Part of my approach to parenting and to work is what I call ‘increasing the surface area for luck’. It’s an idea I borrowed from chemistry. I think others might call it creating exposure.
I said yes to a random lecture, which ended up taking me to Boston for a summer internship. I asked for an invite to Farcaster, which ultimately led me to Shopify; this was my fourth early bet on a post-Twitter social network. I could never have predicted these paths.
Most paths lead nowhere, but the few that hit change everything. All they needed was opportunity.
For many things, a child needs exposure for luck to strike. But you can engineer it. The right book, experience, or toy at the right moment can shift a child’s future, though you never know which one it will be. So let them try everything. Let there be no end to the ‘yes, ands.’
You can engineer it professionally too. Create connections, experiment, and share your work. Each action creates the surface area for luck to change the trajectory of your career.
This works best when you need the right mixture of perfect timing and skill development. For babies, this could be rolling from tummy to back. When I climb, it’s landing a difficult move on the 12th attempt. At work, it could be pitching a passion project.
I’ve found two paths to increasing surface area:
- Say yes to anything mildly interesting (especially early in your career) to create breadth of luck. You can always be picky later.
- Repeat actions relentlessly to create depth of luck.
Luck is random. Give it openings and it’ll do its best work.