The Truth About Luck That Nobody Wants to Hear

In this episode of The Fuck It Shift, Adam Ross breaks down the idea of luck—and why most people completely misunderstand it.

We often credit success to being “lucky” and failure to being “unlucky,” but Adam challenges that belief, explaining that what we call luck is usually the result of preparation, habits, and intentional actions repeated over time.

He shares how small daily rituals—whether it’s how you think, how you act, or how you prepare—quietly position you to recognize and act on opportunities when they show up. What looks like luck from the outside is often just consistency and readiness behind the scenes.

The conversation also explores how labeling yourself as “unlucky” can become a way to avoid accountability. Adam explains why it’s easier to blame circumstances than to take ownership of the decisions and patterns that led you there—and how that mindset keeps people stuck.

He also reflects on one of the hardest lessons he’s learned: nobody is coming to save you. Real change only begins when you stop waiting and take responsibility for your life, your choices, and the direction you want to go.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the show, the Fuck It Chip Podcast. I'm Adam Ross, and I'm joined by producer Jay, who's gonna hit me with a question.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Adam, do you think you're a lucky person? No. So we've never really gotten into this, but can you actually manufacture luck or is it completely random? What's your take on luck?

SPEAKER_01 0:19

You believe that you need to be lucky to win, and you've got lucky charms and you've got these lucky habits. I'll tell you this: it is um it's better to have a belief in luck or a process, uh, some sort of steps you follow to feel ready. But luck is not about lady luck or being lucky, it's about being prepared or readiness. So I don't mind if you have some rituals, some things that you like to do before a meeting, before a date that you believe brings you luck. I'm all about that. But I'll tell you that luck is part of a process. You won't be lucky if you don't have any rituals or any processes, or you just let the wind decide what's going to happen in the day. Intention brings that feeling of luck. So when you do things intentionally, day by day, you do affirmations, you eat right, you work out, you do these things intentionally, these small little building blocks that create this alter ego, this superhuman, this super you. Then all of a sudden these things start happening for you, and you believe, because you've been told, wow, you're really lucky. You got to have luck, you got to be good to be lucky. In reality, that's probably the most accurate phrase you could hold on to. The intentional building blocks that make you strong, that make you good, that create habit, that create these repeatable processes that you know level you up, brings you that feeling of luck. It puts you in the right situations because you prepared for it. So we can go back to like coaches that have a lot of superstitions. Dan Hurley eats exactly eight MMs before every basketball game that he coaches. Does that mean he's lucky? No, but it helps ground him in a process, in a team philosophy, and all the intentional building blocks that UConn has been pretty freaking successful, that builds this program and the eight MMs is part of a ritual that builds this process and this feeling of luck or success. I'm all about it. But do you think, do I would I look back and say I'm lucky? Fuck no. I had to work. I had to learn how to be intentional and do things that were gonna make me or move me forward and unprogram my negative brain by doing things intentional and waiting for the payoff. Nothing, I mean, luck comes on putting everything on black and spinning the roulette wheel. I don't even think that's lucky. It's just law, that's just averages. It's just law of averages. But circling back to that whole 30%, if you hit the ball 30% of the time in baseball, you get paid millions of dollars because the baseball is thrown at a velocity of 100 miles per hour. It's the losses that you don't take so heavy, and you realize the gift in the losses and these intentional things you do on a daily basis that become rituals or habits that increase your possibility of being in the right place, the right time, seeing the right opportunity, being able to just extinguish the negative voice, take the messaging and go after something.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

So would you say the opposite is also true? There's no such thing as bad luck, and that you've intentionally put yourself in situations that are quote unquote bad.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

I used to believe that bad luck would just follow me around until I realized and I read a book that it's all about how you see, it's all perception, which again is relates to intention. So I can believe that all these bad things happened to me and I'm unlucky. Or I can step back and be an adult about it and realize that I did some things intentionally. I did some things subconsciously that led me to that path, that these things started to crumble. I built false narratives that I believed and bought into that were not going to be successful. Tough lesson to learn. Really hard for you to get honest with yourself and see those warning signs, those negative blocks, those things that you built a life on that weren't so powerful or not as strong as you believed. And then just label it real quick as, well, that guy's just unlucky. That dude's unlucky, that was unlucky. Well, what about some of the shitty decisions you made to get to that point where that one thing revealed itself that you want to deem as unlucky? And worse, then you carry that shit around with you. Then you buy into it because being unlucky is a lot easier than looking in the mirror and saying, ah, I'm accountable for what I did and I fucked up. Nobody likes to do that. I tell people all the time when you're in sales and you're trying to, you're selling a new way of living, nobody's going to take responsibility for how they got there. It's really difficult. If you're in rehab, the turning point is when you finally realize that it's you that has to change. It's you that has to make the conscious decision to be different. This is really hard to do. It's really hard to look in your mirror in the mirror and be accountable.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

You said something about there about uh tough lessons. And because we like to go all over the place on these podcasts, ask a question. Off the top of your head, do you have a or the toughest lesson you've ever learned that at the time you hated having to learn it, but now can look back at and thinking that one that was one of the most powerful things that you've ever experienced?

SPEAKER_01 6:12

I think you spend a lot of time, and I'll do generalize this, but for me, this was really powerful. We spend a lot of time waiting for something to change without ever realizing it's us that has to change. So think about you want something, I wanted to be out of the shithole. I didn't want to be a rock bottom. Who was coming to save me? I waited for a really long time for someone to come by and pull me out of that hole until I realized that's not happening. The toughest lesson was it was me that had to make those decisions. I could get all the mentoring and advice from my father, from my circle, from friends. If I didn't action any of it, none of it mattered. They were all wasting their time. I had to come to terms with, and the toughest lesson is nobody is here to save you. And it is nobody's job to save you. It's not your mommy or your daddy's job, it's your job. And you spend so much time blaming other people instead of realizing the toughest lesson is it's you. And the second that you can kind of harness, that's so powerful when you can harness it and say, Yeah, you know who's in control? Me. Not all the roadblocks that I put in front of myself. I can't do it because of this reason or that reason, or I don't have money. I don't have none of that shit mattered. In fact, I started to rebuild my life at zero. I lost the 77 bucks ad. I realized nobody was saving me. I had to reinvent myself. The courage you had need, and the courage you can find, every single one of you, to rebuild yourself and take the version you don't love and create a completely different character, alter ego so powerful. You just gotta believe. Till next time, my friend. See you on the next show.