In this essay called how much luck could you create in 30 days, I wrote about how one of the best ways to intentionally become luckier and increase the likelihood of serendipity occurring in your life, is by setting yourself a “30 day delusional self-belief experiment”. I’m a big fan of creating mini experiments for myself in order to rewire limiting beliefs more easily without committing to an intimidating all-around personality change overnight; framing something as a small challenge or experiment, with a clear timeframe, has helped me build new habits and then stick to them a lot more easily. So, inspired by that, I shared my “delusional self-belief” experiment with you all on Substack, and it also reached more than a million people over on my social media.
This experiment was born from the realisation that all of the most incredible things that have happened in my life, the most life-changing opportunities, were a result of me shooting an absolutely delusional shot that had no reason to work out, except sometimes it did. And we’re talking very delusional. Let me share a couple of examples to paint the picture:
When I was 20 years old, I heard that my home country, Greece, had hired someone to rebrand the country. I was fascinated by the concept of nation branding: in the same way as people create brand identities for companies and products, they do the same for entire countries. They’d be working on Greece’s branding, design, marketing strategy, positioning. I thought it sounded like so much fun. At the time, I was an Art History student at university. I was working part time jobs in social media marketing, and just a month prior, had launched my little Gen Z marketing agency into the world as well. So, I had one or two credentials but nothing major by any means.
Enter: Delusion. I wanted to work on this project and was not going to pre-reject myself without even trying. So, I sent an email to the person in charge, explained why I was interested in joining their team, and mentioned my little industry credentials. I didn’t expect a response, but you guessed it, I got one: they invited me into their office for a meeting and, after a long chat, ended up asking me to join their team as the person responsible for developing the social media strategy for the country. What! I spent the next three months working on one of the most fun and interesting projects I’ve worked on to this day, getting to come up with an entire social media strategy for my home country as a 20 year old. I was given the trust and responsibility of something like this just because someone believed in me, but they wouldn’t have been able to do that, had I not put myself out there completely delusionally in the first place. It’s an opportunity I am still immensely grateful six years later, and it reminds me that we set our own limits of what we’re allowed to aim for, and forget to ever try expanding them.
Another example that I’ve written about before is how I got on Forbes 30 Under 30 by nominating myself. Now, let me debunk a couple myths first: No, you can’t pay to be on the list, and no, it is not the milestone that will completely change your life and career. But in my industry as a young female founder, I quickly learned that the default state of people was to underestimate my work; I’d be leading a 20-person team, and people would still be assuming that the company was just me by myself, or that it was “my little project” (heard that one too many times!) although we were working with clients such as Pepsi, IKEA, Deloitte. So, any credential that translates as extra credibility in the industry, is definitely more than welcome. So, at 23, I nominated myself for the list for the second time, and miraculously, I got it. It still feels like a miracle because the imposter syndrome never truly goes away, but it also felt like a massive vote of confidence from the universe that the work I was doing was finally getting taken seriously by the outside world. Seeing my name alphabetically in the “Youngest” category, right next to Erling Haaland, is still the funniest pinch-me moment and screenshot in my camera roll. You don’t need to have zero imposter syndrome to go for things that seem unrealistic; you just need to put the doubts aside and do it anyway, and let the world show you what’s possible and expand what you believe you’re capable of. You can only expand that sense of perceived possibility by actively pushing its edges. If it doesn’t feel a little uncomfortable, you’re not pushing it enough.
Finally, and forgive me if you’ve heard this story before on my Instagram, I have another example to give you before I go into the details of this experiment for you. Last year, I was getting ready to go see one of my favourite musicians, Alice Phoebe Lou, at her sold-out London show. Those days, I was really into music photography and creative direction, and was building a portfolio of passion projects. I focused on photography that created dream-like scenes and had an ethereal element to it. I thought that my photography style matched really well with Alice Phoebe Lou’s aesthetic, her dreamy editing and the energy of her music. So, a couple hours before the show, I spontaneously replied to her Instagram story:
I sent it and forgot about it, it was honestly completely spontaneous and I had given it no thought. Half an hour later, I checked my Instagram, and…
What. Keep in mind, my photography account that I sent this from had less than 1,000 followers, nothing fancy, I wasn’t an influencer or anything in any way. There’s no reason why she would have seen this message let alone replied, but miraculously, she did. She ended up giving me a media pass, and I had one of the best nights of my life. I saw her live standing right in front of the stage, over the barricade, next to a seasoned photographer from Getty Images. I had to laugh at my situation and wonder how I had ended up there. Long story short, I took a ton of photos, edited them and sent them to her the very same night right after the show. She ended up posting just my photos as a carousel, tagging and crediting me. It was honestly an insane opportunity for me at that time, as I was feeling really committed to doing more music photography and building that hobby of mine up into something more credible, so something like this was a big step forward. All because I replied to her story and asked, which it would have been very easy not to do at all, to have told myself “you know she won’t reply, so why bother?”.
I have dozens of stories like this, in my life and career. Things that seem like luck from the outside, but were actually the result of shooting my shot for things that all odds were against. Now imagine what would happen if we did this for 30 days straight. One of these shots, every single day. By the end of that month, the amount of incredible, “lucky” opportunities coming your way would be genuinely life-changing. We might all do this from time to time, but what happens when we do it in a structured, concentrated effort?
When I posted about this experiment on Instagram and TikTok, the most commonly asked question I got was: can you give me some instructions / clear guidelines to run this experiment with? Where do I start? What are some ideas of delusional shots I can try? So, I'm writing this today to share some helpful points for anyone that wants to try this experiment in their own life. Below, I’ll be sharing the simple rules I use when I run this challenge in my own life, as well as some ideas to inspire you if you get stuck on things you can do!
And if you’re not sure about trying it, pause for a second and ask yourself why not? What’s the fear or doubt stopping you? If something relatively simple (the only obstacle being the mental doubts that often stand in our way) can significantly create more luck in your life, more opportunities and exciting moments, while at the same time expanding your sense of self-belief, why not try it? So, I hope you’ll join me – and I can’t wait to see where you are in 30 days.
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