← Success Story with Scott D. Clary
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In this Lessons episode, we're exposing why luck finds some people and not others. Derek Sivers sold his company for 22 million, and everyone said he got lucky. What they missed was that he'd been building for 11 years while his competitors quit at year two. Luck isn't random. It's probability that increases if you position right and don't leave. I'll speak about two conditions that make you actually findable when opportunity shows up and why most people quit. And 18 months before luck would have arrived. This is how you make yourself luckier. Derek Sivers sold CD Baby for $22 million in 2008. And everyone called it luck. Right place, right time. The Internet boom caught the wave, right? But what they didn't see is that he'd been building music distribution systems since 1997. So, 11 years of showing up before the big exit. And during those 11 years, dozens of other music distribution companies started, and most quit within two years. Some made it five years before selling for nothing or shutting down. But Derek was still there in year 11 when the buyer showed up. So was selling for 22 million lucky? Absolutely. The buyer could have picked any competitor. Timing could have been different. A dozen variables outside of Derek's control had to align. But. But here's what people miss. Derek created the conditions for luck to find him, and then he stuck around long enough for it to show up. And that's not the same as just working hard. And it's not the same as just getting lucky. It is something else entirely. See, a lot of us don't understand what luck actually is. Most people think about luck in binary terms. Either you got lucky and you didn't deserve it, it was just random chance, or you earned it. So hard work means no luck involved. Right? This is wrong. This is a lie. And believing it's how luck works destroys your ability to actually benefit from luck. So here's what actually happens. Luck is always involved in any success story. But some people create conditions where luck can find them and others don't. So when someone wins the lottery, that is pure luck. They bought a ticket. Anyone could have won. The work required was minimal. The outcome was random. But when someone builds a company for 10 years and gets acquired, that's also luck. But it's a different kind of luck, because they didn't just show up. They positioned themselves in a place where good luck could reach them, and then they stayed there long enough for it to arrive. The difference isn't deserved versus undeserved. The difference is probability. See, pure luck has the same odds for everyone who participates. You buy a lottery ticket, you have a 1 in 300 million chance of winning. So but earned luck has better odds. So you build something valuable for 10 years in a growing market, you have a 1 in 50 chance that somebody wants to buy it. So it's still luck, but it's much better odds. Now, most people don't understand this distinction. So they either work hard and get bitter when luck doesn't show up, or they wait for luck and get bitter when hard work doesn't make it appear. Or they get lucky once and they believe it was all skill. Or they wait, watch others get lucky and believe it was all chance. All four of these ideas miss what's actually happening. But let me explain how this works with the story from my own life. I have been writing online for a very long time. I would say total writing anything online over five years. I guess the current newsletter that I put out has been about three years, but I've been writing for a very long time because there's been multiple previous iterations of writing and I've killed some of these projects. But say, the first two years I've ever written anything, nothing happened. I wrote every week, sometimes multiple times per week. And the engagement sucked. It was flat. There was no opportunities, no growth, just showing up to an empty room, right? And year three, which was really around the time when I started this newsletter, someone with 50,000 followers shared one of my pieces. Traffic spiked. I got 500 new subs in a week. So was that luck? Completely. They could have shared anyone. They could have never seen my work. There was a dozen different variables that had to align for them to share my work. But what people don't see is I published well over a hundred pieces before that person ever saw my work. And if I'd quit at newsletter 50 or newsletter 100, I wouldn't have been there. When they went looking for something to share. And that is the definition of earned luck. I didn't make them share my work, but I made sure there was work to share when they were looking. Now, year four into my writing career, I got invited to speak at a very large conference. Decent size, paid well, changed the entire trajectory of my career. How did I get invited? Well, the person who shared my newsletter in year three had recommended me to the person who was putting on the conference because they liked my work. See, that is luck stacked on luck. But both pieces of luck required the same thing. I was still there, still publishing, still building, when opportunity showed up. See, most people quit before luck Has a chance to find them. They work hard for six months, see no results, decide it's not working. They were building the conditions, but they left before the luck could show up. So now you understand there are different kinds of luck. There's pure luck and earned luck. But this is really what makes earned luck different from pure luck. The probability of earned luck increases over time. It compounds if you're positioned right. So with pure luck. Lottery ticket. Right, you buy a lottery ticket once, your odds are 1 in 300 million. If you buy a lottery ticket every week for 10 years, your odds are still 1 in 300 million. Each ticket is independent. But if you build something valuable, your odds start low. You start a company, you write a newsletter, you start a podcast, put content on social media. The odds start low, but they increase with time if you're in the right place. So year one of you building your company, you're unknown. No network, no track record. Odds of a big break are pretty close to zero. Year five, you have a body of work, a network that knows you, proof you can deliver, so your odds are meaningfully better. You year 10, you have become unavoidable in your niche. Odds are legitimately good that something happens. Now, this only works. This formula only works if two conditions are met. You're positioned in a place where opportunity exists and you don't leave before luck shows up. And most people fail at both. They position themselves in a place with no opportunity, or they position themselves right, but they quit too early. Now, why do people make this mistake? Well, a few reasons, but the first mistake is, is they confuse effort with positioning so you can work incredibly hard in a place where luck will never find you, the odds never improve, and you're just grinding with no probability of a breakthrough. So working 80 hours a week in a dead end job isn't creating conditions for earned luck. You're working hard, but you're not positioning yourself anywhere that luck can actually reach you. Now, writing a novel for five years but never showing it to anyone also isn't positioning. You're creating something, but you're hiding it from the mechanisms that could create opportunity. See, effort matters, but only if it's happening in a place where luck can find you. Now, the second mistake people make is leaving right before probability catches up. So most people quit around month 18, right before their work is starting to compound, Right when they're starting to be known. Right before the probability curve starts working in their favor. See, they worked hard, they positioned themselves right, then they left before luck could show up. And this Is one of the most painful things to watch because they did everything, everything right. Except stay long enough. Now let's go back to Derek and CD Baby. Derek Sivers didn't just work hard for 11 years. He positioned himself in the exact place where opportunity would eventually show up. He built something that musicians needed in a market that was growing with a model that created leverage. And then he stayed there while his competitors quit, while the market shifted, while years passed with no big exits in sight. But by year 11, he was one of the few people still standing in that space. And when a buyer showed up looking to acquire a music distribution company, there weren't many options left. Now, was it lucky that the buyer showed up? Yes. Was it lucky they chose CD Baby? Yes. But Derek spent 11 years making himself one of the only options. That is not pure luck. That is earned luck. The buyer was going to show up eventually. Music distribution was valuable. Someone would want to consolidate that market. That was predictable. What wasn't predictable was which company would still be there when the buyer arrived. And Derek made sure it was him. Now, what does this mean for your life? You can't force luck, but you can make yourself luckier. Not through positive thinking, not through manifestation, through positioning and persistence. Position yourself in a place where opportunity exists, where the thing you're building has a chance of mattering, and where luck can actually find you if it shows up. And then stay there long past when it feels like it's working, long past when others quit. See, most people leave right before probability catches up. They work hard for 18 months, see no results, decide they're unlucky, but they weren't unlucky. They just didn't stay long enough. Luck doesn't show up on a schedule. You cannot force it to arrive in year two or year five. But you can make sure that you're still there when it does arrive. That is the thing that you can control. See, the people who seem lucky aren't luckier than you. They've positioned themselves better and they didn't leave. That is the whole game position. Persist. Be there when the luck shows up. Because luck will show up eventually if you're in the right place. But that only matters if you're still there when it does.