Luck = (Passionate) Doing x (Effective) Telling
Back in 2016 I coined the term ‘serendipity surface’ which I defined as the inverse of an ‘attack surface’ when building software. In other words, you want to maximise your serendipity surface so that good and unexpected things happen to you. It’s something I discussed on the Artificiality podcast last year if you want to hear me discuss it further.
Tim Klapdor talks of a ‘serendipity engine’ and I guess Thought Shrapnel could be considered that for me. As part of my reading for this eclectic blog and newsletter, I came across this post on the Model Thinkers website on ‘The Surface Area of Luck’ which has no date, but was indexed by The Internet Archive for the first time in 2021.
There’s some good, actionable advice in it, as well as links for further exploration. It also includes the above image and, as we know, all good ideas require an image :)
Luck, by definition, is about chance, but it’s not totally out of your control. So why not use this model to increase your chance of luck?
The Surface Area of Luck, or your chance of being lucky, is equivalent to the action you take towards your passion, multiplied by the number of people you effectively communicate your passion and activities to.
Put simply: Luck = (Passionate) Doing x (Effective) Telling.
Source: Model Thinkers