Matthew McConaughey says it best in his book Greenlights: “I have a lot of proof that the universe is conspiring to make me happy. I step in $#@& all the time and recognize it when I do. I’ve just learned to scrape it off my boots and carry on. Persist, pivot, or concede.”
It’s what we do next that matters.
When Pollyanna fell from the tree and was paralyzed, she ultimately found a way to push her ahead and move on.
🍀 Make Your Own Luck Marketing Examples
Not every marketing campaign or social media post will resonate with your audience. Instead of seeing these as roadblocks, we need to ask ourselves what we learned from them and adjust.
Marketing Isn’t About Luck
Sure, luck plays a role in our marketing success, but we make our own marketing luck,
We do this by showing up every day, testing, learning, and adapting.
You can create opportunities for yourself and your business by trusting your gut, paying attention, and listening to your audience.
I help build brands. I love partnering with folks across the building materials, nonprofit, and consumer goods industries—big or small. I aim to help you get the good word out about your products, services, and mission so you can grow.
