

What Lucky People Do Different - glenstansberry
http://www.jonathanfields.com/blog/what-lucky-people-do-differently/

======
sosuke
I loved his disclosure at the end.

"You should always assume that pretty much every link on this blog is an
affiliate link and that if you click it, find something you like and buy it,
I'm gonna make some serious money. Now, understand this, I'm not talking chump
change, I'm talking huge windfall in commissions, bling up the wazoo and all
sorts of other free stuff. I may even be given a mansion and a yacht, though
honestly I'd settle most of the time for some organic dark chocolate and clean
socks. Oh, and if I mention a book or some other product, just assume I got a
review copy of it gratis and that me getting it has completely biased
everything I say. Because, books are like a drug to me, put one in my hand and
you own my ass. Ethics be damned! K, you've been warned. Huggies and
butterflies."

------
pg
"Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in
college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later."

I've found this particularly true. As long as you're working on something
interesting and difficult, you're probably not wasting your time, even if you
can't see yet where it leads. It will be an ingredient in something.

~~~
kristofferR
Yeah, this is true. However - it is important to not confuse this with the
idea of destiny or faith. The dots would probably connect just as well with
completely different choices(dots). This could have resulted in a completely
different life, but not necessarily any less true/right than where the dots
have taken you so far.

I'm just 20 years old and still have a lot of dots to "do" - connecting them
will come later in life when I can see where my choices/dots have brought me.
This is both exhilarating and frustrating.

I've not made big enough choices to steer me down a certain path yet so I can
spend my life doing anything imaginable (from chopping trees in Alaska to
founding a F500 company to living on the street). However, not matter what I
want to do/archive in life, I can't see the perfect path there. I can't
predict the future, I can only look back at the past and connect the dots from
there. No matter how correct I do things I'll probably end up in a different
situation that what I imagined when I started the journey.

I'm beginning to understand that the planned destination in my life is not the
important thing, the journey is. As long as I do my best and work hard on
something I enjoy, I'll probably end up in a good situation. It might be
completely different from what I dream about now, but I'm confident that it
will be a good destination nevertheless.

~~~
keiferski
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."

------
krschultz
The problem with the cliche "look in the mirror and ask yourself if you are
happy doing what you are doing today knowing you could die tomorrow", is that
for any day I'm not spending the entire time with family & friends, the answer
is NO. You can be sure if I was dieing tomorrow I'd not go to work and spend
the whole day lieing on the beach. Unfortunately you _can't_ do what you'd do
on your last day on earth, because it doesn't pay the bills. And it is kind of
a trivializing question for those who _are_ facing their last day on earth,
which I might be somewhat sensitive to because one of the engineers in my
company lost his fight with cancer this morning.

So far better to ask the question: "is what I'm doing today getting me closer
to my career goals?", becuase the conclusion to that (less melodramatic)
question might actually yield actionable results.

~~~
pg
He's proposing this as a test, not as a recipe. He's not saying "do what you'd
do if this day was your last," but rather "consider what you're about to do,
and measure how close it is to what you'd do if this day were your last."

------
bhangi
Whenever I see these kind of articles, two words run through my mind: survivor
bias.

I'm also unconvinced by the John Galt argument that if Steve Jobs had not
taken calligraphy courses, we would not have nice typefaces on computers
today. After all, typography predates the Mac and it would have been only a
matter of time before someone else figured it out. If you don't believe this,
look at practically every major discovery / invention in the past few
centuries -- in almost every case more than one researcher / scientist /
dilletante was working on something similar. The lucky one was the one who got
there first.

~~~
stretchwithme
Its only a matter of time before everything is figured out.

There have been major discoveries and inventions where more than one person or
team were trying to solve a known problem. But is there proof that it is the
case "practically every" time?

~~~
nitrogen
The book _What Technology Wants_ by Kevin Kelly (I've got about 40 pages left
in it) makes a compelling argument that it is (though it falls short of
"proof," which may be impossible in this case).

~~~
stretchwithme
Yeah, I think you'd have to track every innovation there ever was. And that
could take a whole weekend.

------
mcantor
"The harder I work, the luckier I seem to be." - Thomas Edison

From this, I take "hard work" to mean _working mindfully_ , not "counting
photographs" as in the article. To work and live mindfully is to do each thing
as if you did nothing else: you are fully present in each moment, drinking in
your surroundings without judgment or abstraction. A hundred trees are not a
hundred trees--each one is a new experience, with different patterns in its
bark and different rustling in its leaves. To use the article's example, a
party is not a "party". To the "lucky" person, to the mindful person, they are
not "at a party"; they are simply talking, laughing, connecting.

I strive for this kind of mindset, and grasp it sometimes. Like zen, the
harder you try to hold on to it, the quicker it slips away. At least, I can
always look at the trappings of my privileged middle-class life and know that,
for these things, I am lucky, and that helps me stay mindful.

------
nicpottier
Ok, this one is a bit funny, but I swear, one of the movies I think everybody
should watch and take to heart is "Yes Man".

I know, I know, you are thinking WTF, Jim Carrey is the messiah? (no that's
Bruce Almighty)

But it illustrates an important point, a point that I think software engineers
are far too likely get trapped into because of our particular makeups. Which
is that risk, spontaneity, just going for it, is what life is all about. And
the crazy situations those experiences put you in will make you a richer
person, both figuratively and literally.

The quote from the article about the party pretty much nails it. Just go with
it, say yes to most everything, stop over thinking and go for it.

~~~
say_
The usefulness of this kind of advice depends on the context. Someone who is
in a rich environment for new experiences and opportunities, like college,
would benefit from not over thinking. On the other hand, someone who is trying
to get into college needs to be very discriminating in order to avoid the
pitfalls of bad information(from parents, counselors, advocates for various
for profit schools, etc) or short term temptations.

Also, I have to nitpick the party example:

 _“Unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on
looking for something else. They go to parties intent on finding their perfect
partner, and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through the
newspaper determined to find certain job advertisements and, as a result, miss
other types of jobs. Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see
what is there, rather than just what they are looking for.”_

What about the people who go into something knowing what they want, and end up
getting it? Too often the final judgement of a decision is made after the
situation is resolved, with the benefit of perfect information, and not the
limited information the person actually had.

------
emehrkay
I've been living heavily by the mantra "Luck is when opportunity meets
preparedness," and it has been serving me very well. Anytime anyone brings up
luck, I tend to point out how that person was ready for that phase in life.

This is one of the key things that I teach to my son (and the fact that talent
can be interpreted as a deep understanding of a subject) so that he'll see
that he has some since of control over his path in life and everything isn't
decided by some outside, unknown force. I'd feel like I would have failed as a
parent if I ever hear him utter "Man that guy is so lucky, wish it were me."

I think that this article illustrates those two points very well, just look at
every "lucky" occurrence and you'll see an opportunity with someone that is
prepared to take advantage of it (even lottery winners :).

~~~
rick888
I find that the people that attribute success to "luck" aren't willing to
through the sacrifice and hard work to make it happen.

------
dalenkruse
One of my favorite quotes is this:

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." -- Seneca

~~~
wallflower
Seneca and Stoicism might be interesting to the HN crowd:

“There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living; there is
nothing harder to learn.” -Seneca

" Emotions like anxiety and fear have their roots in uncertainty and rarely in
experience. Anyone who has made a big bet on themselves knows how much energy
both states can consume. The solution is to do something about that ignorance.
Make yourself familiar with the things, the worst-case scenarios, that you’re
afraid of.

Practice what you fear, whether a simulation in your mind or in real-life.

Then you, your company, and your employees will have little left to keep you
from thinking and acting big."

The downside is almost always reversible or transient.

[http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/04/13/stoicism-101...](http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/04/13/stoicism-101-a-practical-
guide-for-entrepreneurs/)

------
sayemm
Good read, thanks for posting. Best post on this before was by Paul Buchheit
"Serendipity finds you" -
[http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2010/10/serendipity-
finds-y...](http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2010/10/serendipity-finds-
you.html)

------
hoag
I agree completely with this article. Every year that goes by, I'm absolutely
staggered at the ridiculous luck, serendipity, whatever you want to call it,
that I have experienced in all aspects of my life. And I definitely attribute
it to having an open and light-hearted (yet focused) approach to life: I have
just always believed that if you do your part, the right thing will present
itself. You just have to recognize it when it happens.

I guess you could say, then, that I've always followed a sort of hybrid
Panglosian/Yodan approach to life: i.e., be positive, everything really is for
the best, and be focused in the present, while keeping an open mind and
"letting go" towards the future.

Indeed, when I look back on what I had once perceived to be the worst,
"darkest hours" of my life, I see now that they turned out to be the very best
things that could have happened to me.

~~~
powerslave12r
Your comments confuse me. I have experienced both phases of life - lucky and
unlucky as in the article. My darkest hours were during the "unlucky" mindset
and I indeed consider them the best days, but I don't see what you're trying
to say.

If you claim the best hours were the darkest, are you saying you were in the
lucky mindset during those?

~~~
hoag
Dude. Talk about over-analysis fail. I wasn't really saying anything
complicated. All I was trying to explain was that, because I've always
approached life so positively and with an open mind, even those times that
_seemed_ "darkest" -- in quotes, no less! -- I simply pushed on, positively,
and assumed they would be for the best.

And they were. Hence, I was lucky. As always.

------
baggachipz
-ly. DifferentLY.

~~~
hoag
Agreed. I guess some people (and companies) just like to "Think Different.™"
:)

~~~
baggachipz
Yes, but that's a clever double-entendre in which they encourage thinking
differentLY, as well as encourage you to think about their product, which is
(supposedly) different. Aaaaand now that I've killed the joy in this, exit...
stage left! _poof_

~~~
nitrogen
I find that analyzing and explaining a joke, phrase, or idiom increases the
joy I derive from it. I only wish everyone else agreed.

------
glenstansberry
I read something by Richard Branson that said--and I'm paraphrasing--that
everyone is given about the same amount of luck. It's all about what we do
with the luck when it falls in our lap.

Fantastic article.

~~~
idlewords
What else would you expect a very lucky person to believe? For any successful
person it's much more gratifying to think you got where you are by being
awesome than by being lucky.

------
delackner
I'm having conflicting reactions to this article on a few levels. I notice
that the entire content of it is simply the cross product of two articles that
I read months or years ago, and as soon as he started I was already wondering
"is he going to bring up the newspaper experiment...".

So sure enough the whole thing reads exactly as I'd expect. But then I wonder,
perhaps it is a sign of my advanced information-hoarding instinct that I have
hoovered (dysoned?) up so many of these sort of studies and speeches and
clever counterintuitive articles. A mind made up of a vast store of useless
factoids.

Finally I throw my hands up and resolve that I am glad to see that this
article at least will hopefully expose more people to some very good ideas on
living well.

------
tobylane
Meh, I preferred the old playboy interview with him in 1985,
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:77cJqxW...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:77cJqxWbh8AJ:www.playboy.co.uk/print/print-
article/item77251/+http://www.playboy.co.uk/print/print-
article/item77251/&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=opera)

Here's the Standford 2005 talk the article mentions
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc>

------
mak120
I was recently asked "Why did you learn <language X>, especially when there
was no scope for its use in your career at the time?". I found out it was an
almost impossible to understand concept for the asker.

Most people are so obsessed with counting the pictures, they cannot imagine
someone doing something else.

------
kalendae
a subtle but important distinction has to be made. the experiment mentioned in
the blog shows a correlation between people who claim they are lucky and the
fact they found a text snippet. not people who are lucky (if that is even
possible). it could very well be caused by the fact that a test subject just
told people they were lucky so psychologically they behave differently. if the
experiment had been setup with no 'lucky finds' the ones claiming to be lucky
could all take longer because they were less focused on the counting.

to then tie the subject of steve jobs who is very successful to this finding
and attributing the success to being spontaneous seems to jump quite a bit in
logic that is not supported by the experiment.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Yes. They were not actually lucky. Because "lucky" means magic, and magic
doesn't exist.

So of course the test was of people with different psychology. That was
exactly the point.

------
jmtame
I have been looking for the original research done using the newspaper for a
while now. I remember reading about it before and I always wanted to refer
back to it but never found it. Glad to read this again.

~~~
gwern
I've been reading the ebook of Wiseman's book, _The Luck Factor_. It's quite
interesting, and Wiseman includes a few exercises where the reader can fall
into the same trap (hopefully I haven't spoiled anything by mentioning them).

