sammy

i used to just accept the fact that some people were "luckier" than me. it seemed as though they had the blessing of god by consistently finding bundles of serendipity around every corner.

"i got lucky" or "it happened because of luck" are common phrases we hear regularly. is it really true that so many people have just struck gold, and we need to wait our turn? i think not.

in this note, i am concerned with apparent luck. the moments we casually call "lucky" in everyday life, like acing a test or stumbling into a new opportunity. i am not discussing true luck, like the genetic lottery or accidents that lie entirely beyond human control.

serendipity is defined as:

the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

similarly, luck is defined as:

success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions.

the keyword in these sentences is "by chance", which in a statistical sense means that an outcome was produced from a process that includes randomness or uncertainty.

i believe we can fabricate "chance", or in other words, the likelihood of being lucky in our everyday lives. first, i want to highlight some recent examples i have observed in my life.

since i am in the tech entrepreneurship bubble here are some things i hear:

we just so happened to meet our investor at a coffee shop
our first big client signed because they happened to be looking for the solution we are building
an engineer responded to our tweet who ended up becoming our cto

some things i heard from friends recently:

i asked a question at a conference and a senior executive at a large firm approached me after
i met this really cool girl i have been going on dates with while i was studying at the library
my video went viral on tiktok and now brands are approaching me for partnerships

in all of these examples, and many of my own personal experiences, i think there are three emergent characteristics that make someone "lucky":

exposure to opportunity
skills needed to capture the opportunity
a curious, open minded approach to things

exposure is another way of saying finding ways to maximize your surface area to opportunity. i think this can come in the form of running into the "right" person at meetups, conferences, and coworking spaces. it could also mean increasing your online visibility by various means. i think the important thing is to deliberately vary your environment to increase the chance of serendipitous opportunities finding you.

preparedness means having the right technical skillset to not let an opportunity slip through the cracks. it is one thing to strike up a conversation with a potential investor on a plane, but it is another thing to be able to communicate an idea clearly or show a prototype to take advantage of the opportunity. i think the best way to be prepared is by reading and experimentation in the domain you are interested in.

the best mindset to have to increase luck is to be open minded and curious. these two qualities expand the aperture in which both opportunities and knowledge can enter. open mindedness keeps you from shutting doors early, and curiosity enables you to dig deeper on knowledge you wouldn't otherwise discover. this is the mindset required to actually make luck usable.

as an analytical thinker, this is the simple formula i use to model luck (l), as a function of exposure (e), preparedness (p), and mindset (m). it is just the product of the three variables:

L = (E \cdot P)^M

without exposure to opportunities or the preparation to capture them, luck is almost nonexistent. when you are well prepared and actively open to opportunities, your luck increases significantly. and when both of these are paired with the right mindset, the effect is amplified even further, dramatically raising the likelihood of serendipity.

this has been a reflective piece to stay open to opportunities by deliberately stepping into new and uncomfortable environments, and to continue to sharpen my skills by reading and building projects.

fabricated serendipity