I’ve heard that I’m more likely to have a satellite fall from space and land on my house than I am to win the lottery.  That’s why I don’t but a ticket, because if I was to win the lottery at those extreme odds then a satellite would be sure to fall from space and land on my house.

That’s not the kind of luck I need, thank you very much.

But aside from the lottery, luck has a larger role to play in our lives than we might think.  Luck is traditionally seen as some kind of magical force that operates for good or ill in a person’s life, shaping circumstances and events and smiling favourably on those “lucky enough”.

Some people carry around a rabbit’s foot for good luck.  Other people have little rituals they follow in the pursuit of being lucky, while others perform rituals to avoid being unlucky (when a black cat crosses your path, when you spill salt, break a mirror, see a lone magpie or when you forget to call it “The Scottish Play” for example).

We’ve all known people who “got lucky”, and we’ve all known people who were down on their luck.  I’ve had my own fair share of good and bad luck.  I flew around the world first class in my old career.  I’ve met and stayed in touch with some amazing people who I met at random.  When debt threatened to bankrupt me I somehow found myself in the position of being a sought-after freelance producer in leading ad agencies.  I have an incurable debilitating illness.  I suffered from depression when I was made redundant in 2001.  I was rejected by a woman I loved.

Some good luck, some bad luck.

That’s how it goes, and these traditions and memes are woven into our lives without us ever really thinking about what it means.  But the word has come up a few times in my life recently, so I opened it up to see what was inside.

They say that luck is about being in the right place at the right time, and if that’s true then surely the trick is to spot where the right place might be and to get there in good time.  Makes sense, right?

The trick to luck then, is opportunity.

So it follows that you’ll never be lucky if you sidestep the right place or the right time; you’ll never be lucky if you second guess yourself, dilly-dally, get diverted or change your mind on the way.  Luck is about being mindful enough to notice opportunity when it comes along and then being willing to step into it.

This could be a deliberate choice or it could be a subtle nudge from your intuition – but regardless of whether it’s conscious or sub-conscious, it requires trust.  Being lucky requires that you trust yourself to take a step forwards, to trust your gut and to trust yourself to deal with whatever might happen.

Moving to Amsterdam this summer could have been one of those right times and right places.  Turns out that it probably isn’t, but I had to go and see for myself, and I know it will lead to something else that just might be extraordinary.

Luck is trusting yourself to step into what just might be the right place and the right time.

Those people who always seem to land on their feet and always seem to get lucky?  Those are the people who have developed a way of thinking that encourages self-trust.  Those are the people who have wired luck into their brains.

You can do that too.  You can be the luckiest person alive.  It just takes confidence.