People love to talk about luck as if it’s a rogue wave. A meteor. A scratch-off ticket blessed by the gods of convenience stores. You either have it or you don’t. Elaine Benes has it. George Costanza absolutely does not.

And Jerry? Jerry is even Steven. Which honestly feels like the cruelest fate of all.

I think about that Seinfeld episode a lot.  The one where Elaine keeps stumbling into good fortune, George is cosmically cursed, and Jerry floats neutrally through life like a beige sofa. George, in peak desperation, decides to do the opposite of every instinct he’s ever had and suddenly? Things start working out.

Which brings me to my unpopular opinion: Luck isn’t always random.
Sometimes, people make it.

Psychology has a term for this. Resilient expectancy. It sounds fancy and academic, but the idea is pretty simple. People who expect things to work out (not magically, not delusionally but possibilistically) tend to behave in ways that allow good things to happen.

They show up. They linger.
They say yes more than no.
They stand a little closer to the action.

Sound counterintuitive? Maybe. But watch the so-called “lucky” people long enough and you’ll notice something suspicious: they’re rarely passive.

Now, before we go any further, let me be clear. I am not out here winning the lottery. I do not play the lotto with any consistency, and when I do, I mostly donate money to the state like a responsible adult. I did once win $750 after putting four quarters into a slot machine, which I mention not to brag but to prove that randomness does occasionally flirt with me and then immediately leave.

So, no. I am not winning bingo on a daily basis.

But I do have a knack.

For me, luck often looks like being in the right place at the right time. And by “luck,” I mean that I physically place myself in the right place. I show up. I attend. I stand near the stage. I end up in the photo op holding the trophy, announcing the next world conference location, or accidentally positioned exactly where something interesting is about to happen.

People sometimes joke about it. Sometimes they’re amused. Sometimes it bothers them. (Which I also find interesting.)

“How does that always happen to you?” they ask.

And the honest answer is deeply unsexy. I don’t wait to be invited into the frame. I step into it.

That’s resilient expectancy in action. It’s not arrogance. It’s not entitlement. It’s a quiet internal assumption that something might come of this. So I might as well be present when it does.

George Costanza had to do the opposite of his instincts because his instincts were rooted in avoidance, pessimism, and self-sabotage. Elaine didn’t “get lucky” because the universe liked her better. She expected life to deliver  and behaved accordingly.

Luck, it turns out, has a behavioral component.

It favors the people who:

Stay curious instead of withdrawn
Assume opportunity over rejection
Try again after disappointment
Put themselves close enough for chance to notice them

Which doesn’t mean bad things won’t happen. They will. Trust me. But resilient expectancy is the belief that setbacks aren’t the end of the story. They’re just a chapter break.

So yes. You’ve got to play to win.
But more importantly?
You’ve got to show up to the game.

And if that means standing a little closer to the stage, smiling for the camera, and trusting your internal compass, even when it looks like luck from the outside  so be it.

Because sometimes luck isn’t random. Sometimes it’s practiced.