The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “luck” as ” an event or circumstance that works for or against a person. “
It is easy to identify good and bad luck:
- It is good luck to bet on red and have the ball land on Red 23,
- The ball rolling into Red 23 and then ricocheting back to Black 10 is bad luck.
- It’s good luck to strike up a chat with the girl sitting next to you at a cafe, without realizing she might one day become your wife.
- A multi-vehicle accident on the highway can make you late for an interview.
It is difficult to quantify luck.
Did tech-focused investors who outperformed in the past 13 years have an alpha-generating plan, or were they simply lucky enough to make a bet at a time when interest rates and valuations were rising?
Tom Brady is unquestionably the GOAT. But would he have achieved the same level of success if Drew Bledsoe had not sustained a near fatal injury during Brady’s second year with the Patriots in 2008?
I don’t know. It’s impossible to quantify luck because it is impossible to compare the outcome of what happened with all the possible alternatives that might have occurred.
We can agree that even though cannot measure, having more luck is good. you may not believe it, but we can create our own luck.
All of us have a “luck area” that covers all our possible opportunities to be lucky. This is not a static area, but a malleable one. As the luck surface area increases, so does our “luck”.
What is the best way to increase your chances of winning? I’ll give you an internet example.
My little finance blog was growing steadily, adding five new subscribers every day. One day, as I was visiting a history gallery in Oxford, England I checked my email to see that 120 new subscribers had signed up for Young Money within the past two hours.
I first thought that my blog had a glitch. I hadn’t reached 120 new subscribers in the month of October and now, I was able to do it all in one day. What happened?
After checking Twitter I discovered that Michael Batnick and Josh Brown gave one of my recent articles a shout-out in their popular the Compound and Friends Podcast, and that now, that piece is exploding.
The five dumbest methods you could have used to hit the jackpot by 2021
It was a satirical article that poked fun at everything from GameStops to NFTs. But I almost did not write it. When I was actually working on something lamer, about a possible change to the capital gains tax when I saw notBoring founder Packy McCormick tweeting a joke, about how wealthy one could become by making five stupid financial decisions every year.
Then I wrote the satirical masterpiece and sent it to him.
What happened next? Packy liked it. He liked it so much that he even shared it on his timeline.
Packy, a popular writer at the time with over 100,000 followers, was also praised by Michael and Josh who mentioned the article on their podcast.
It doesn’t end there. Next day, MarketWatch, which is one of the most trusted sources of financial information, sent me an email asking if I would like them to republish my article on their website. Naturally, I replied, “Hell Yes!” Their shoutout brought me 250 new subscribers the next week.
This post brought in almost 400 new subscribers, a 55% increase in readership overnight. You could say I was lucky. I didn’t know that Packy shared my article, Batnick and Brown gave me a shoutout or MarketWatch republished it.
I did change the odds in favor of. If I had written a blog on any other subject, it was unlikely that someone would read, share, and make it viral. But I didn’t write a regular blog on any other subject. I created a satirical blog post based on a tweet from a famous writer. I sent it to him in the hope that he’d enjoy it and perhaps share it. It worked.
Normaly, I would only publish to a small group of people each week.
This time I used Packy’s larger audience to my advantage.
From there, it was all downhill. Luck = creation.
It’s important to note that luck surface area doesn’t only apply in the digital world. It’s more important in the real-world, because you can make stronger connections in person.
After moving to New York I realized that 1) everyone lives there and 2) everyone else eventually visits New York.
As soon as I moved into the city, the frequency of serendipity visits me increased.
In August, after I announced that I would be moving to New York via Twitter, Liam Killingstad – a Twitter friend with whom I had previously only spoken on Zoom – messaged me asking where I was going. He said that he was close to Hell’s Kitchen and offered his help.
We’ve become friends and hang out regularly. We also want to work together on a joint project between his startup and my blog.
I had a similar encounter when Danny Miranda, the host of one of my favourite podcasts, texted to ask if I would like to grab coffee. Few weeks later I was on his podcast, and he is now one of my favorite people to bounce ideas off of.
Morgan Housel was one of my favourite finance writers. Our conversation was very valuable to me when I was planning my next career steps.
All of these meetings were they a result of luck? 100%. You get the picture. I had to be in the city at the time the other person was in town, or live in a nearby neighborhood. The odds of some of these meetings increasing exponentially if you live in New York.
I’m sure that I contributed to some of the luck.
All of these NYC stories have one thing in common – each relationship or connection began online.
Luck has different levels, and they compound. The odds of me connecting with interesting people on the internet increased when I was active on Twitter. As I moved to New York, the chances of some of these relationships deepening as we met in person increased. It was not guaranteed, but the odds were in my favor.
The idea of luck surface is applicable to all things. You have more chances to get a job if you attend a top-notch school. You have more chances to earn outsized returns if you invest in the market long-term. This list is endless.
