More than 30 years ago, I was interviewed for a job and one of the interview questions was, “Tell me about a time when you were lucky?”

Since then, I have determined there are many things that occur outside of our control. Working with CEOs, there are many things that occur, which have direct impact on the outcome, yet, are outside the control of the CEO. “So, do you feel lucky?” said Inspector Callahan in the movie Dirty Harry.

Many decisions are made based on data, and many decisions are made based on intuition. The best decisions are made somewhere in the middle. Based on the data in front of me, what I know, do I feel lucky?

How do we take advantage of luck? Two things – preparation and mental fitness.

We do not know what will happen in the future, so we have to be prepared, not just for what we think will happen, but for all the possibilities of what could happen. Gideon Malherbe speaks directly about this preparation in his talk on Scenario Planning.

But, being prepared is only part of being lucky. Just because we might know what to do, does not mean we have the capability to do it. Do we have the mental fitness to see, analyze, adjust and execute. More importantly, have we practiced seeing, analyzing, adjusting and executing. What would happen if your volume suddenly doubled (being lucky)? Do you have the mental fitness to pick up the pace, reorganize your sequence, focus on strategic constraints?

Tell me about a time when you were lucky?