3 ms·

Poor title. Increasing the role of luck in your life has no upsides. You should do everything possible to reduce lucks role in your life as it can't be relied u

Poor title. Increasing the role of luck in your life has no upsides. You should do everything possible to reduce lucks role in your life as it can't be relied upon and you can only (and have to) plan for bad luck.

kulahan 1y ago
Luck isn’t real anyways. It’s actually all about getting yourself in front of opportunities as often as possible, learning to recognize when they show up, and acting on them ASAP. That’s all it is. I consider myself extremely lucky, but that’s just another way of saying I’ve seen a lot of the opportunities in my life and consciously decided which to chase, rather than floating through the river of fate aimlessly.
- nlawalker 1y ago
  This article could have been called "How to increase your surface area for opportunities to find you", because that's another component. You still have to recognize them and act on them, but these behaviors can potentially get more of those opportunities "into the funnel". Scott Adams' book "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big" talks a lot about this, and is an enjoyable read, despite the author's current reputation.
jcalx 1y ago
As supplemental reading see "bulk positive randomness" as discussed here [0]. It is tempting, but fallacious, to imagine "luck" as a zero-sum, EV=0 (or worse) process across every domain of life, where all upside or alpha has long been arbitraged away. Yes, there are some domains where you want to minimize variance, like the distribution of transit times to the airport when you have a flight to catch, or the odds of being robbed in a bad neighborhood. But there are also many situations where meeting new people, trying new things, etc. have many upsides and few drawbacks, and for most people these are (1) common and (2) recognizable.

3 ms·

Poor title. Increasing the role of luck in your life has no upsides. You should do everything possible to reduce lucks role in your life as it can't be relied u

by eikenberry 1y ago

kulahan 1y ago
Luck isn’t real anyways. It’s actually all about getting yourself in front of opportunities as often as possible, learning to recognize when they show up, and acting on them ASAP. That’s all it is. I consider myself extremely lucky, but that’s just another way of saying I’ve seen a lot of the opportunities in my life and consciously decided which to chase, rather than floating through the river of fate aimlessly.
- nlawalker 1y ago
  This article could have been called "How to increase your surface area for opportunities to find you", because that's another component. You still have to recognize them and act on them, but these behaviors can potentially get more of those opportunities "into the funnel". Scott Adams' book "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big" talks a lot about this, and is an enjoyable read, despite the author's current reputation.
jcalx 1y ago
As supplemental reading see "bulk positive randomness" as discussed here [0]. It is tempting, but fallacious, to imagine "luck" as a zero-sum, EV=0 (or worse) process across every domain of life, where all upside or alpha has long been arbitraged away. Yes, there are some domains where you want to minimize variance, like the distribution of transit times to the airport when you have a flight to catch, or the odds of being robbed in a bad neighborhood. But there are also many situations where meeting new people, trying new things, etc. have many upsides and few drawbacks, and for most people these are (1) common and (2) recognizable.