Creating “Luck”

Steven Barnes
2 min readSep 9, 2024

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“Remember to breathe. It is, after all, the secret of life.”

-Gregory Maguire.

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And the secret to LUCK is found in the definition: “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.”

That means that EVERY DAY you should seek to increase your preparedness (skill, perception, instinct, energy, sales skills, etc) and increase your human connections (communication skills, bonding, empathy, marketing, etc.) to increase your OPPORTUNITIES.

The secret of the MAGIC FORMULA is just this. So when people say I’m lucky, what they mean is that I’ve spent the time to be more prepared, drawing from a variety of high-level disciplines. And…I’ve also deliberately created connections and awareness of my existence. Where these two circles overlap you get results that the sleepers call “luck.” What it really is is CHANCE. Playing the odds. NEVER count on a “lucky streak.” Always play so that if you just get “average” odds, you can still win. And study the means of “asymmetrical investment” that allows you to constantly seek opportunities that have more potential upside than downside.

If you will just use the MAGIC framework and be sure you have no “zeros” you will be in the game. Get up around “5–7” on a scale of 0–10 in each category (Map or Mentor, Action, Gratitude, Intention, Core alignment) and you get into the “luck” territory. Your competence (“Usefulness” and “Preparation”) circle overlaps with your “Opportunity” circle: you SEE more opportunities, because you are sufficiently clear and aligned to see. And the love and energy you have given out to the world eventually begins to come back to you (but you MUST operate as if it won’t!) and you will simply get more chances to step up to the place. Be SURE that every time you do you make a little correction to improve.

The best model I know of to complement this is the LIFEWRITING SIX-STEP process:

  1. Write a sentence a day
  2. Write 1–4 short stories a month
  3. Finish and Submit 1 per month
  4. Don’t rewrite except to editorial request
  5. Read 10X what you write
  6. Repeat 100 times.

I’m going to leave this as an exercise for the people reading this who really want to understand. If you will look at the definition of luck, then create a “grid” of the MAGIC formula and the Six-Step Process and ask yourself: how does each of these steps increase PREPAREDNESS and/or OPPORTUNITY?

If you will DO this, you are developing the strength of mind and heart to do the same with ANY OTHER PATTERNS. If you aren’t a writer and you want to create your own MASTER CLASS, do MAGIC and the 13 steps of “Think and Grow Rich.” You will see how the actions increase BOTH preparedness and opportunity. Bring in the THREE GATES to constantly remind yourself to be honest, kind, and useful TO YOURSELF AND OTHERS.

If you will do this, you are on the path, a brother or sister committed to being an awake, aware, adult human being.

Welcome to the journey.

Namaste

Steve

www.stevenbarneslist.com

(you can get your own copy of the MAGIC formula book at www.realherosjourney.com)

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Steven Barnes

Steven Barnes is a NY Times bestselling author, ecstatic husband and father, and holder of black belts in three martial arts. www.lifewritingpodcast.com.