🍀 Luck Isn’t Coming. Build It Yourself.
If you're always the one getting passed over, it’s NOT bad luck. It’s a fixable system problem.
👋 Happy Saturday, my dear UX friends, Marina here!
A old mentee wrote to me last week—
“I feel like I’m doing everything right, but I keep getting passed up. It’s like I’m just not lucky.”
And if I’m honest, I hear a version of this quite frequently.
Smart, capable UXers.
With great performance reviews.
Reliable. Collaborative. Impactful.
Yet somehow… when promotions are handed out, they’re not even in the running.
If that’s you, let’s cut through the noise and get to what’s really going on.
Because what you’re calling luck? It’s often just invisible value.
Let’s (Re)define Luck
Tech philosopher Naval Ravikant says there are 4 levels of “luck”.
Most UXers are stuck in the first.
The ones who rise build the other three.
Level 1. Blind Luck
👉 The random kind.
You meet someone at a party.
Your resume lands in the right stack.
A recruiter messages you out of nowhere.
You can’t engineer this.
So stop waiting for it.
Level 2. Luck from Hustle
👉 You get “lucky” because you’re hustling.
You share your work. You speak up in meetings.
You build visibility on purpose, so when someone’s looking for a lead, YOUR name is already in the air.
Level 3. Luck from Your Edge
👉 You’re so good at something specific, people seek you out for it.
This is when you hear:
“We need someone like her.”
…and someone else says,
“I know exactly who.”
Level 4. Luck from Your Unique Lens
👉 You’ve developed judgment, pattern recognition, and insight others don’t have.
You think in ways others don’t.
Now you’re not just part of execution.
You’re shaping direction.
So here’s the hard truth:
If you’re not getting promoted…
It’s probably not a skill problem.
It’s a visibility system problem.
Most UXers treat career growth like a meritocracy.
”Work hard, do great design, and someone will notice….”
But promotions reward:
✅ The people who shape narratives
✅ The ones who show business impact
✅ The names that come up in decision rooms before the roles are even posted
So if you feel stuck, it’s time to stop asking:
"Why am I not lucky?"
And start asking:
"What kind of luck am I building?"
A UX Career Visibility Framework ↴
“LUCK”
This is the approach I use with senior UXers who feel stuck in place:
L → Look for Pattern Breaks
Career growth is rarely linear in big orgs.
It’s a system of signals, politics, and perception.
🟡 Who does get promoted around you?
🟡 What changed before that happened?
🟡 Were they assigned to more visible projects? Given stretch opportunities?
Most UXers who feel “unlucky” never map the real promotion game.
They’re playing the wrong sport.
U → Uncover Your Edge
You don’t need to be great at everything.
You need to be undeniably good at one thing others rely on.
→ Are you the dot-connector between disciplines?
→ Are you known for spotting risk before anyone else?
→ Do people count on you to simplify complexity?
→ Are you the person who turns vague goals into real clarity?
The edge isn’t just skill.
It’s trust. Judgment. Repeatable results.
If you’re not known for anything, you’re skipped over for everything.
C → Create Noise Around Wins
If no one knows what problem you solved, they’ll assume someone else did.
This isn’t about bragging. It’s about constructing shared memory.
🌟 In retrospectives
🌟 In 1:1s
🌟 In team demos
🌟 In year-end reviews
Use simple reframes:
“We were on track to miss the deadline, but when I…”
“That friction point we removed? It had a 26% drop in support tickets.”
“Here’s what was at risk and how I helped mitigate it.”
You're not just telling what you did.
You're showing why it mattered.
K → Keep Moving Where You’re Valued
Sometimes you’re not unlucky.
You’re just under-recognized in a system that doesn’t reward your kind of thinking.
And staying in that system out of loyalty?
It’s a slow career death.
🟢 Look for signals of growth:
Are you being offered high-trust projects?
Do your leads advocate for you behind closed doors?
Is there a clear next step—or just vague encouragement?
When there’s no ladder, stop trying to climb it.
Build one elsewhere.
⚡️ Real Talk:
The “luckiest” designers I’ve coached weren’t “lucky”.
They just learned how to—
✅ Spot the system
✅ Make their edge undeniable
✅ Tell the story of their impact
✅ Walk away when the ceiling was real
And once they did, their careers stopped stalling, and started compounding.
→ Your Next Action Steps:
Reflect on your last 3 major UX wins.
Then ask yourself:
Who benefited?
Who knows?
What changed because of it?
How can I make that story travel further?
If your answers are vague, you don’t need a new design system.
You need a new visibility system.
Luck isn’t coming. Build it yourself.
And when you do—
You’ll look back and realize it was never luck at all.
See you next Saturday!
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I deeply believe that luck, like randomness, doesn’t exist. It’s only a convergence of things that specifically produce the situation, and you could always, at least 1%, influence the outcome, whether as a product leader or just a product designer.
As always a well authored piece and framework Marina. The advice and suggestions truly resonated.
The randomness part for me is being in the right place at the right time helps immensely as a launch pad followed by doing what it takes for visibility and taking leaps to resolve real problems.