How to Get Lucky

Hey friends,

Firstly, thank you for all your kind responses to my last email (+ offers of mini therapy sessions). I have a book deadline crunch right now, so please forgive my slow responses. But I’ll try to get back to everyone.

Anyway – I’ve been thinking a lot recently about randomness + serendipity.

See, I was invited to give a talk at the 1 Billion Followers Summit in Dubai this week. It ended up being super fun, and I hung out with a bunch of other creators (other speakers at the conference, and also attendees). But in all honesty, with all the travel I’ve been doing recently, I was feeling a bit burned out at the prospect of a 48-hour trip to Dubai of which 18 hours would be spent on an aeroplane 😂

But when taking the decision to go, the two questions I asked myself were:

Question 1: Is this something I’m likely to regret?

Answer: No. It’s just 1–2 days, I can work on the plane, it won’t really disrupt my life.

Question 2: Will this increase the serendipity in my life?

Answer: Yes. Who knows what life-changing thing could happen, or who I’ll meet. There’s a much higher chance of something interesting happening on this trip than if I stay at home.

And this time, optimising for serendipity paid off big time.

I met the business + finance creator Erika Kullberg. And we had a fantastic conversation about business, team management, content strategy. It’s rare to find someone who has a bigger audience than me, while also having an identical business model. I absorbed so much incredible information.

And one conversation made the whole trip immediately “worth it” even outside the enjoyment of presenting and meeting people. I even told Erika that it was one of the highest ROI conversations I’ve ever had.

I’ve been banging this drum for a while but it’s worth saying again: never underestimate the power of randomness and serendipity.

Only very rarely will you regret going to a networking event, meeting people or just doing something rather than sitting around at home.

Have a great week!

Ali xx

生词记录

therapy 治疗，疗法

crunch 紧缩，危机，紧缺

serendipity 偶然性

Dubai 迪拜

hung out with 出去玩

burn out 疲惫

prospect 前景，展望，前瞻

decision 决定，决策

identical 同样的，相同的

bang 爆炸，砰，邦，一声巨响

underestimate 低估，轻视

networking event 社交活动