How to Get Lucky
How to Get Lucky
Why do you say, “Get rich without getting lucky”?
In 1,000 parallel universes, you want to be wealthy in 999 of them. You don’t want to be wealthy in the fifty of them where you got lucky, so we want to factor luck out of it.
But getting lucky would help, right?
Just recently, Babak Nivi, my co-founder, and I were talking on Twitter about how one gets lucky, and there are really four kinds of luck we were talking about.
The first kind of luck is blind luck where one just gets lucky because something completely out of their control happened. This includes fortune, fate, etc.
Then, there’s luck through persistence, hard work, hustle, and motion. This is when you’re running around creating opportunities. You’re generating a lot of energy, you’re doing a lot to stir things up. It’s almost like mixing a petri dish or mixing a bunch of reagents and seeing what combines. You’re just generating enough force, hustle, and energy for luck to find you.
A third way is you become very good at spotting luck. If you are very skilled in a field, you will notice when a lucky break happens in your field, and other people who aren’t attuned to it won’t notice. So, you become sensitive to luck.
The last kind of luck is the weirdest, hardest kind, where you build a unique character, a unique brand, a unique mindset, which causes luck to find you.
For example, let’s say you’re the best person in the world at deep-sea diving. You’re known to take on deep-sea dives nobody else will even dare to attempt. By sheer luck, somebody finds a sunken treasure ship off the coast they can’t get to. Well, their luck just became your luck, because they’re going to come to you to get to the treasure, and you’re going to get paid for it.
This is an extreme example, but it shows how one person had blind luck finding the treasure. Them coming to you to extract it and give you half is not blind luck. You created your own luck. You put yourself in a position to capitalize on luck or to attract luck when nobody else created the opportunity for themselves. To get rich without getting lucky, we want to be deterministic. We don’t want to leave it to chance. [78]
Ways to get lucky:
• Hope luck finds you.
• Hustle until you stumble into it.
• Prepare the mind and be sensitive to chances others miss.
• Become the best at what you do. Refine what you do until this is true. Opportunity will seek you out. Luck becomes your destiny.
It starts becoming so deterministic, it stops being luck. The definition starts fading from luck to destiny. To summarize the fourth type: build your character in a certain way, then your character becomes your destiny.
One of the things I think is important to make money is having a reputation that makes people do deals through you. Remember the example of being a great diver where treasure hunters will come and give you a piece of the treasure for your diving skills.
If you are a trusted, reliable, high-integrity, long-term-thinking dealmaker, when other people want to do deals but don’t know how to do them in a trustworthy manner with strangers, they will literally approach you and give you a cut of the deal just because of the integrity and reputation you’ve built up.
Warren Buffett gets offered deals to buy companies, buy warrants, bail out banks, and do things other people can’t do because of his reputation. Of course, he has accountability on the line, and he has a strong brand on the line.
Your character and your reputation are things you can build, which will let you take advantage of opportunities other people may characterize as lucky, but you know it wasn’t luck. [78] My co-founder Nivi said, “In a long-term game, it seems that everybody is making each other rich. And in a short-term game, it seems like everybody is making themselves rich.”
I think that is a brilliant formulation. In a long-term game, it’s positive sum. We’re all baking the pie together. We’re trying to make it as big as possible. And in a short-term game, we’re cutting up the pie. [78]
How important is networking?
I think business networking is a complete waste of time. And I know there are people and companies popularizing this concept because it serves them and their business model well, but the reality is if you’re building something interesting, you will always have more people who will want to know you. Trying to build business relationships well in advance of doing business is a complete waste of time. I have a much more comfortable philosophy: “Be a maker who makes something interesting people want. Show your craft, practice your craft, and the right people will eventually find you.” [14]
And once you’ve met someone, how do you determine if you can trust someone? What signals do you pay attention to?
If someone is talking a lot about how honest they are, they’re probably dishonest. That is just a little telltale indicator I’ve learned. When someone spends too much time talking about their own values or they’re talking themselves up, they’re covering for something. [4]
Sharks eat well but live a life surrounded by sharks.
I have great people in my life who are extremely successful, very desirable (like everybody wants to be their friend), very smart. Yet, I’ve seen them do one or two things slightly not great to other people. The first time, I’ll say, “Hey, I don’t think you should do this to that other person. Not because you won’t get away with it. You will get away with it, but because it will hurt you in the end.”
Not in some cosmic, karma kind of way, but I believe deep down we all know who we are. You cannot hide anything from yourself. Your own failures are written within your psyche, and they are obvious to you. If you have too many of these moral shortcomings, you will not respect yourself. The worst outcome in this world is not having self-esteem. If you don’t love yourself, who will?
I think you just have to be very careful about doing things you are fundamentally not going to be proud of, because they will damage you. The first time someone acts this way, I will warn them. By the way, nobody changes. Then I just distance myself from them. I cut them out of my life. I just have this saying inside my head: “The closer you want to get to me, the better your values have to be.” [4]
如何走运
为什么你说“致富无需依靠运气”？
在1000个平行宇宙中，你希望在999个宇宙中都能致富。而不是仅在其中50个依靠运气致富。因此，我们想把运气的因素排除掉。
但走运肯定有帮助，对吧？
最近，我的合伙人巴巴克·尼维（Babak Nivi）和我在推特上讨论了如何走运的问题，我们谈到的运气实际上有四种类型。
第一种运气是盲目的运气，某人仅仅因为发生了某些完全不受其控制的事情而走运。这包括幸运、命运等等。
其次是通过坚持不懈、努力工作、奔波和行动获得的运气。这种情况下，你四处奔走创造机会。你积聚了大量的能量，做了很多搅动局势的事情。它有点像在混合培养皿或混合一堆试剂，看看会产生什么反应。你只是积累了足够的力量、努力和能量，让运气找到你。
第三种方式是你变得非常擅长发现运气。如果你在某个领域非常精通，当这个领域出现某个幸运的突破时，你会注意到，而其他不敏锐的人则不会注意到。所以，你对运气变得敏感。
最后一种运气是最奇怪、也最难的一种，就是你打造了独特的个性、独特的品牌、独特的思维方式，这样运气就会来找你。
举个例子，假设你是世界上最擅长深海潜水的人，你以敢于尝试其他人不敢涉足的深海潜水而闻名。某天，有人偶然在海岸附近发现了一艘沉船宝藏，而他们无法到达那个位置。那么他们的运气就成了你的运气，因为他们会来找你帮忙获取宝藏，而你将因此得到报酬。
这是一个极端的例子，但它展示了一个人偶然找到宝藏的盲目运气。而他们来找你提取宝藏并分给你一半，这并不是盲目的运气。你创造了自己的运气，你把自己置于一个可以利用运气或吸引运气的位置，而别人却没有为自己创造这种机会。想要致富而不依赖运气，我们希望采取确定性的方式，而不是靠运气。[78]
获取运气的方法：
• 希望运气找到你。
• 努力奔波，直到偶然撞上好运。
• 准备好心态，敏锐捕捉其他人错过的机会。
• 成为你所做领域的佼佼者。不断打磨自己，直到做到这一点。机会会主动找上门来，运气将成为你的命运。
这逐渐变得如此确定性，以至于不再被称为运气。其定义开始从运气转变为命运。总结第四种类型：以某种方式塑造自己的性格，那么你的性格将决定你的命运。
我认为，致富的重要因素之一是拥有能让别人通过你达成交易的声誉。还记得那个伟大的潜水员的例子，寻宝者会找你合作，并因你的潜水技巧而给予你一部分宝藏。
如果你是一个值得信任、可靠、具有高诚信度、且有长期思维的交易者，那么当其他人想要达成交易但不知道如何以值得信赖的方式与陌生人合作时，他们会主动找到你，并因为你积累的诚信和声誉而给你一部分交易的利益。
沃伦·巴菲特会被邀请收购公司、购买权证、拯救银行，做别人无法做到的事情，这都是因为他的声誉。当然，他也承担了相应的责任，并且他的品牌效应也非常强大。
你的性格和声誉是你可以构建的东西，它们会让你抓住别人可能称之为运气的机会，但你知道这不是运气。[78] 我的合伙人尼维曾说过：“在长期的游戏中，每个人似乎都在让彼此变得富有。而在短期的游戏中，每个人似乎都在让自己变得富有。”
我认为这是一个非常精妙的表达。在长期的游戏中，它是一个正和游戏。我们一起做大蛋糕，尽量把它做得更大。而在短期的游戏中，我们只是在分蛋糕。[78]
人脉关系有多重要？
我认为商业人脉关系完全是浪费时间。我知道有些人和公司在推广这个概念，因为这对他们和他们的商业模式有利，但现实是，如果你在构建一些有趣的东西，总会有更多人想要认识你。试图在做生意之前提前建立商业关系完全是浪费时间。我有一个更加舒适的理念：“成为一个制造有趣事物的人，展示你的工艺，实践你的工艺，最终正确的人会找到你。”[14]
一旦认识了某人，你如何判断是否可以信任他们？你会注意哪些信号？
如果某人不停地谈论他们有多诚实，那么他们很可能是不诚实的。这是我学到的一个小小的标志。当某人花太多时间谈论他们的价值观，或者吹嘘自己时，他们是在掩盖某些东西。[4]
鲨鱼吃得好，但生活在鲨鱼环绕之中。
我生命中有一些极其成功、非常受欢迎（每个人都想成为他们的朋友）、非常聪明的人。但我曾见过他们对其他人做了一两件不太好的事情。第一次，我会说，“嘿，我认为你不应该这样对待那个人。不是因为你不会逃过惩罚，你确实会逃过惩罚，但因为这最终会伤害到你自己。”
不是从某种宇宙的因果报应的角度，而是我相信在内心深处，我们都知道自己是谁。你不能对自己隐藏任何东西。你自己的失败刻在你的内心里，对你来说显而易见。如果你有太多这样的道德缺陷，你就不会尊重自己。这个世界上最糟糕的结果就是失去自尊。如果你不爱自己，那谁会爱你呢？
我认为你必须非常谨慎，不去做那些从根本上让你感到骄傲不起来的事情，因为它们会伤害你。第一次某人表现出这种行为时，我会警告他们。顺便说一句，没有人会改变。然后我就会与他们保持距离。我把他们从我的生活中剔除。我在脑海中有一个说法：“你想离我越近，你的价值观就必须越好。”[4]