Be Aware. Stay Loose. Get Lucky.

Two factors often attributed to success in entrepreneurship are hard work and luck. Hard work is easy to understand and doesn’t really need to be discussed, but if luck is that big of a part of the success equation, it deserves more discussion.

A few weeks ago I wrote about research that looked at why some people are more lucky than others. The research of Dr Wiseman concluded that some people are more aware of, and responsive to chance opportunity. He further suggested it is personality and partly environmental conditioning. As I’ve thought about this more, I must say that I have experienced environmental conditioning that has affected my own thoughts. When I was in college, I lived life much slower and appreciated the nuance details of life.  I was also reasonably lucky.

As I began working as a software developer, it really changed my thoughts. I became more much diligent and detail-oriented, but also a lot more risk averse and weary of wasting time. Risk aversion probably came as a result of the socialized values within my team to keep my ‘bug’ count low, and time consciousness from always chasing production deadlines, code sprints, etc. And as much as these skills are adaptive for a developer, I can see how they would be toxic to an entrepreneur.

Yesterday I was in the car and happened to catch a presentation by Deepak Chopra regarding what he called Synchronicity. He makes a point to abstract away from any particular religious affiliation but uses examples from Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism to illustrate his point that there is a “higher consciousness” of the universe and that we achieve the greatest things when we’re aligned with that high consciousness; thus synchronicity. There are a few other implications here which have also been echoed by other popular  writers such as Dr Wayne Dyer and Ekhart Tolle. For example, being present in the moment, which is really just a modern adaptation of a core Buddhist tenant.  The idea being that you cannot be connect with the “higher consciousness” without being present in the moment. Another implication is that we are all part of of the same energy field and that physical being is an illusion.  So the idea that by being present, we are connected implicitly to all living things, and move beyond the illusion of time/space, is synchronicity.

“There is no logical way to the discovery of elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance … A human being is a part of the whole, called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest-a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty.”  – Albert Einstein

This is interesting. So by combining this with the research from Dr Wiseman, perhaps one could say that being lucky also means being present in the moment and synchronicity. The implications would be that if we are too busy chasing details and deadlines and this shapes our thoughts over time, then we are always thinking in these terms and thus cannot be present in the moment, in a fundamental way.  And if that is true, we are not able to see the opportunities in front of us, exactly as the The Luck Factor suggested.

“If you focus on success, you’ll have stress. But if you pursue excellence, success will be guaranteed.”
~ Deepak Chopra

If there is one key issue that I continue to see while exploring entrepreneurship, it is that I have trouble seeing the ‘hook’, that mysterious special quality that causes an idea to resonate with people. Ironically, what if it were because I look for it too hard and focus on the ‘meta’?  Imagine if presence (in the moment) was the key to the openness and fluidity to see opportunities and synchronicity was the key to seeing the ‘hook’? Could it be that people that live more freely, stay loose and relaxed, and naturally putting themselves in a position to recieve and interact with more opportunity than those who simply work and think hard? It seems all spiritual writers, with one foot in Buddhism, always come back to that idea of presence:

“Always say ‘yes’ to the present moment — and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

Perhaps Dr. Wiseman is correct and at a deeper level, the root cause can be explained with presence and synchronicity and this would be the beginning of explaining how to become more lucky.  Perhaps if we allow presence and childlike-intrigue to guide us, we are more in tune with the World around us and begin to see opportunity more clearly. And by looking upon the world with this sense of connectivity, perhaps we begin to focus on what we can do to improve things for others and other hallmarks of entrepreneurial success, like focus on value creation (helping others) rather than value extraction (making money).  Perhaps we begin to create what people truly need by being open and aware, and this is the beginning to the positive cycle of luck. It feels like I have entered some dogmatic loop in which I am saying happiness begets happiness, and success begets success, and they are both a choice.  I have heard such sayings my whole life but always discarded them.  Perhaps at some deeper level, they are (partly) true?

Neal Cabage

Technologist living in Los Angeles, California.