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Be more lucky

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Re: Be more lucky

#31

Post by tropdrop »

wdh505 wrote: post #6

Luck has been associated with "happiness" in many cultures across the last few thousand years. There is a concept of management accounting of "rewarding for b while hoping for a". I think the soft focus that allows for creativity helps "luck", but everyone who "knows better than you" wants to proud out good behavior by rewarding for b.

In support of this: in Russian, the adjective for "lucky" and "happy" is the same – schastlivyi.

Though a more precise variant that specifically means "lucky" exists (udachlivyi, meaning possessing greater chances), schastlivyi is more often used to describe a person, with the semantic content being that they are both happy and lucky.

For example, the famous Tolstoy quote about unhappy families being different and happy families all looking alike uses schastlivyi.

Re: Be more lucky

#32

Post by akamoonknight »

antisthenes wrote: post #29
IshanMi wrote: post #24

I remember someone telling me that they thought of luck as being as one of four kinds: - blind luck (which is what people usually mean by "luck") - stirring the pot (if you apply to 100 jobs you might get more "luck" than if you applied for just 10) - domain expertise (the more knowledge you have, the more opportunities you can spot that others might miss) - reputation (if you're the world's best painter then when pe…

So they just didn't know what luck was and invented their own definition to sound smart? 2 and 3 are definitely not luck, because it's affected by your actions. 4 can have partial luck, because people sometimes view you better or worse than you expect, and you can't predict your complete reputational outreach. 1 is the only definite piece of luck here, like being born to the right parents, or a stranger that you held…

It's funny because in that last sentence I think you're describing something like in the article. "Holding the door open" might not be something that people do to strictly have the potential to hold the door open for a CEO, but they definitely hit on that possibility more often than those who don't hold the door open at all. So is that "blind luck", or in the parent example (and i think sort of the articles) is that more along the lines of "stirring the pot"?

Re: Be more lucky

#33

Post by bryanrasmussen »

antisthenes wrote: post #29
IshanMi wrote: post #24

I remember someone telling me that they thought of luck as being as one of four kinds: - blind luck (which is what people usually mean by "luck") - stirring the pot (if you apply to 100 jobs you might get more "luck" than if you applied for just 10) - domain expertise (the more knowledge you have, the more opportunities you can spot that others might miss) - reputation (if you're the world's best painter then when pe…

So they just didn't know what luck was and invented their own definition to sound smart? 2 and 3 are definitely not luck, because it's affected by your actions. 4 can have partial luck, because people sometimes view you better or worse than you expect, and you can't predict your complete reputational outreach. 1 is the only definite piece of luck here, like being born to the right parents, or a stranger that you held…

If the stranger you held the door for being the CEO that offers you a job that is luck, but you would be stirring the pot if you were always super polite and held the door for everybody. This assumes that holding the door somehow led to the job offer which I think the original description assumes, based on how the English language generally works.

Aside from that in the stirring the pot scenario you apply to 10 jobs, two of them offer you jobs, one below market rate, one at market rate.

You stir the pot and apply to 100 jobs, 2 of which offer you jobs signficantly above market rate.

Stirring the pot is not strictly luck, but it is precursory to what is often described as luck and as such can often be described as a form of luck that you make yourself by adopting behaviors more likely to lead to lucky outcomes.

on edit: I see akamoonknight had the same thought I did, but didn't take as long to write the comment. Lucky.

Re: Be more lucky

#34

Post by n4r9 »

331c8c71 wrote: post #22
quadcore wrote: post #12

Robert Greene explains in a video his 48th law of power. The rule is there is no rule. Life is fluid he says. You've got to pickup the little clues, use your intuition and your gut feelings. This perfectly matches my experience of life. When you arrives in a situation with a premade plan and execute blindly, it often fails dramatically, even if on paper you did exactly what you were supposed to. Especially with peopl…

> Do you picture what a person must pull off to get that seat? It's unimaginable. On the other hand there is a seat that must be filled and hence there will be somebody taking that place. It's a zero sum game: if you win I lose. I would rate proving Poincare conjecture and that kind of thing much higher because its _not_ zero-sum and is a pure advancement.

I'm not sure what point you're making. Chess is zero-sum (modulo draws), but being world #1 is impressive.

Re: Be more lucky

#35

Post by doctor_eval »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #33
antisthenes wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they just didn't know what luck was and invented their own definition to sound smart? 2 and 3 are definitely not luck, because it's affected by your actions. 4 can have partial luck, because people sometimes view you better or worse than you expect, and you can't predict your complete reputational outreach. 1 is the only definite piece of luck here, like being born to the right parents, or a stranger that you held…

If the stranger you held the door for being the CEO that offers you a job that is luck, but you would be stirring the pot if you were always super polite and held the door for everybody. This assumes that holding the door somehow led to the job offer which I think the original description assumes, based on how the English language generally works. Aside from that in the stirring the pot scenario you apply to 10 jobs,…

Right. Stirring the pot is creating opportunities for luck to happen.

Re: Be more lucky

#36

Post by d--b »

My mum just finds 4-leaf clovers everywhere. It’s not serendipity, she looks for them, but she has the uncanniest ability to find them. Similarly my wife can spot animals in the wild like a drone, it’s insane. She’d be the woman on the boat saying “look! Dolphins!”. We go diving together and she sees 10 times the amount of stuff I can see.

I dont think this has anything to do with focusing or not, and letting things happen, or what not. Both my wife and my mom are extremely focused. This is something else entirely that’s hard-wired in the brain.

Re: Be more lucky

#37

Post by doctor_eval »

wiz21c wrote: post #14
diputsmonro wrote: post #7

Reminds me of the old phrase, "luck is when preparation meets opportunity". The strategies discussed in this article seem to maximize the "opportunity" side of that equation.

which makes you an opportunist.

Not necessarily. Just because one increases the chance that opportunities arise, does not imply that they are immoral or selfish.

Just as an obvious example, if you were looking for career opportunities to improve the lives of people, and you spent your time volunteering part-time in order to improve your chances of doing so full time, then accepting an opportunity in the space would hardly be opportunist.

Re: Be more lucky

#38

Post by sandspar »

I think of Charlie Munger's "good investment is knowing when it's wise to not diversify". The luckiest people I know tend to have a soft, scattered approach as advocated in the article, followed by striking hard and quadrupling down when they find something that works. Arnold Schwarzenegger is very lucky and he uses that strategy. "My genetics and frame are perfect for body building? Guess I'll quadruple down on it."

Re: Be more lucky

#39

Post by keybored »

I think my focus is hardening as I get older. This might also be why I find myself in situations now where I just can’t make sense of whatever hot garbage UI that tool X rearranged for no apparent reason. I have a lot of pattern recognition from using computers so much but my focus is sometimes so narrow that I will not see something that I might have if I softened my focus.

Re: Be more lucky

#40

Post by wnc3141 »

gosub100 wrote: post #16
Tade0 wrote: post #5

My personal experience is that quite often "luck" is just someone winning via statistics. After all, when you try something that has a 1% probability of success seventy times, it becomes a coin toss whether you succeed at least once. I was "lucky" with the apartment I bought because I've become obsessed with checking listings and at one point was doing it several times a day. Took eight months to find the right prope…

Can you help me understand those types of real estate markets? If they are sold immediately doesn't that mean the sellers are giving up substantial gains by not asking enough?

you see that with very high dollar listings. They sit on the market longer
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