How can you get Lucky while Building Thought Leadership?

[00:00:00] Surbhi Dedhia: hello everyone, welcome to a brand-new episode on the Making of a Thought Leader podcast. In a recent dialogue I participated in, someone just casually mentioned that he's so lucky he can have it all. This got me thinking. Can luck be an actual strategy or is there a magic formula when using combination of variables that it can set up a person for seemingly a straightforward path. 

[00:00:45] Surbhi Dedhia: And if so, can this be applied to business and to grow one's thought leadership? So today, we are going to move away from our usual course of sharing, discussing, knowing what are the tips and tricks on what we can do better in growing one's thought leadership. And instead, we are going to talk about. 

[00:01:07] Surbhi Dedhia: Is being lucky, a good strategy in business and why in building thought leadership? Now let's begin. 

[00:01:21] Surbhi Dedhia: If I were to tell you that we are all surrounded by lucky people. Well, it goes this way- now, you know, someone who's a chain smoker. Maybe having no health issues and leading a very healthy life. What would you think about this person? You would say he is lucky to live. Live healthily, even after having a vice. 

[00:01:48] Surbhi Dedhia: In a professional context, someone who's not from an esteem university or having years of experience. But because of his or her own mettle is progressing rapidly in an organization. What would that make you think of this person? Wow he is really cracking it. Huh? 

[00:02:12] Surbhi Dedhia: Why not we take the example of Steve jobs he was a college, dropouts, and yet. Billion-dollar companies. You are getting it right where you're going with this. So how does this happen? Where do people find luck and how can you and me get it to. 

[00:02:30] Surbhi Dedhia: Well, as a human race, we are used to connect the dots from given information and observation. 

[00:02:36] Surbhi Dedhia: This leads to a basic narrative in our heads about the topic. For example, the lucky person in our mind has done X, Y, and Z, and therefore, but lucky. You know, previous example of a chain smoker. Yeah, he probably ate the meals at the right time. He probably made sure that he slept very well through the night. And still smoke and is leading a healthy life. Are you in or someone from a financial services industry and they bought handful of Bitcoins way back in 2015? And today they are worth a few hundreds and thousands of dollars. 

[00:03:15] Surbhi Dedhia: As if either of these elements that are some elements, which are stacked together, when look back on back upon and feel like a perfect, puzzle. That brought them a golden luck. 

[00:03:30] Surbhi Dedhia: Also, if you think about it, luck cannot be an element that can be isolated in this narrative. You cannot identify this. Activity or this element. Actually, brought them luck. 

[00:03:46] Surbhi Dedhia: Going back to our other examples that I've started the episode with about this chain smoker. Now add an element to it that he also drinks like a fish. And now he's close to 80 years old. Uh, in this case, you will, assume that, despite his vices, he's just got lucky with his health and it's not really clear, how?

[00:04:10] Surbhi Dedhia: There is always this, this missing element, like a vague element or gray area that we are not able to pinpoint or identify uh, as an element that is bringing luck. 

[00:04:25] Surbhi Dedhia: So, the word one luck in my research has originated somewhere around 15th century. And indicating favorable fortunes like gambling. Well in the mini-Dutch language, it was gheluc or Gluck for German, it means. fortune or happiness. 

[00:04:47] Surbhi Dedhia: And even if you don't think it's possible, You and me all have opportunities to create luck. The point is that we need to be ready to seize those opportunities when they present themselves to us. So technically luck is not like a paranormal occurrence. That it presents itself or shows up only for a few people and not others. In essence, anyone can get control of where they're headed in their life. no matter that age, our situation. 

[00:05:26] Surbhi Dedhia: Seth Godin says that why luck may not be a strategy setting up oneself to be lucky. Definitely is. I think this thought by Seth is poignant. Luck or getting lucky is an unpredictable tactic, but 50% chance just like gambling. If it works, it works. And if it doesn't, it doesn't. Now in business, it is not a good strategy to adopt because. 

[00:05:56] Surbhi Dedhia: You know that as August, this 50% chance of not. It not working out. In. Fact in business with duels. Tools and technology today that we have, it's all very calculated. 

[00:06:08] Surbhi Dedhia: But what might be a good way to think about getting lucky instead is to establish a pattern with consistency, with a specific goal in mind. 

[00:06:19] Surbhi Dedhia: You would know about Mark Cuban of MicrosSolutions. And people thought he's very lucky way back in 1990, he sold his company for $6 million. But what mark Cuban has to say about this is that no one ever mentioned that they knew that he really worked, day and night never took a vacation to build micro solutions from ground up in order to be ready when opportunity presents itself to sell the company for a very high value. 

[00:06:55] Surbhi Dedhia: What about Elon Musk, is he plain lucky, or has he set himself consistently to be at the right place at the right time? A Space X co-founder recently wrote about Elon and he says that. The way Elon has got lucky is not because he's lucky. It was because he happened to start doing business very early and ever since he has been consistently building businesses. 

[00:07:28] Surbhi Dedhia: So, in my research about luck and the strategy on getting lucky, I also read some of the Twitter threads. And I came upon this interesting discussion where, uh, someone has written. That business is not based on luck. Hard work, being seen in the line of work that you do all the time and openness to try definitely brings the chances up. So, while that person is saying that it is not luck, he's saying you need to, in order to have chances to succeed, there is hard work. There is also being consistently seen in the line of work and your willingness to try different things. 

[00:08:12] Surbhi Dedhia: So, this is when the opportunity comes, you will be there to receive it. And so, luck is a consequence of hard work and luck is not a fuel to propel the business forward. Actually, it is hard work. I agree to it wholeheartedly I think, yes consistency also demands hard work. And that's how you bring your chances up. 

[00:08:34] Surbhi Dedhia: On this podcast, I had refer to Seth a lot, and I think what he has to say about luck completely makes sense. He says that luck is a tactic. It's an unpredictable one, for sure. But if it works, it works right. He says, how do I establish myself in a pattern of resilience and applying formation to discover what works? 

[00:08:59] Surbhi Dedhia: One of the things that you can do to support that strategy of establishing a pattern of resilience is to show up in places where luck can help. 

[00:09:10] Surbhi Dedhia: Now this is very different than the false correlation of the past behavior with lucky out outcomes. Meaning when you are younger in the past, when things have gone right for you, you may have gotten lucky and you may say that, oh, I was lucky in the past because of X, Y, and Z behavior. But. The point that Seth is making, trying to make here is how, what do you do now to set yourself up to become the lucky. And draw a pattern of resilience for yourself to establish what works for you and be ready when luck presents itself. 

[00:09:48] Surbhi Dedhia: This is exactly what has helped individuals and organizations to build thought leadership, just showing up in the right places, consistently doing the work undeterred. Voicing out your opinion. Bringing that thinking power to the thought leadership that you bring into your community. On a daily basis. 

[00:10:08] Surbhi Dedhia: Today there are umpteen avenues to do the head and it only takes a little bit extra. To build that. Thought Leadership. Another thought leader I follow and I refer to is Dorie Clark. She's a marketing strategist at Duke university 's Fuqua School of business and a multiple author of famous books like Reinventing you, Stand Out and The Long Game. She says, that in a world where more and more people will judge you based on what appears online There's absolutely no excuse for feigning ignorance or imagining that social media doesn't matter. In fact, your online reputation is almost as important as your offline reputation. So how does one set up to be lucky in building thought leadership?

[00:11:01] Surbhi Dedhia: Well, I can think of these three tactics up front which are directly proportional to setting up yourself to be lucky. Yeah So, the first one is communications. Are you consistently communicating with your community? Are you consistently participating in online channels along with your content that you can contribute on the platform? On this podcast episode 14, I have interviewed Trevor Merriden, who talks about clever content it's an interesting episode to think about communications differently as an individual and if you're an organization there is another episode 18 number 18. But I shared how you can amplify your brand Through thought leadership type of content. Do check these episodes out, I’ll post the link in the show notes below. So, the first one is communications and designing something which is consistent in the different social media platforms or even in single social media platform.

[00:12:09] Surbhi Dedhia: The second one is observing what is working for you. A lot of time in the speed of things and in the rut of the routine we forget what is working, what can I do better Where there is feedback asking for feedback even. So, reduce what is not a value to your community. Increase where the engagement is high is a simple rule of observing what is working and actioning it.

[00:12:37] Surbhi Dedhia: And lastly bring your voice bring your thoughts, bring your opinion to the community. So being authentic essentially means using your voice to share your opinion even if it is contrarian. So, when you consistently show up measure what's working and be authentic, you are simply setting up yourself to get lucky. And finally, I would like to leave you with this food for thought, "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." How cool is that Think about it, Luck this what happens when preparation meets opportunity. So, let's start off today and set up ourselves to get lucky and build up a thought leadership.

[00:13:22] Surbhi Dedhia: Alright with this I will see you in the next episode. Bye for now!