GETTING LUCKY
“luck is math. expand your surface area.”
The Lesson
Dr. Richard Wiseman studied luck and found: nobody is actually lucky. But people who EXPECT luck notice more opportunities. They have wider peripheral vision for chance. Making luck: (1) Follow energy. Go where things are happening. (2) Network. Your network is a dish picking up signals. (3) Skill stack. More skills = geometric increase in opportunities. (4) Fail forward. Try 10 things, 1 will work, but failures build your stack. (5) Try long shots. Low cost experiments with huge upside. (6) Expect luck. The expectation literally changes what you notice.
Real-World Example
A founder moves to SF (energy), goes to every meetup (network), learns sales AND engineering (skill stack), tries three startup ideas that fail (fail forward), keeps one crazy moonshot project going (long shot), and genuinely believes something will break their way (expect luck). This isn't magical thinking. It's math. Each variable expands the surface area for luck to land.
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