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- #32: How to be lucky
#32: How to be lucky
Shem Opolot
August 11, 2023
Hi! Welcome to The Friday Fix! You’re reading this because you probably stumbled upon this post somewhere on the internet instead of where it should be—in your inbox. But no worries; we can fix that.
Who am I? I’m Shem Opolot, a health professional turned content creator, passionate about helping people be their best selves in life and work.
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I have over 10 years of work experience in healthcare, program management, and data analytics on two continents. So, I know a little about helping you work smarter
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I’ll occasionally make you laugh
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Happy Friday 🎉 Three things:
Every week, 2 hours after the newsletter drops, approximately 100 of you have already read it! This gives me SO much joy. One day, I’ll reward you (read point #2)
I finished recording my first online course this week, and I’m excited and nervous. ‘Tis for you busy individuals juggling side hustles who want to be more organized but feel daunted by spreadsheets. ‘Tis for you who want to save tons of time at work and get promoted. ‘Tis for you. And as a reward, all TFF subscribers will get a generous discount to own the course (and all future updates). Everyone else will pay through their noses
This weekend is the 50th anniversary of Hip-Hop, and I can’t think of anything else in my life that holds so much influence and yet so little relevance. So, to celebrate, I’m going to try to sneak popular rap lyrics into every story in Monday’s issue of TLDR Weekly. But let’s start with words (and a great lesson in the power of punctuation) from the world’s most famous trophy husband, Shawn Carter, aka Jay Z:
“I’m not a businessman; I’m a business, man.”
Estimated read time: 5 minutes
💡 1 thing I've learned
How to be lucky
Source: GIPHY
This is the story about how my dad became the luckiest man in the world.
Do you know how your parents met?
Mine met at a candy store near the rolling hills of Gisu land. Or was it the towering rocks of Tororo? The dry plains of Soroti, maybe? Memory is a fickle mistress.
It was somewhere in Eastern Uganda over 40 years ago.
And by candy store, I mean a confectionery. Okay, okay, it was one of those neighborhood kiosks that sells everything: matchboxes, beer, condoms, hangers, lamp wicks, and... sweets. The kind of diversity and inclusion humanity can only dream of.
Dad, sporting an afro, a nose as wide as his lips, and 100% of the swag he doled out to me, went to buy candy from the neighborhood kiosk. And that’s where he met mum: tall and slender with a puffy afro tamed only by a hair band, full shiny cheeks propped up by her smile, and the famous red mini skirt Namasagali made famous.
Dad saw mum, and it was curtains. He probably said ‘hi’ while staring at mum, searching her face for cues that conveyed consent. And mum, suddenly preoccupied with everything and nothing, probably regarded dad’s sharp jawline briefly, and smirked coyly before staring at her shoes.
Okay, who are we kidding? The glare from mum’s mum (Kuku, we called her) probably paralyzed both of them. Whatever untoward intentions they had would be conceived in the confectionery but cultivated away from Kuku’s omniscient gaze.
The first encounter in the candy shop, which disrupted dad’s dreams and his midterms, was by chance. But every encounter after that (and many there were), dad created his own luck by showing up and stacking the stones of love like he was playing a game of kwepena.
My father’s youngest son is typing this, so dad’s luck turned into love.
***
Was I lucky to get my current job, or did I see a gap and drafted a proposal to fill that gap? Was I lucky to moderate panels, or did I post videos on YouTube that drove clients to my DMs?
Was I lucky when I met my wife? Ok, that one, yes. I was lucky.
But luck isn’t for the lucky.
Luck is:
—for those who show up.
—for those who treat life as an experiment and keep trying.
—for those who put themselves out there.
Luck is a skill that can be learned.
Recently, while frustrated about things outside my control, my friend told me to ‘prepare for the rain’.
Edit your CV. Write an opinion piece in your field and post it on LinkedIn with that cringe robotic language. Post a video about something you’re an expert in. Send that risky text.
Put yourself out there. Prepare for the rain.
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🎁 My favorite things
A quote
There is no such thing as a natural death: nothing that happens to a man is ever natural, since his presence calls the world into question. All men must die: but for every man his death is an accident and, even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation
Two articles
If you’re remotely interested in philosophy, this racked my brain
A post
How to know you’re working on a worthwhile problem
🚀 Pro tip
Sharing files from Google Workspace the right way.
While working in Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc.), you’ll notice a large “Share” button in the top right corner of the screen:
That button allows you to share your file with others for collaboration. You can make people editors, commenters, or viewers.
But this isn’t what I’m teaching you today.
What if someone loved your document so much that they wanted a copy of it?
1. In your browser, select the link to the current file by clicking Ctrl + L on a PC or ⌘ + L on a Mac, and copy the link, and paste it anywhere where you can edit it.
My browser (Arc) looks different, but the same instructions should work in yours
2. Select the tail section of the link starting from the word ‘edit’, replace the entire tail section with the word ‘copy’, and copy (Ctrl + C on PC or ⌘ + C on Mac) the new link (DON’T ADD ANY SPACES; JUST TYPE ‘COPY’)
3. Share the new link with whomever you’d like to give a copy of your file. When the recipient clicks on the link, it’ll prompt them to make a copy
Done.
💡 Bonus tip: You can share your file in preview mode by replacing the ‘edit’ tail section of the original link of the file with ‘preview’ instead of ‘copy’.
🧩 Where fun goes to flourish
The Friday Fix playlist
Brain teaser
From Braingle.
Can you figure out the logic I used to decide the order of the following words:
gun, shoe, spree, door, hive, kicks, heaven, gate, line, den
Answer below
Shem’s picks
🏙 If you can name a lot of cities, you’ll love this game
🛜 The last internet cafes in the world (Spoiler alert: Ug makes the list)
🔭 A timeline for the far future
Brain teaser answer
Answer:
Each word rhymes with its numeric position in the list. (e.g. "gun" rhymes with "one", etc.)
Have a great weekend,
— Shem
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