It’s the first of the month, and in my family, that means one thing: Rabbit, Rabbit.
The tradition is simple—on the first day of each month, the first words out of your mouth should be “Rabbit, Rabbit.” If you do, you’ll have good luck for the rest of the month. Do I remember to say it every time? Of course not. But if something goes sideways the month I forget? You better believe I’m blaming it on forgetting.
We even say it instead of “Happy New Year” at midnight. It’s a ridiculous superstition, I know. But it gives me hope. It gives me a mindset that, at least for the next 30 days, something good is coming.
Why We Love Superstitions
Don’t walk under a ladder. Don’t let a black cat cross your path. Knock on wood. Hold your breath past a graveyard. Humans have always relied on rituals, omens, and little traditions to try to nudge fate in our favor.
We want to believe there are forces beyond us—some mysterious external variable that determines how things go. But the truth is usually simpler: most of our “luck” is within our control.
As the Stoic philosopher Seneca once said:
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
You can’t control when opportunity shows up. But you can control how ready you are when it does.
Luck as a Skill
Most people treat luck like a genetic trait—some people have it, some don’t. But what if we treated luck like a skill?
Just like attitude isn’t fixed (as I wrote in Attitude), luck can be trained too. It’s not a force you sit around waiting for—it’s a function of your daily habits, mindset, risk tolerance, and your ability to recognize opportunities when they show up.
People sometimes assume I got lucky. A great job at Apple. A teaching gig at a top business school like McCombs. And sure, maybe I said “Rabbit, Rabbit” those months I got accepted. But looking back—those dots didn’t connect by chance. Steve Jobs once said:
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
Trust is important. But so is being the one drawing the dots in the first place.
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Rabbit Rabbit as Mindset
Maybe saying “Rabbit, Rabbit” doesn’t actually affect the universe. But maybe it sets my mindset. A signal to my brain that good things are coming.
Like when you buy a new pair of shoes and suddenly notice everyone else wearing them. The world didn’t change—you just started paying attention. That’s what mindset does.
If you believe you only have bad luck, that’s all you’ll see. But if you believe good things are coming, you’ll start spotting the cracks of light.
We all need something to reset us. A little ritual. A superstition. A routine. Not because it changes fate—but because it changes us. It changes how we show up.
Even in hard seasons—when we’re in pain, grieving, or stuck—what we feed grows. If you feed despair, it deepens. If you feed hope, it builds.
At the end of the day, we all need hope. We need fresh starts. We need to believe that good things are still possible—and maybe just around the corner.
Hope shouldn’t be the plan. But it’s a damn good place to start.
Don't get captured, And don’t forget: Rabbit, Rabbit.
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