How to Create Your Own Lucky Break

The secret to reverse-engineering your next big breakthrough

I have been fortunate to have a few lucky breaks in my life — those unexpected moments where everything aligned to propel me forward.

Most of these have been career opportunities. Several times I’ve landed dreams jobs I was grossly unqualified for. Lucky breaks have take me overseas, land in the classroom as a high school teacher (yes, unqualified), and once as a CEO.

At the time, I didn’t see these lucky breaks coming. They somehow appeared out of nowhere. It was as if the universe somehow divined these events into being.

I never really gave much thought about how these manifested, although I remember a friend telling me something when I landed my first lucky break:

“We make our own luck, and you have made yourself very lucky indeed.”

That line has stuck with me for over two decades. At twenty-one, it landed in my psyche as a powerful truth I didn’t yet understand.

Turning lemons into lemonade

This past twelve months I have not felt so lucky. If you haven’t followed my writing here, this past twelve months has been a time of personal self-discovery.

I found myself at a time in life where things did not go as planned. I have been writing myself through a reinvention and pulling myself out of a challenging chapter.

There were times I felt hopeless and didn’t know where I was going. But I’ve rebuilt my confidence and gradually found more optimism about the future.

A couple of months ago, I found myself saying, “I just need a lucky break.” After months of feeling stuck, I just needed a doorway to open. Something to catapult me into my next chapter.

I kept hearing my friend’s whisper, “We make our own luck.” It dawned on me, what if I could reverse-engineer this and consciously manifest my own next breakthrough?

So I went about this process and very quickly had a couple of opportunities appear out of nowhere. This is real.

What is a lucky break?

lucky break. noun. a fortunate and unexpected turn of events — Collins Dictionary

A lucky break isn’t the outcome or destination. For me, it isn’t winning the lottery or having life handed on a silver platter. It may be for some — I certainly do want to hold open the idea that you can create this kind of luck if you want it.

For me, a lucky break is a golden and unexpected open door to a new opportunity. Kind of like Charlie Bucket winning the golden ticket in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory — he still had to prove himself once he got through the door.

I still want to earn my success. I want to prove to myself that I have what it takes, but a friendly open door is welcome.

How to create a breakthrough

I went about reverse-engineering my next lucky break by reading about other people’s breakthrough experiences and by unpacking my own past experiences.

Here’s what I discovered:

• You need to have a clear idea about what it is you’d like to experience. In the past it has worked for me to focus on the qualities, but not get so specific to exclude alternative pathways to get there.
• Believe you can have it, even or especially if there is no evidence you can.
• Do things to prove you want it. For example, ahead of my first CEO role, I volunteered on boards of several organisations and mentored young people. I don’t think any of those experiences were notable in interviewing for the role when the opportunity came around, but it was a way of aligning myself with what I wanted.
• Be socially connected. Every opportunity for me has come through someone else. I needed to be out there meeting people and engaging in life.
• Be grateful for all opportunities that come. As we’ll see, it doesn’t mean you need to say yes to every opportunity. But gratitude keeps the energy flowing.

Now that you’ve set the groundwork…

Now that you’ve set the opportunity up, it’s time to manifest. A key moment in the process — and perhaps the most important one — is recognising when an opportunity arrives.

Here’s a few examples from my own life:

• Twice I had people randomly give me a newspaper telling me there was a job inside for me. One time it was my mother, and the other time a stranger. Neither time had they read the paper.
• After I resigned from a job, my boss came up to me with a job notice telling me I should apply.
• I was doing a training course in Melbourne. One of the participants ran a company in the Philippines and by the end of the training had offered me consulting work there.
• I was volunteering for a nonprofit in the United States and by the end of my stint had been offered a full-time role. In fact, they created a role for me.

In each case there was a seeming element of randomness or unpredictability. And in each case, I still had to take the next step to apply.

When the doorway opens, you need to walk through it with confidence that you deserve it.

One time I was invited to interview for the job of a teacher in a specialist high school. It’s important to know that I was not a qualified high school teacher, and I knew that I was up against an alumnus, thus making it a very competitive and unexpected opportunity.

The night before the interview I had a vivid dream where I was walking down a path towards an office. When I showed up for the interview and saw the same path, I knew I had the job.

I walked into the principal’s office and said, “Tony, I don’t mean to sound cocky, but I’m confident that I’m the right person for this. Let’s skip the why and talk about the how.”

If you knew me in real life, you’d know how uncharacteristic this was. I’m not usually that confident, but I managed to step into it for that moment. And, of course, despite not being qualified, I was offered the job.

How this is working so far

I mentioned I have been putting this into action in my own life since having the realisation I wanted to create my own lucky break. Here’s what’s happened so far:

• A school contacted me asking if I’d come and run a program for a group of students. They heard about me through someone I worked with fifteen years ago.
• I was offered a full-time role in an organisation I did some volunteer work for. I said no based on it not fitting what I was looking for. Two weeks later they came back to offer me some consulting work, which I accepted.
• A friend invited me to apply for a series of roles in an organisation. I didn’t apply for the first three as they didn’t fit what I was looking for. When the fourth role came around, I reluctantly applied — even though I wasn’t interested. I didn’t get an interview via the official channel, but “randomly” happened to meet the CEO of the organisation at a dinner the next day.

See, it works!

The only caveat to all of this is to be careful what you pray for. Not every opportunity is the right opportunity. And in hindsight, I would make different decisions in accepting or negotiating the terms of some of those experiences.

But nonetheless, this stuff works. I have proven it time and again and am on a mission to keep on proving it.

What have you discovered?

The best secrets in life are those we discover from our own life experiences. What have you discovered about your own lucky breaks?

I’m wishing you all the best in reverse-engineering your own next big breakthrough, and looking forward to reading what you write about it.

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