create luck, embrace chance & tune in to your serendipity

my mom always jokes that i have a horseshoe up my ass. my entire life i’ve always encountered what seems like “luck.” things just seem to miraculously and magically fall into place. repeat: things just SEEM to miraculously and magically fall into place.

but there’s a lot more to it than that…

are some people just lucky? no. some people just do more differently than most. some people create their own luck.

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i recently sold my car to the very first person who reached out. he also happens to work at twitter and we’re going to collaborate on a project in the future. is this luck? maybe.

or, did having a different approach than most people selling their car attract the type of person who works at twitter? and did my sales process demonstrate that i’m someone he saw value collaborating with in the future?

going into selling my car (and never having sold a car before), i had no idea who would buy or how quickly it would sell. i had about seven days until my move to new york (aka seven days to close the deal) which concerned many but excited me.

people actively reminded me that “times are tough” (thank you, i hadn’t noticed) and i heard a dozen or so horror stories about how time-consuming and disappointing… blah blah blah (this was the point at which i stopped listening and started discovering on my own).

like many of the craigslist ads out there, i could have posted something factual and boring. but most people don’t like factual and boring and i didn’t want to sell my car to someone who did.

that in mind, i spent a day building an appealing website (buymymazda3.com) and crafting a compelling (yet genuine) story targeted at a younger, technie male in San Francisco (there are a lot of them!). i used twitter, facebook, craigslist and a few friends to get the word out.

within a few hours of posting, eddie reached out because he loved the car and had a great feeling about the ad. he came to look at the car the next day and within 90 seconds of meeting me, he said he was 99.9% sure he wanted to buy it. five minutes later, we had a deal. i had successfully sold my car to person number one for the listed price within 24 hours. (yay!)

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i’d be lying if i said this process didn’t feel magical because it did. i was surprised and excited at every turn, and working with eddie made selling a car fun.

this experience reminded me that lucky things happen when you ignore concerns, embrace what is and set yourself up for chance encounters.

similarly, i flew to Austin this morning for #sxsw without a plan of what to do or where to sleep tonight. (although i do have housing tomorrow night through Tuesday.) i actively put myself in a situation in which chance could occur and sure enough, it did.

so how have things evolved? i randomly ran into Alexa on my flight and now I’m relaxing with my laptop and free wifi in a cozy bed at the Hilton Austin (where Alexa is staying for the next week).

Alexa and i met briefly once before but never had an opportunity to sit down and chat. we went to lunch today and realized we’re basically sisters separated at birth (similar career experiences, childhood hobbies, passions for photography & art, both neurotic about the same pen, and we also have a shared love for Aaron Strout whom we’re getting drinks with at five.)

while a small example, it still goes to show that chance happens when you let it.

eddie told me that certain people are better tuned in to create their own serendipity.

i couldn’t agree more. “luck” comes when we spend less time predicting and planning and more time discovering, going and doing. “chance” comes by being open to it and allowing events to unfold organically.