Growing on Substack is pure luck.
I know this because I got lucky. Here is the exact formula
A few days ago my wife and I sat in one of the most expensive cafes in the city.
The vibe was great. Luxurious.
And incredibly crowded. We had to wait for a table on the terrace!
We sat down. Looked at the menu. Started talking…
About success. Money. Business.
We reached a strange conclusion: It all comes down to luck.
If you are not lucky in this environment, no matter how hard you run, you get nowhere!
When you are born matters. Where you are born matters!
Starting a business 10 years ago is very different from starting one today.
I am not talking about intelligence. I am talking about conditions!
These things are out of your control. It is just luck!
The next day I randomly saw an article by Naval Ravikant.
The timing was crazy. The piece was exactly about this. It flipped a switch in my brain!
I want to talk about this today!
The mystery of LUCK 🍀
Naval says most people view luck as purely random.
They think it is out of our control.
Like Andy Dufresne says in The Shawshank Redemption, bad luck is just floating around in the air. It just lands on you…
People get frustrated. They sit in a corner. They hope. When nothing happens, they complain about the world!
And for the first level of luck, they are absolutely right!
But Naval has a much deeper perspective.
He says luck is not a fixed thing. It has 4 different levels.
The crazy part? Only the first level is out of your control.
You can create the other 3 yourself!!
Let us break down these 4 levels.
Level 1. Blind Luck
This is the luck everyone knows.
The one you have zero control over.
Like winning the lottery.
Or being born in the right decade to a progressive and wealthy family.
Or inheriting massive wealth from an unknown ancestor.
You cannot do anything about these. No effort is involved..
If you just sit and wait for this kind of luck, you are gambling with your life! And the odds are one in a million…
Level 2. Hustle Luck
This is where the game actually starts.
This luck does not come from sitting and crying. It comes from moving.
You hustle. You try different things. You talk to new people. You stir the pot.
Eventually, you bump into opportunities a stationary person would never see in their dreams..!
Imagine going to a big networking event.
If you sit in a corner looking at your phone, nothing happens!
The same goes for Substack. If you write in isolation and connect with no one, your chances of being seen are near zero.
But if you step up and talk to 10 people, you might meet someone who changes your entire business path.
In my early days here, I spent hours reading Notes and leaving comments.
That is how I met Philip Hofmacher. We talked. I used his advice. We ended up doing a small collaboration.
In those same interactions, I met Alicia Teltz. I wrote a piece about her growth. And that article got a lot of traction! She also shared the article in a private group where LinkedIn's GOATs hang out!
If I was not in motion, I would never have met the friends I have now. Makes sense?
This luck is for the relentless. They increase their surface area with the world. Luck is born in those collisions!
But this model relies heavily on hustling. And I am not a big fan of that, you know that!😅
Level 3. Prepared Luck
This level is fascinating.
It belongs to people who invest in themselves.
At this stage, you know a specific field so deeply that you spot a golden opportunity others are completely blind to!
The luck was right there. Everyone saw it. But only a trained eye could hunt it down.
Let me give you a tangible example:
Imagine someone analyzing the real estate or stock market for years.
On a random day, they see a chart. To normal people, it looks boring and routine..
But that person instantly knows it is a once in a lifetime setup!
At this level, you do not need to run around aimlessly like in level 2. You watch carefully. Because you have expertise, you snatch the luck out of thin air.
Why did I abandon my active Instagram account to come to Substack? While so many others grind day and night on Instagram?
Because I see an opportunity on Substack that many cannot see!
8 years of content creation across different platforms trained my brain to see certain things.
When a Note goes viral, I do not just scroll past it smiling. I sit down. I spend hours and days analyzing it..!
Some of you asked how my engagement is so high with this audience size?
This is why!
I analyze my data. I try to attract the right people. People who we understand each other.
Read my last article about growth on Substack. You will definitely learn something from it. ;)
At this level, luck is shaped by your deep insight!
Level 4. Character Luck
This is the highest and strangest level of luck.
At this stage, you are known for something so specific and unique that you no longer chase luck. Luck chases you!
What does that mean?
It means you built a solid character and a real brand. That character becomes a magnet.
The honest and highly skilled trader gets a phone call no one else in the market gets.
One of my friends is an amazing trader. He has done this for over 10 years. His whole life is analyzing and trading..
One day I was at a villa with him. His phone rang. A massive investor from Texas offered him a huge deal! The numbers was really huge!
At this point, calling it luck is extremely unfair..!
This is the reputation you built drop by drop over the years. Now it is paying compound interest.
We can look at writers too!
People like Mark Manson, DAN KOE, James Clear, Ryan Holiday.
They all have fascinating stories… (Let me know in the comments if you want me to write a case study on one of them. Tell me who!)
At this stage, your growth goes beyond your imagination.
People look from the outside and say how lucky you were!
But deep down, you know this had to happen someday! All that effort could not be ignored.
You created this luck yourself!
Do you see the pattern in these 4 layers?
Each type of luck is less random than the last.
Waiting for the first type while ignoring the other 3 is the biggest mistake you can make with your life…
Naval says we have to learn to engineer our luck.
So how do we do that?
First. Put yourself out there
Publish your work. Meet people. Drop the shyness…
As an introvert still fighting perfectionism, I know how hard this can be!
But I convince myself to remember that collisions create luck. The person hiding in their lonely cave will never hear luck knocking on their door!
Second. Go deep
Go so deep into a niche that you spot the weird things everyone else ignores.
Do not be shallow.
Take one skill all the way to the end so your eye gets trained.
Like Robert Greene says in his book Mastery, reaching that level takes time. There is a process you have to go through.
The sooner you start, the sooner you reach a level of mastery where your transformation literally inspires others..!
Third. Become known publicly and reliably for a specific thing
A jack of all trades usually does not attract massive opportunities.
Specific reputation attracts specific opportunities.
Naval emphasized building specific knowledge in his famous Twitter thread too!
Fourth. Be easy to find and easy to trust
Luck travels the world through people!
If you are a safe and trustworthy person, people will bring opportunities right to your hands.
This is what I said in my last article. You must love your audience! Your audience must matter to you.
When you love someone, you cannot be dishonest with them. You genuinely want them to thrive..!
My dear , I beg you do these things with all your heart for 3-5 years. One day people will look from the outside and say you got so lucky in life!
Do not even try to explain the sleepless nights and the hard work to them.
Let them think whatever they want. In your own solitude, you know it was a meaningful suffering. You know it was worth it.
Buy back your freedom
Find your life mission by journaling on Substack. Or build it. Then engineer your luck on that path.
This is one of the most satisfying states of living..!
Fulfillment pours into every aspect of your life. Financial. Self esteem. Relationships. and so on… Your quality of life completely changes.
But it is not free! It takes work.
So, that’s it!
Thank you for reading until the end.
I hope you now understand how some people get lucky on Substack or in life and everything suddenly flips for them!
Have a great weekend.
Riza.
These two pieces are highly related to this topic.
If you have not read them, I suggest taking a look:
P.s. And if you managed to read all the way to the end, congratulations. Your attention span is excellent! :)
That personalisation in the middle of the post caught me off-guard 😂 I didn't know you can make this on Substack! Great post Riza 🙂
Great post.
You got to go make your own luck