Serial Entrepreneur and host of one of Europe's top business podcasts, Secret Leaders with over 50M downloads & angel investor in 85+ startups - here to share stories and studies breaking down the science of success - turning it from probability to predictability.
How To Engineer Luck
How To Engineer LuckRead time: 6 minutes Hey, welcome back. Last week, we talked about why you need a personal brand in 2026. You can read that (and all past issues, here) People call me lucky all the time. Lucky that Heights took off. Lucky that the crowdfund went well. Lucky that the Formula 1 partnership happened. Lucky that the podcast grew. They're not wrong. I am lucky. But luck isn't what they think it is. This week I was lucky enough to spend the week on Necker Island in the Caribbean - invited by Richard Branson and his team, all expenses paid, first class luxury - to give a talk on How To Reach Your Heights (which was actually mostly about The Science of Success and the content I share in my newsletter). Am I feeling lucky? Yes. But deciding to spread my surface area of luck by organising my thoughts, writing on Linkedin and committing to this newsletter is what turned luck into opportunity. The Myth Of Random Luck Most people think luck is random. Lightning striking. Being in the right place at the right time. Winning the lottery. Catching a break. That kind of luck exists. And it's completely useless. You can't build a business on random chance. You can't create a career on accidents. You can't engineer lightning strikes. But you can engineer the other kind of luck. The kind that looks random from the outside but isn't. The kind that compounds. That you can influence. That gets more likely the longer you keep showing up. That's the luck worth understanding. The Four Types Of Luck There's a framework I think about constantly. Four types of luck. Blind luck. Pure randomness. Born in the right country. Right family. Right circumstances. You can't control this. You can only be grateful when you have it. Luck from motion. You do things. You try stuff. You create surface area. Luck finds you because you're moving. The more you do, the more opportunities appear. Luck from preparation. You develop skills. Build knowledge. Become good at something. When opportunity appears, you're ready to capitalise. Other people see the same opportunity and can't execute. Luck from uniqueness. You become so distinctively good at something specific that opportunities seek you out. You're the obvious choice. Luck finds you because nobody else can do what you do. Most people stop at blind luck. They're waiting for something random to save them. The people who look consistently lucky? They're operating in types two, three, and four. Luck From Motion This is where most people get stuck. They're not creating enough surface area for luck to find them. Heights didn't start as Heights. It started as a newsletter about brain and gut health. I was writing about what I was learning while trying to fix my own burnout, depression and insomnia. I wasn't trying to start a business. I was just sharing what I was figuring out - and I knew that was better than doing nothing. But that motion created surface area. People started reading. Asking questions. Sharing their own experiences. Connections formed. Two years of that motion led to the idea for Heights. The newsletter became the audience. The audience became early customers. The early customers became proof of concept. None of that happens if I'm sitting around waiting for the perfect business idea to appear. Motion creates collisions. Collisions create opportunities. Opportunities look like luck. Luck From Preparation Opportunities appear for everyone. Most people can't execute when they do. When Heights had the chance to raise funding, we were ready. Not because we predicted it. Because we'd been building the business properly. Clean financials. Clear positioning. Proven traction. The opportunity wasn't luck. Being ready for it was preparation. When the Alpine Formula 1 partnership came up, it wasn't random. We'd built a product that actually worked. We had case studies. We had credibility. We had a story that made sense. Other supplement companies probably got the same opportunity. They weren't ready to capitalise on it. Preparation doesn't guarantee opportunities. But it guarantees you can execute when they appear. And from the outside, execution looks like luck. Luck From Uniqueness This is the final form. When you're so good at something specific that opportunities find you automatically. I'm not the best podcaster. Not the best writer. Not the best entrepreneur. But I'm one of the few people building a consumer health company while writing publicly about the mental performance and burnout side of entrepreneurship, while hosting conversations with other founders about their journeys. That combination is unique enough that opportunities show up that I would never have found otherwise. The partnerships. The speaking requests. The investor intros. The collaborations. They're not random. They're the result of being distinctively positioned. When you're the obvious choice for something specific, luck becomes predictable. How This Actually Works You can't engineer blind luck. You were born where you were born. You have the circumstances you have. But you can absolutely engineer the other three. Engineer motion. Stop waiting for clarity. Start doing things. Ship projects. Write publicly. Build in public. Create more surface area for opportunities to collide with. Every week you're not putting something into the world, you're reducing the chances that luck finds you. Engineer preparation. Get good at something valuable. Develop skills that matter. Build knowledge that compounds. So when opportunities appear, you're ready. Most people see the opportunity and think "I wish I could do that." The prepared person thinks "I can do that" and actually does it. Engineer uniqueness. Find the intersection of things you're good at that nobody else combines the same way. That's your position. That's where opportunities become predictable instead of random. What People Miss The successful people you think got lucky? They engineered it. They created motion when nothing was happening. They prepared before they knew what they were preparing for. They positioned themselves uniquely instead of trying to compete directly. Then, when the "lucky break" came, they were ready. They executed. They capitalised. From the outside, it looks like they got lucky. From the inside, it was inevitable. The Timeline Nobody Talks About Here's what they don't tell you about engineered luck. It takes time. I wrote the newsletter for two years before Heights existed. Two years of motion creating surface area before the opportunity appeared. I'd spent a decade before that building businesses, learning what worked, developing skills. Preparation that didn't feel like preparation at the time. The "overnight success" of Heights took 12 years of motion and preparation. The luck wasn't random. It was compounded. Where Most People Quit They create motion for three months. Nothing happens. They quit. They prepare for six months. No opportunities appear. They stop. They don't realise luck compounds slowly, then all at once. You create motion for months, and it feels like nothing's happening. Then three opportunities appear in the same week because your surface area has finally reached critical mass. You prepare for years, and it feels pointless. Then one opportunity shows up that requires exactly the skills you built, and suddenly you're "lucky." Most people quit before the compounding kicks in. What Changed For Me I used to think luck was something that happened to other people. They had connections I didn't have. Resources I didn't have. Advantages I didn't have. Some of that was true. Blind luck exists. Some people start with more. But I was using that as an excuse to not create motion. Not prepare. Not position myself uniquely. Once I started engineering the other three types of luck, everything changed. Not immediately. Over years. But consistently. Compoundingly. The opportunities that look lucky now? They're the result of decisions I made 2, 5, and 10 years ago. To create motion. To prepare. To position uniquely. The Truth About Luck You can't control blind luck. You got dealt the hand you got dealt. But you can absolutely control how much surface area you create. How prepared you are when opportunities appear. How uniquely you're positioned. That's not random. That's engineered. The people who look consistently lucky aren't. They're just engineering the conditions where luck becomes probable instead of possible. To engineering luck, Dan The Stoics Said It Best Seneca said: Luck is preparation meeting opportunity. So, want more evidence of luck? I really wanted to give Richard our new pill box prototype (he takes a lot of supplements) and our incredible silk eye mask to pitch in for Virgin, but there was never the right moment for that. I kept them in my backpack, but left the island with him waving us off, so I thought the moment was over. Then, flying from BVI to Miami, who was sitting next to me on the front row? Sir Richard himself. Me having them in my bag just in case (preparation). Him sitting next to me randomly - opportunity. The two together? Luck. He received both gifts not just gratefully but enthusiastically - gave me his mobile number and email and told me to follow up about getting this stuff into various Virgin spaces. P.S. I gave him my eye mask, so I had to use the shitty one in first class on the way home, which was actually quite a powerful juxtaposition lol. |
Dan Murray
Serial Entrepreneur and host of one of Europe's top business podcasts, Secret Leaders with over 50M downloads & angel investor in 85+ startups - here to share stories and studies breaking down the science of success - turning it from probability to predictability.
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