I distinctly remember that day, five years ago, when I was listening to an innovation lecture while in graduate school. During that lecture, we were discussing characteristics that separate innovators from the rest. One particular characteristic captured my attention: the ability to recognize opportunities that look like luck.

Do you know people who are lucky? When I think about the lucky people that I know, this is how I describe them: they seem to stumble upon random opportunities that come out of nowhere! Because of that, I've been envious of them. Up to that point, I assumed that luck is a by-product of one’s environment and relationships. That’s what I believed until I encountered my own luck.

My discovery of coaching as a career was triggered by a lucky event. I was never interested in coaching prior to my first encounter with it. After several sessions with my coach, I slowly developed a curiosity around it–but not as a profession, just as a skill. This curiosity led me to look for a short course on coaching. I was about to sign up for a two-day class when my coach–who had absolutely no idea what I was up to–out of nowhere, invited me to attend classes at the coaching school where he teaches. I immediately said “no”, thinking that it’s a long-term commitment and way too serious for me. I was very hesitant to commit to it. But that night, I could not sleep! It was my intuition telling me to just go for it. The next day, I got back to my coach and told him that I had changed my mind. I would do it.

It was while attending coaching school that I discovered my latent talent. Immediately, I grew to love learning about coaching! Yet I still was not sure whether my path led to becoming a coach, so I decided that I was just happy to go through the learning process, then walk away with what I learned, experiment, and see where it would lead. Every day that followed, ideas kept popping into my head and I kept finding exactly what I needed to make my ideas happen. The more I practiced coaching, the more my heart engaged and even more ideas came to me. My mind brought me back to that memorable day during that innovation lecture: I’m recognizing my own random opportunities. Now, I am becoming lucky!

That’s how I came to this point in my life: a coach and loving it!

Do you want to innovate your life? If your answer is “yes”, then you need only to learn to harness your luck by recognizing opportunities. I like the word “recognize” because it means that it’s already there and you just need to learn how to see it–or them! But then, you may ask: How do I do that? Here are a few ways you can try out.

Listen to who you are. Are you connected with yourself? If you want to align with what’s meant for you, this is the first and necessary step. What are you curious about and drawn to? What’s your talent that has always been consistent in your life? You need to set and verbalize your intentions so your mind knows what to pay attention to.

Clean up your lenses. Assumptions cloud your vision. You need to approach things in your life with less judgment and more openness. Be open to new experiences, to new ways of thinking and feeling so you can bring in significant movement into your life. If you honor your curiosity, you bring options into your life.

Develop your intuition. You need to be able to make good decisions without having all the information you need. This is a journey to gratitude, self-worth, and self-belief. It’s absolutely worth it. Everybody is gifted with innate wisdom. You need to unlock it by learning how to use it and how to trust it. Then, you’ll see the difference.

Do you believe in luck? What makes someone lucky? It’s figuring out what’s for you, recognizing the real opportunities when they present themselves, and making very good decisions along the way.

I’ve got good news and bad news. The “bad” news is that all it takes is serious foundational work The good news is that you can definitely do it! Ready to get started? Let me know how and I can help you!