On Getting Lucky

If you are keen on ensuring rationality prevails in your outlook towards life, one of the first realizations you will have to come to terms with is how important a role "luck" has to play in how our life pan out.

Warren Buffett who easily is one of the most rational beings on earth once said in an interview that he won an ovarian lottery by being born in the United States. With the United States being the largest economy in the world and having a GDP per capita of about 65,000USD, it is hard to fault that claim.

This does not only apply to nations or countries, it also applies to the kind of family you land in as a baby. Some are simply either born lucky, while some are not.

The good thing though is as you progress in life, there is a third alternative - you can be intentional about getting lucky, thereby, possibly changing the fortune, fate, and 'luck quotient' of your lineage. "Intentional" because the first step to improving your luck as you progress through life is by acknowledging that it exists.

Lately, I have been reading a book titled, "How to Get lucky" by Max Gunther. This book basically shares 13 techniques for discovering and taking advantage of life's good breaks.

It is a very insightful book and I thought to share with you my thoughts on one of the techniques I gleaned from the book.

FINDING THE FAST FLOW

It really is very pleasant for someone to pick up the phone and say to you, "Hey Temitope, there’s a job opening that sounds as if it might be your kind of thing."

Have you ever had the above words said to you? If you have, you probably are already in the fast flow and building a lot of weak links.

One of the 13 Techniques that caught my fancy is: "Go where events flow fastest. Surround yourself with a churning mass of people and things happening."

This technique suggests that consistently lucky people are nearly always found in the fast flow. Simply put, men and women find good luck by positioning themselves where events are flowing fastest. People who get dead-ended are very often people who allow themselves to become isolated.

Another way to look at it is using a hermit as a case study. You really would find it extremely difficult to find a rich hermit. It is easy. If you’re a hermit, nothing ever happens in your life. If you’re the opposite of a hermit, things happen.

The worst thing you can do is withdraw from the network of friendships and acquaintanceships at home and work. If you aren’t in the network, nobody is ever going to steer anything your way.

And the most beautiful thing about this is you do not have to establish a strong tie with everyone in your network because that really would be impossible. Being in the fast flow largely means forming as many weak ties as possible.

Weak ties; that is where the juice is, but its power is one of the less well-understood phenomena of human society. Weak links are often links with people whom you genuinely would like to have more contact with but lack a reason to do so, and maintaining these weak connections is not heavily resource-consuming either.

If you want to read more on finding the fast flow, generating more weak ties or learn more about the 13 techniques shared in the book on how to get lucky, do well to get a copy. You would surely find it very enlightening.

Have an amazing week ahead.