My best opportunities in life haven't come from working hard. They've come from flow.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t work hard—just that hard work is often the prelude. It lays the foundation, but it doesn’t always open the door.

I’ve mulled it over again and again: what’s the ratio of luck to hard work? To what degree do we actually have control over what we want to manifest?

One extreme says it’s all luck—success born from family, timing, circumstance. The other insists we’re the architects of our fate. I swing between the two.

It’s no mystery there are things in life outside our control. Some would even say we have none at all—that we’re just puppets of our genetics and environment.

But hard work bears fruit. It clears paths.

And I can think of a few moments where luck and work met in the middle.

---

When I was in high school, I had no idea what college I wanted to attend. My parents are immigrants, and they knew close to nothing about US higher education. I had no context. No idea where to start. All I knew is that I loved both academics and music.

One day in history class, a classmate mentioned he was dead-set on getting into Northwestern University for violin. He said it had both great academics and a great music program.

Arbitrarily, in that moment, I said to myself: yeah, that sounds good. And that’s the school I ended up going to.

Sure, I worked hard to get in. But there’s little chance that school would’ve even entered my awareness without that random conversation.

---

More recently: after a decade in software, a friend calls me out of the blue. He wants me to apply for a sales role at an AI company. I’ve never done sales. But he knows I love talking to people. He’s heard me say I want to lean more into my talents as a communicator, a people person.

So the interview process starts. Long story short, I get the job and make a lateral jump into a sales career.

If I tried to make that leap on my own, it probably would’ve meant grinding through a bunch of interviews, maybe even taking a junior role. Years to catch up to my current level.

But because I knew the right person at the right time, I stepped into a whole different path. I didn’t work hard for that opportunity. It just showed up.

That kind of moment gives me pause.

I wanted something like this—a career shift with upside, something that leaned into who I already was. And it just… appeared.

---

Yes, I told friends I wanted this shift. Yes, I’d been thinking about it. But I made no direct effort to land that job.

Still, I had prepared for it. I had a career in software that made me a reasonable fit. I had a natural talent. I’d put the idea out into the world.

So yeah, I don’t know what the work-to-luck ratio really is. But the more I lean in, the more I think there’s something to the practice of getting clear on what you want and being open to receiving it.

I didn’t chase these opportunities. But I was ready when they came.

So maybe it’s not just hard work or just luck.

Maybe it’s alignment—between who we are, what we want, and what the world is willing to hand us when we’re paying attention.