There’s a ridiculous trend on TikTok right now called looksmaxxing, where guys do jaw exercises in the mirror and obsess over their bone structure.
This article has nothing to do with that crap. But I heard the parallel term “luckmaxxing” recently and loved the idea. In business, luckmaxxing is the practice of creating your own opportunities and being ready to act when they appear. It is about taking control of your business trajectory rather than treating success as a roll of the dice.
Most owners treat luck like the weather. If a major client gets bought out or a key supplier vanishes, it feels like a surprise blizzard that is totally out of your control.
Years ago, Jim Collins looked at exceptional companies in Great by Choice and found they weren't actually luckier than anyone else. They just squeezed a hell of a lot more juice out of the luck they did catch.
In the trenches of running a business, that usually comes down to three things: taking enough worthwhile shots, surviving the misses, and actually recognizing an opportunity when it taps you on the shoulder.
Here are four ways to tilt the odds in your favor.
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1. Take more shots you can afford to miss
Most business owners take way fewer risks than they think. They wait for the perfect pitch or a bulletproof strategy, and suddenly a month has flown by with plenty of prep and zero actual execution.
Sure, every miss hurts the wallet and stings the ego. That’s why early attempts should be small enough that a flop won't leave a mark. Run a paid pilot before building out an entire service line. Put a rough offer in front of five customers instead of spending three months polishing it in a vacuum.
The shots that open the biggest doors are usually the ones that scare you a little. Asking a much bigger client for a meeting or finally raising your prices does not cost cash. It just challenges your pride. Safe shots keep you trapped playing the exact same game you already know.
Your homework: Pick one idea to test this month. Set a hard launch date, cap your downside on time and money, and decide upfront what success looks like. Bonus points if it makes you slightly uncomfortable.
2. Lower your resistance to change
Sam Walton used to talk about Walmart’s “RC factor,” which meant their low resistance to change. Even after the company dominated retail, he kept stealing good ideas from local competitors and regional players.
Psychologists who study "lucky" people notice the exact same trait: they are simply more curious about the world around them, which makes them hyper-aware of unexpected openings. Walton was doing that naturally. Every smart move a competitor made was just another idea to try.
That gets harder once your own track record validates your ego. Confidence slowly hardens into the belief that nobody else has anything useful to teach you. Someone completely outside your industry finds a better way to solve your exact operational bottleneck, but if you're too busy defending your way of thinking, it sails right past you.
Your homework: Pick one part of your business that refuses to improve no matter how hard you grind at it. Take it to someone completely outside your field and ask how they'd tackle it.
3. Collide with more builders
Almost every lucky break I’ve had at Switch Advisory came through my network. Sometimes it was an old colleague, someone I met at a random event, or an introduction from a friend of a friend.
Almost all of them were builders: owners and operators actively trying to solve problems.
Sahil Bloom calls this expanding your “luck surface area.” The more conversations you have and the more genuinely useful you are to people, the heavier the odds tilt in your favor. The trap is that as businesses grow, owners' circles tend to shrink. It’s easy to retreat into your cave.
Get out and stay curious. If you walk into every room looking strictly for a customer, you'll miss the person who ends up fundamentally changing how you run your company.
Your homework: Put one recurring gathering on your calendar, whether that’s a networking breakfast, a peer group, or a dinner you host yourself. And remember, give first and ask second.
4. Protect your white space
When you’re already drowning in fires, thinking expansively about a brand-new opportunity is damn impossible. As the book Scarcity points out, when you're strapped for time, your brain locks entirely onto immediate survival and screens everything else out.
A busy team is a great sign. A busy owner with zero white space on the calendar is a liability. You’re supposed to be the one looking up to see what’s coming down the highway.
I watch clients fill every single gap in their calendar with another meeting or an admin task. Open time costs money too, so give it a job like learning a new skill or tackling that scary project you keep pushing off. Otherwise, it just turns into expensive wishful thinking.
Your homework: Block three hours this week just for thinking or learning. Guard it with the same ferocity you'd bring to a key client meeting.
Your quick gut check
- What’s one shot I took this month that scared me a little?
- When was the last time I let someone with a totally different background poke holes in how we operate?
- Who did I meet this month that I never would have crossed paths with from my desk?
- Where is the actual white space on my calendar next week?
Luck is going to do what luck does. All you control is how many shots you take, and whether you've left yourself enough breathing room to actually catch the lucky drop that lands.
Frequently asked questions
What is luckmaxxing in business?
Luckmaxxing is the practice of creating more opportunities for your business and being ready to act when they show up. It treats luck as something you can tilt in your favour, through the shots you take and the room you leave yourself to grab the good ones.
How do you make your own luck as a business owner?
Take more small shots you can afford to miss, stay open to ideas from outside your industry, and spend regular time around other builders. Just as important, protect white space on your calendar so you have room to act when an opportunity lands.
What is luck surface area?
Luck surface area is the idea that the more you do and the more people you share it with, the more chances luck has to find you. For a business owner, that usually means more conversations, more experiments and more time outside the office.
What was Sam Walton’s RC factor?
Sam Walton used “RC factor” to describe Walmart’s low resistance to change. He kept borrowing good ideas from competitors long after Walmart was successful, which kept the company open to opportunities others missed.
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