Eric Tian

One idea I’m fascinated by: you can’t control when you’re lucky, but you can increase your odds of finding luck (luck = success based on chance). Some of these luck-promoting activities include:

1. Do more stuff
2. Make it public
3. Meet more people
4. Obtain more skills

And here’s my hypothesis:

Lucky break = Your surface area (points 1-3) * Intrinsic luckiness (point 4).

Let me explain.

1. Do more stuff

Let’s say you’re lucky 10% of the time. That means if you do one new pursuit a year, there’s only a 10% chance that that annual endeavour will have the benefit of chance on your side. Those odds are kind of low.

But if you try 10 or 20 new things a year, you’re almost certain to have pure chance help you along with at least one of those.

It’s about surface area. If you increase your number of activities done, luck will have more opportunities to find you. Your have a greater area for luck to randomly land on.

2. Make it public

The world is big and a lot of it lives on the internet. One of the easiest ways to get lucky is to put yourself out there online.

As Austin Kleon writes in Show Your Work!,
Online, everyone – the artist and the curator, the master and the apprentice, the expert and the amateur – has the ability to contribute something.

If you are constantly creating but keep it to yourself, you reduce the odds that something extraordinary will happen thanks to luck. If you share it with the world, you’ll increase your surface area of influence. People, and luck, are more likely to find you.

3. Meet more people

In my eyes, there are two main benefits of meeting new people:

1. You can learn something from them
2. They can learn something from you

From them, you might find a new creative idea to do (point 1), some opportunity to share your work (point 2), or some skill that you could steal for yourself (point 4).

On their end, they might discover something from you that leads to a new opportunity.

This is similar to the point above on making it public. If more people know you, there’s a bigger chance that one of them will be the key factor to some lucky break. You might find an opportunity in your career, dating life or financials.

And of course, if you get along well enough, you might even form a friendship.

4. Obtain more skills

So far, we’ve only discussed ways to increase your surface area. This includes do more stuff (point 1), make it public (point 2) and meet more people (point 3). But there’s also another approach to finding luck, which is increasing your intrinsic luckiness. I believe the easiest way to do this is to obtain more skills.

If you learn a new skill like public speaking, coding, economics or psychology, you’ll generally do things better. You’ll be better at talking to people. You’ll find a more creative way of working. You’ll know the ins-and-outs of a new domain. In this way, your intrinsic chance to find luck dramatically increases, because you’re doing better stuff. Your intrinsic luckiness is higher. In his biography, Scott Adams writes,
Every new skill you acquire doubles your odds of success.

Luck favours the prepared.

On top of this, you’ll also probably develop the confidence to do more stuff (point 1), make it public (point 2) and better talk to people (point 3). This ties together everything in the equation.

Summary

The formula to find luck, and how to maximise your odds:

Lucky break = Your surface area * Intrinsic luckiness

Surface area	Intrinsic luckiness
Do more stuff	Obtain more skills
Make it public
Meet more people

Here are five hypotheses of mine on life (will probably change in the future):

1. The point of a good book is to change the way you view the world and other people. If your views stay the same after finishing a book, it wasn’t meant for you.

2. Many of us severely underestimate the role of health on our happiness. If exercise often, eat clean and sleep well, that’s half of the game won. The rest includes moving towards a higher goal and having the freedom to do what you want, when you want (and probably more factors: TBC).

3. Most of the excuses we make: not enough time, not enough money, not enough knowledge, are just ways to avoid the real bottleneck: not enough courage. There is always a small step to be taken – if only we have the guts to do it.

4. Luck plays an enormous role in our successes but we often misattribute this to forward planning or being “excellent”. This is because it’s easier to accept that someone’s success came from something measurable like hard work, rather than something obscure like luck.

But we can often improve our odds for being lucky by increasing the number of ways luck can find us. If you’re 1% lucky and do 100 things, one of those pursuits is bound to have luck on its side. But if you only do one thing, you’ll almost definitely be unlucky.

5. Good intentions are not good enough. It’s not good enough to want to say something nice – you must say it. It’s not good enough to want to be a good student – you must prove it. It’s not good enough to want to stand up against injustice – you must take action. The world doesn’t know your intentions.

My two biggest productivity killers are YouTube and Chess. Once I’m on either of them, it’s hard to get out: YouTube sucks me into a spiral of recommendations and chess baits me into playing too many games. I’ve tried using extensions to block them but it’s too easy to just go on incognito mode to bypass. The problem is, in that moment, there isn’t much willpower to resist.

But a few days ago, I realised BlockSite lets you redirect a blocked website to another page of your choosing. I thought for a while and decided on this:

It’s just a simple Notion page that took one minute to set up. But whenever I land on this, I get a fat dose of momento mori. The urge to waste my time goes away and I look to more productive behaviours like reading or cleaning my room. I’ve wasted barely any time on YouTube and chess since.

Most of us have activities that eat away our soul but for whatever reason, we do them anyway. My hypothesis is that we just need an extra dose of willpower to help us overcome the temptation in that moment. For destructive behaviour on the internet, this landing page seems to work for me.

It’s easy to get caught up in titles.

I’m a high achiever. I’m an athlete. I’m someone who is productive. Although these can be great for self-confidence, nouns can contain hidden dangers. Here’s three:

Firstly, nouns can narrow the boundaries of your self-worth. If you’re an “athlete” but suddenly suffer a traumatic injury, your identity is shattered. You will never again reach the level of excellence you once had; this can be severely disorienting. But if you think of yourself as someone who exercises, you still have scope to do that in your new circumstance. Verbs tend to have a broader scope than nouns, meaning your self-worth isn’t so limited.

Secondly, nouns can be wildly delusional. For example, a Christian is not something you are, it’s something you do. You take the steps to read the Bible; to treat people around you kindly; to let a God shape your life. It is not enough to think, “alas, I am saved! God will save me from all my sins.” Your actions; your decision to submit to a God must reflect your being. If your inner and outer behaviour is no different to an ordinary atheist, you’re probably deluding yourself.

Similarly, if you haven’t written, ran or read anything in years, can you really call yourself a writer, runner or reader? Or are you merely holding onto a past glory?

To get to know people, I used to ask strangers, who are you? I thought this question sounded deep and thought-provoking. But I’ve since found that a better question is, how do you spend your time? This is often closer to the truth in getting to know someone’s priorities.

Lastly, nouns limit the potential of who you can be. If you call yourself an artist, that almost predestines yourself to fulfil that title. Your world is focused around that one identity.

This can be great if you’re determined to succeed in one field alone. But as mentioned earlier, nouns can be volatile depending on changing circumstances. Your level of excellence right now may be your life’s peak. Instead, it’s much easier to not really be tied up to an identity and just be free to do things whenever you choose. We are verbs, not nouns.

From Stephen Fry:

Oscar Wilde said that if you know what you want to be, then you inevitably become it – that is your punishment, but if you never know, then you can be anything. There is a truth to that. We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing – an actor, a writer – I am a person who does things – I write, I act – and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.

A definition I like of sunk costs: a gift from your former self.

If someone gave you a computer that was half broken, you probably wouldn’t accept it – you’d get a proper one. If someone gave you a project you’d hate doing, you probably wouldn’t take it – you’d go and do something you’d like. So, why do we hold onto things like this when our former self gives it to us?

We often hold onto our past accomplishments and hard-earned statuses far longer than we should. The only way to keep growing is to do something new – and the path to something new requires you to leave things behind.

Credits: Seth Godin

The very nature of ‘urgent’ means that it cannot and will not persist.

So if you have a problem that needs solving but you feel too tired to act, make it urgent. Force yourself to take action when you don’t want to. Here are some ways to do that:

1. Make the consequence terrible

If the world explodes if you don’t do 10 push-ups, you’ll probably do some push-ups. Similarly, set yourself a consequence so severe that makes your current excuses pale in comparison. Some ideas for making a task urgent:

• Pay someone a lot of money if you don’t do it
• Have someone slap you if you don’t do it
• Feel ashamed if you don’t do it

Much of this comes from having someone to hold you accountable. It’s important this accountability partner is merciless: the task is either done or it’s not – no exceptions. If it’s not, the punishment is carried out ruthlessly.

Unless you’re high in neuroticism, don’t trust yourself to punish yourself. You run the risk of letting yourself off easy, and then the urgent matter becomes unimportant.

2. Love your work

This is the ideal way to operate. Make your work so enjoyable that it would feel bad to not do it. A day where this task isn’t done is a day wasted in your eyes.

To me, this is writing. A day without journaling is a bad day and so I don’t hesitate when I need to write. I like it enough that it just gets done each day: kind of how we drink when we’re thirsty or eat when hungry. It’d just be weird not to do it.

Maybe we all have something we’d like to do; an idea, a passion, a little firefly at the back of our minds whispering, what if? A force that has been hidden from sight for so long but is still waiting to be acknowledged. If so, one way to pay attention to that light is to force it out into the spotlight until it blinds us.

Make it urgent.

If you were in the US House of Representatives in 1800, there was an important decision to be made. An electoral college tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr has led to the first contingent election in history; who becomes president is in your hands.

The problem is, the Federalists support Burr and the Demographic-Republicans support Jefferson. It looks like we’re in deadlock. Which party will trickle over to the other side first to decide a result?

This is one of the dilemmas told in the hit musical Hamilton, which tells the story of American founding father Alexander Hamilton: his life, death and influence over how American history played out. In this pivotal moment, where the contingent election appears to be in deadlock, Hamilton announces his opinion on which of the two candidates he prefers – a statement which would ultimately decide the election results.

Although Hamilton has always battled Jefferson as a rival whereas Burr was an early friend, Hamilton declares in the musical: when all is said and done / Jefferson has beliefs. Burr has none. Hamilton would rather back somebody with wrong principles than someone devoid of many. This support ultimately leads some Federalists to switch allegiances, voting Jefferson in as the 3rd President of the United States from 1801 to 1809, with Burr serving as vice-president.

Hints for this result can be found earlier in the musical when a younger Hamilton asks Burr, If you stand for nothing, Burr, what’ll you fall for? The young Hamilton is frustrated at Burr’s inability to fully support a cause: revolution or monarchy under King George III? Freedom or consistency? This indecision for action ultimately proves to be Burr’s political downfall.

As someone who is high in openness, it’s easy to have no opinions. You can see both sides of an argument, understand their merits and this leaves you paralysed. Having firm beliefs about anything is difficult because you can see the faults in any singular view and you don’t want to believe in anything shaky. And so, the default solution is just to do nothing. No opinions is safe.

But the problem with having no opinions is that if you stand for nothing, what do you fall for? If you can’t articulate your values to anybody, what will you do when you are forced to confront them for yourself? Compare these two: a man who firmly believes in something wrong and a man who timidly believes in nothing. One is arrogant, the other is a coward. I think deep down I’d respect the arrogant person more. If God were to judge these two men, I think he would reward courage over being safe. The Hamiltons over the Burrs. If you think about it, Jesus Christ is probably one of the most courageous persons in history.

And so this is a dilemma I’ve been wrestling with: to be a safe coward and stay true to openness, or to recklessly adopt an opinion for the sake of courage. Is there a middle ground? I don’t know. Maybe there’s a compromise or a piece of the puzzle I’m missing.

But this I know: standing and falling for nothing seems like a pretty dull way to exist.

Some common phrases and their possible meanings:

“I don’t have time to do this” = This is not a priority.

“I can’t do that” = I don’t believe I am able to do that.

“That is unfair” = My expectations did not line up with reality.

But also:

“I don’t have time to do this” = I very much want to do this but I have too many responsibilities that I am powerless to overcome.

“I can’t do that” = I am too physically, mentally or spiritually broken to do anything you ask of me.

“That is unfair” = What has happened here is a breach of any form of justice. I deserve more than this.

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If we look hard enough, we can make any person look like pathetic. It’s easy to critique another’s actions as being hypocritical and then mock them from our morally superior pedestal.

But we often forget that we all live in our own narratives. One person’s “excuse” can be another’s “only answer”. To the person who sees “I don’t have time” as This is not a priority, anyone saying “I don’t have time” may just use it as an excuse for inaction. Yet, to the single mother in an abusive relationship with multiple children, the story isn’t so easy. Perhaps to her, “I don’t have time” isn’t a matter of choice, but of necessity. She may be powerless to escape her awful position. It is awfully arrogant to paint this mother as a hypocrite.

Perhaps people would be happier if we gave each other the benefit of the doubt more often.

I used to have a proclivity for excessive apologies.

If I felt an interaction fading, I’d say sorry for being so boring. If someone helped solve one of my problems, I’d say sorry for being such a failure. If someone was unexpectedly generous with their efforts, I’d say sorry for wasting your time.

If someone told me to stop apologising, I’d say ah okay… sorry.

But recently, I’ve found that in many cases it’s much better to replace “sorry” with “thank you”. For example:

• Sorry for being so boring -> Thank you for spending time with me.
• Sorry for being such a failure -> Thank you for helping me with my mistake.
• Sorry for wasting your time -> Thank you for your efforts!

There are two main problems with excessively apologising. First, it conditions you resent yourself. You begin to see yourself as incapable, worthless and always to blame. The moment you change your dialogue to “thank you”, you begin to be more grateful for the situation. It also removes any guilt from the interaction which the other party might be uncomfortable with. The event hasn’t changed at all, but the feeling is completely transformed.

Second, too many apologies begin to lose their worth over time. If you apologise for everything, it’s impossible to tell when you are being truly apologetic since you do it so often. It’s like a form of inflation. On the other hand, if you reserve your apologies for genuine moments of heartfelt apology, the effect is much more profound.

Of course, there’s a time and place for genuine apologies. If you have truly wronged somebody or want to show sympathy, “sorry” is a great tool to show this. But for the other times, it might be worth considering whether our response to a question could be rephrased as a “thank you”.

Sometimes people ask me where I get my writing ideas from. The question often comes after I’ve suggested starting a blog so they can share their ideas with the world. “I’m just not sure I have anything to share”, they confess. “If you asked me to write something now I don’t think I could.”

My follow-up question is always, “how do you take notes on your life?”

The answer is often, “I don’t.”

Interesting ideas can be kind of random. They can hit you anytime: during meditation, walking, showering or on the brink of sleep. Problem is, if we don’t record the idea down it gets lost, disappeared into nothingness. We may as well have never thought of it at all.

If we’re interested in examining our thoughts, it’s critical that we practice being receptive to them. And a great way to do this is to develop a habit of rigorous documentation. There are many ways to do this, but my personal system predominantly uses words in both digital and analog formats.

The digital format is with Notion. It’s simply a page titled the page of that month and contains every random passing thought that interests me. This is my first line system of roughly shoving ideas in, making sure they don’t escape. New months get a new page. I always have this Notion tab open on my computer so I can reach it if I’m online. If I’m out in the world, I pull open the app on my phone and quickly jot something down. Notes from podcasts and audiobooks go in here too.

The analog format is with my journal. This is where most of the organisation happens – where I think about the scattered ideas that have hit me and try and connect the dots. Where did that idea come from? Why did I respond in that way? How can I apply this to my life? This is a much slower practice with pen and paper that requires time. But usually, it’s this deliberate reflection that makes the biggest difference.

Going back to the start: the vast majority of my posts here were first written in my journal. When I sit down to write, it’s very rare that I have to conjure up something from nothing. There’s usually a lot of page-flipping and reading my notes, wondering if this idea is worth sharing, too personal or requires further development.

It doesn’t really matter how you take notes on your life. I know people who draw, take photos or record videos. They might only occasionally write words down. That’s fine. The point is to find a way to record what you’re seeing, thinking or doing right now so it doesn’t get lost when you need to give a recount of your life.

Now, some people with sharp brains and great memories might think, “Okay, I resonate with this goal of living an examined life. But recording things down? Surely you can just remember things?” To which I’d answer:

Yes, it’s entirely possible that you tightly hold onto an interesting thought and never let it go. This often occurs in “lightbulb moments” we hear about, usually in the shower, where an idea hits you so strongly that it knocks the wind out of you.

But firstly, there are countless interesting thoughts that are so very subtle; ideas that just tickle your soul. If you’re distracted and numb to this, the thought will disappear into nothingness. The second problem is that your memory is falliable. Nobody’s memories are perfect. We’ve all forgotten things before, whether it be names, dates or events. You have no idea how many thoughts you swear you’d remember have been lost.

One of the saddest things about life is how little of it we remember.