Can You Create Good Luck? - Dr Christian Busch

1. 0:00 – 0:15

   Intro

   1. CBDr Christian Busch0:00

      I used to be very much like this. Like, "Hey, I need a plan. I want to know exactly what I'll map out and X, Y, Zed." And then I had this amazing mentor, and he used to tell me, "Christian, people like you always think there's one way to Rome, and then you realize you don't even want to be in Rome."

   2. CWChris Williamson0:14

      How would you get

2. 0:15 – 10:37

   Is there a Science to Luck?

   1. CWChris Williamson0:15

      started on thinking about the science of luck? As far as I was aware, luck was some random chance, blessed to some and not to others, and the end of a rainbow and a pot of gold, and stuff like that. Where does the science of luck come into it?

   2. CBDr Christian Busch0:28

      Yeah, that's a great question because, you know, we always assume that luck is something that just happens to us, right? So, you know, being born into a nice family, stuff like that, that we can't really influence. Um, what I found fascinating, both in my work as entrepreneur, social-preneur, but also in my research, is that somehow, the most successful s- inspiring people, they seem to have in common that they somehow intuitively cultivate a little bit more luck than others. And so I got fascinated by that question, is there some kind of smart luck here? Is there some kind of process we can influence? And so take the example, right? Imagine you have erratic hand movements like I do, and you, uh, then you spill a lot of coffee. And so imagine you spill coffee in a coffee shop over someone, and they look at you slightly annoyedly, but you sense there might be something there. You don't know what it is, you just sense there might be something there, and now you have two options, right? Option number one is you just say, "I'm so sorry. Here's a napkin." You walk outside and you think, "Ah, what could have happened had I spoken with the person?" Option number two, you speak with the person, that person turns out to become the love of your life, or your co-founder, or you name it. The point is our reaction to the unexpected, us making the accident meaningful, in a way creates that kind of smart luck, that kind of serendipity. And so in a way, a lot of our research focuses on the question, is there a pattern behind all these different stories of serendipity? Is there always the same process of some kind of unexpected trigger happening, but then us connecting the dots and doing something with it? And so that's the fascinating thing. We can create more of those triggers, but also we can, uh, learn how to connect those dots better.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:55

      So, is the difference between luck and serendipity whether it's random or whether it's purposeful or intentional?

   4. CBDr Christian Busch2:04

      Well, it's interesting because in a way both kind of the blind luck and the smart luck, which what serendipity is, somehow have some kind of randomness in it, right? Bumping into that person at a conference, or, you know, I'll, I'll tell you the example of the, of the potato washing machine to, to, to, to give you that, uh, that, that point. But the, the, the idea is that, that there's always some kind of element of randomness, but then we have some kind of agency in it. We have some kind of control over, not the situation itself, but our response to it. And so take the potato washing machine, right? Essentially, a couple of years ago, um, uh, a company in China, they produce refrigerators, washing machines, and, and so on, and they received calls from farmers. And the farmers told them, "Your crappy washing machine is always breaking down." "Well, why is the washing machine breaking down?" "Well, we're trying to wash our potatoes in it. It doesn't seem to work." So, what would we usually do? We'll probably tell them, "Well, don't wash your potatoes in the washing machine, like, it's made for clothes, you know, w- why would you do that?" They did the opposite. They said, "You know what? That's unexpected, that's random, but there's probably a lot of farmers in China who have a similar problem, so why don't we build in a dirt filter and make it a potato washing machine?" That's how serendipitously so the, the potato washing machine emerged, that's how up to 50% of innovations and inventions emerge, that's how a lot of times we fall in love. It's not only bumping into that person. We have to go on a date. We have to do something with it to actually turn it into that kind of positive outcome that doesn't just happen to us.

   5. CWChris Williamson3:26

      It seems to me that there's two things that we're playing with here. One of them being how frequently we can put ourselves into situations where the randomness can come to us, and then also our response to those situations, which is kind of how we profit or benefit or make good of whatever happens. Is that right?

   6. CBDr Christian Busch3:43

      Absolutely. It's exactly, it's, it's kind of like, in a way, making the accident meaningful, and, you know, that's the exciting thing.

   7. CWChris Williamson3:49

      Having more accidents.

   8. CBDr Christian Busch3:50

      Having more accidents, right? Like, we, we can literally create more positive accidents.

   9. CWChris Williamson3:54

      Yeah, that's interesting. It, well, I mean, is serendipity still serendipity if you take an active role in it?

   10. CBDr Christian Busch4:01

       Well, you know, that's the fascinating thing, right? When people connect the dots at hindsight when they look at their CV or so, they would say, "Oh, this was just lucky there, and this lucky here." But then they think about it and they're like, "Oh, but actually, you know what? I worked really hard to have that luck. I worked really hard to then follow up with that conference guy I, I bumped into and then do this and do this." And so the point here is that actually when you look at serendipity, um, and, and, and the role of people in it, it's more than we, we think, but we airbrush it out of our stories, right? Now, I work a lot with, with, um, executives, and when you're the CEO of a company, you come into the boardroom, and you want to be able to say, "I planned this, I did this, and then this happened," right? Yeah, everyone knows that, you know what, like, it's probably more like a squiggle, like, like our CV, right? It's not just, "I planned this, I did this, I did this." No. Like, you bumped into someone and you, you did this, this, this. But, and that's what I'm so fascinated about this topic, it's instead of thinking, "Oh, this is weak. Oh my God," like, "I wasn't in control," this is actually the ultimate form of trying to figure out how to gain some kind of control o- over your environment, and let go of an illusion of control to say, "Hey, I created a mindset and a culture that allows actually for those unexpected things to happen instead of actually overlooking them," right? You would never see the potato washing machine if you would say, "No, this doesn't fit my marketing plan. It shouldn't be here." Yeah, it doesn't happen, and you will be in control of your old plan, but maybe you'll be out of business in a few years when there's so many farmers who actually wanted that machine and your competitor did it, right? And so it's really these kind of things where it's our control over, over those kind of things.

   11. CWChris Williamson5:27

       Well, you can't stop the randomness. That's going to continue to happen, so I think you're right. Getting ready to control that, it feels like the, the sort of old school business world where everybody would have to wear a suit and a tie, and everybody would have to work from the office, and everyone would have to be very prim and proper. I think that that illusion of control is kind of masking over the fact that it's idiots all the way up.

   12. CBDr Christian Busch5:48

       (laughs)

   13. CWChris Williamson5:48

       I've got a bunch of friends that I've met, uh ... And I spent a, a bit of time with people that, uh, around literally the highest echelons of tech and of business and of finance, and they've said to me, "Dude, no one has an idea what they're doing." Everyone is clueless the entire way up, all the way up, and everyone's winging it. So... getting ourselves to the stage now where you go, "Okay, look, the veil has been lifted. There is no magic that's, sort of, going on here. What we're trying to do is create a culture or an environment in which this randomness can be profited on." Didn't you have a story about... Was it Viagra as well?

   14. CBDr Christian Busch6:25

       Absolutely. And, and, you know, to exactly your point, right, that's the fascinating thing, that once you let go of this idea that you can control everything, then actually you start building that muscle for the unexpected, and that decreases anxiety. You know, I come from Germany. We love to control things, to plan things, to, to, to have a plan, right? And then real life happens, you're like, "Oh my God." Like, "Now I'm overwhelmed." Versus if you're saying, "You know what? You know, I'll, I'll have a plan now, but I'm already building in the, the, the expectation that there will be something unexpected, and that's not a threat. That could actually be something even more beautiful," right? And, and we can talk about other, other examples there. For example, Viagra, right? Viagra is exactly this, where researchers were giving people medication against angina pectoris, the, the, the, the, the illness, and, and they realized unexpectedly there was some kind of movement in male participants' trousers. And you know what, what we usually do? We'll probably either try to ignore it or kind of find a better way to kind of, you know, get rid of that side effect of, of having that kind of movement. They did the opposite. They said, "You know what? That's unexpected, but there's probably a lot of men in the world who might have a problem with that department, so why don't we develop a medication around this?" And that's really the thing here, right? To exactly your point that if we're trying to stick with our original plan, just focus on this, we don't see all these beautiful other things that might come of it. And that's the same, you know, in any, any part in life, and, and, um, that's what, what the excitement is, I think, that, that there's so many m- meaningful potentialities out there, but, but we have to o- open our eyes to it.

   15. CWChris Williamson7:50

       How malleable or ingrained do you think are people's, uh, mindsets around luck?

   16. CBDr Christian Busch7:59

       You know, it's interesting, because I always thought, you know, people l- l- like, what I presume you, from, from what I've seen, myself and, and others who intuitively cultivate a lot of serendipity, their... You know, I first thought, "Hey, this content is for, for those people who then have vocabulary and language for what they intuitively do." It legitimizes what they do, and then kind of they can go to their boss and say, "No, I wasn't out of control here. I actually created, um, something that allowed me to, to get here." Um, and th- that works. But, but then what's actually much more fascinating to me is the second group of people. Uh, like a colleague of mine in London, uh, uh, you know, this kind of eminent professor type person. Wonderful person, but he came to me at the beginning when I started this work and he said, "Christian, I love you, I love your work, but I don't need serendipity. Like I have, I have a nice family, I have a nice job, I have everything I need. Like why would I need this?" So we made a deal. We said, "You know what? Why do you not use a couple of, of, of strategies." Um, we can talk about, for example, the hook strategy, which I, which I asked him to, to use. And then, um, you know, ask a couple of different questions, couple of those things, and then we'll, we'll reconvene in a couple of weeks. He comes back a couple of weeks after and he's like, "Christian, I didn't know life can be so joyful." And, and to me, that's really the kind of thing that those people who believe that there's this difference between luck and kind of hard work, those are the ones who once they realize, "Oh my God, I can create my own luck," who get the most excited, because for them it's the biggest shift. Versus for others, it's like, "Yeah, great, I have another exercise here," but it's kind of a more incremental shift. And to give an example, one of my favorites to, to get people into that is the hook strategy. And the hook strategy is all about saying, how can I use every conversation, every interaction to cast a couple of hooks, to put a couple of interesting themes into the conversation where the other person can connect the dots for us? So there's this amazing entrepreneur in London, Oli Barrett, and if you would ask Oli this kind of dreaded what do you do question, he wouldn't just say, "I'm a technology entrepreneur." He would say, "I'm a technology entrepreneur, recently started reading into the philosophy of science, but what I'm really excited about is playing the piano." And so what he's doing here is he's giving you three hooks where you could be like, "Oh my God, such a coincidence. My sister is teaching on the philosophy of science. You should give a guest lecture. Oh my God, such a coincidence, we're hosting piano sessions, you should stop by." The point is, I- I'm a big fan of doing a serendipity journal where you write down two or three key themes of, you know, that's what I'm curious a- about at the moment. How to take this idea into curricula or organizations, yada yada. And then kind of, you know, plug that into conversations, and it's beautiful how often people would be like, "Oh my God, such a coincidence. My brother of the sister of the father, uh, is X, Y, Z." Right? And so, but we can't know this potentiality if we don't put it out there for people to find it themselves.

3. 10:37 – 20:37

   Behaviours of Unlucky People

   1. CBDr Christian Busch10:37

   2. CWChris Williamson10:37

      It is interesting to think about how people respond to different situations. How would you characterize the difference between a person who has a life which is more lucky and the way that someone who is less lucky behaves?

   3. CBDr Christian Busch10:54

      Yeah. It's interesting, and, and, uh, uh, you know, if I may, I'll, I'll start that, that, that answer with, with one of my favorite experiments, which is a bit of a fun experiment, but I think it, it brings, uh, uh, home that point that a lot of it is how we frame the world and how we look at the world, and, and how alert you are to what's out there. And so in this experiment, they, um, you know, took people who self-identify as very lucky, uh, and- and everyone who's listening to this, like I'd- I'd love you to think about, you know, do you consider yourself to be a lucky or an unlucky person? And just kind of like then stick with that while- while we talk through that experiment. Um, and so- so they pick people who consider themselves to be very lucky, so people who say, "Good things tend to happen to me," and- and yada yada. And then people who- who consider themselves to be very unlucky, so people who say, "Bad things tend to happen to me. I'm always in accidents," and- and so on. And we probably all know people on this kind of continuum, uh, um, who- who are on that. Now, they pick one of each and they say, "Walk down the street, go into a coffee shop, grab a coffee, sit down, and then we'll have our conversation." What they don't tell them is that there's hidden cameras alongside the street and inside the coffee shop, there's a five pound note, some money, in front of the coffee shop door, and inside the coffee shop there's one empty chair next to this extremely successful businessman who can make big dreams happen. Now, the lucky person...... walks down the street, sees the five-pound note, picks it up, goes inside the shop, orders the coffee, sits next to the business pla- uh, man. They have a conversation, exchange business cards, potentially an opportunity coming out of it. We don't know that part. The unlucky person walks down the street, steps over the five-pound note, so doesn't see it, goes inside the shop, orders the coffee, sits next to the businessman, ignores the businessman. That's it. Now, at the end of the day, they ask both people, "How was your day today?" And so the lucky person says, "Well, it was amazing. I found money in the street, made a new friend, and, you know, potentially an opportunity coming out of it." The unlucky person just says, "Well, nothing really happened." And there's a lot of these kind of experiments where you can put people into exactly the same situation, and by the way they look at situations, by the way they ask questions, by the way they are alert to opportunity, they will completely differently experience that and come out lucky or unlucky. I find a lot of money in the street, unfortunately, mostly pennies, so it doesn't really help my, my lifestyle that much. But I, I, like, everyone, I would really highly recommend start looking for the pennies on the street, and you will continue, continuously find them. People drop a lot of money. I was surprised about that, by the way.

   4. CWChris Williamson13:15

      So is the big difference there one person's more vigilant, more observant, more open to new interactions? The other person is more focused, less open, less keen about trying to start new connections?

   5. CBDr Christian Busch13:29

      Exactly. So that's definitely one, one of the factors. I mean, if you look at it as kind of like a couple of Venn diagrams that come together to then kind of shape that, that serendipity mindset, one, one piece of this is really this alertness and, and this kind of also often curiosity, right, to learn about the world, learn about the environment. It's the kind of thing when, you know, let's say you take another, um, way to work in the morning and, and really open your eyes to the street and see, "Oh, there's a bookstore. Oh, that book in the store, people haven't talked about this for a while. That should be a podcast." Those kind of things where serendipity then comes from the most unexpected of sources, books, movies, everywhere, right? Everywhere there's potential dots that we could connect. So, so that's definitely a, a big piece. I think another piece in that experiment was also around this idea of, you know, it can help to actually, you know, engage people, like, like, obviously network, social capital is a huge kind of factor for, um, having that potentiality. But, you know, for closet introverts like myself, um, there's a lot of hope that a lot of times serendipity comes from quiet sources, um, like reading a book, or that we can actually work with extroverts, that they kind of do a lot of this for us. So for example, going to an event and speaking about an idea with the host first so that the host then talks about the idea, things like this where we can leverage extroverts if we, if we feel more, more introverted.

   6. CWChris Williamson14:41

      What would you say is the opposite of a serendipity mindset?

   7. CBDr Christian Busch14:48

      I think it's really someone who believes that life is given. Uh, you know, a serendipity mindset is about the idea that life is extremely socially constructed. I mean, you know, there's, there's, there's, there's fixed constraints, and a lot of my work is in very kind of extreme poverty regions, and those are kind of very fixed constraints. And, and I think we have to, while we work on mindset, also work on these kind of societal constraints, societal inequalities. So I think that's a big piece that goes hand in hand with the mindset work. But then on the mindset side, I think it's someone who doesn't, you know, who, who doesn't question assumptions, who, in a way, is kind of in this fixed mindset of, of, "Hey, look, the world is just the way it is." And, and you hear that very quickly in the language people use, right? When people use language along the lines of, "Hey, um, this is how it's supposed to be. And, you know, when I look in the stars, like, there's this thing that, that is being told to me," whatever it is. Like, that's kind of, like, more, "Okay, I can't really influence it," versus serendipity mindset is about, "I can influence it. I can do something about it."

   8. CWChris Williamson15:47

      I hesitate to say that I think British people might be some of the worst at creating their own luck. And the word that kept on coming up was cynicism.

   9. CBDr Christian Busch15:57

      Mm-hmm.

   10. CWChris Williamson15:57

       So someone who's a cynic, who would always presume that this is the way that things have been, this is the way that things are always going to be, that isn't open to new ideas, that isn't questioning assumptions. Uh, and I don't know whether that's just the sort of working-class towns, perhaps, that I've spent most of my time in, but I kind of get the impression that it's not. And I'm out here in Austin, Texas at the moment. Very much... You know, I was walking out of the sauna a couple of days ago, and one dude went, "Hey man, um, I think I, I think I know you from your podcast. What are you doing tomorrow night?" I was like, "I, I don't know. That was t- last night." Uh, and he's like, "Oh, I've just moved into a new ranch. Uh, I'll give you a message on Instagram if you want to come up and we'll put a fire on and you can meet some new friends." And last night, I made five new friends-

   11. CBDr Christian Busch16:39

       Nice.

   12. CWChris Williamson16:39

       ... because this guy decided that... That's not... That, that's never once happened to me in the UK, that sort of openness. It would be significantly more cynical. Rolling it back to what you said before, Charlie Houpert, the guy that does Charisma on Command, which is this huge five-and-a-half-million subscriber YouTube channel, um, one of the questions that he gets asked when he's coaching people on charisma is how to have a better open and how to make yourself feel, feel more interesting and seem more interesting to people. And one of his best things is to do exactly what you said with the hook strategy. So he is trying to put out a number of different points of contact that people could get themselves on. "So I live in LA at the moment, I run my own business, but I've traveled the world for a very long time. I actually coach people on charisma. I once met Russell Brand, and I can play the piano," or some shit like that, right?

   13. CBDr Christian Busch17:26

       (laughs)

   14. CWChris Williamson17:26

       And that, all of those different opportunities there, again, it's the opposite of a cynic mindset of just saying, "Oh, my name's Charlie, and I do stuff on the internet." Like, who's, who's excited or interested by that person? And I think you kind of suggested that, especially with introverts, there's, like, a, a first-mover problem here, right? Who is it that's going to actually begin the momentum within this interaction? And if someone enters the frame and makes it kind of fun and exciting and bountiful and you're able to go back and forth, it's easier for you because you bounce off their energy. But it is really just a tiny little flick of an avalanche at the top, and then it just cascades from there. So I do think, even though I, I would also agree, relatively introverted myself, I do think that...... it doesn't take much to just program into you a little script that you can run that kind of sets the tone. And then, that person's energy increases, and you bounce off that, and their energy increases, and you bounce off that. And yeah, you know the people that are like that. You know the people that when you sit down in the sauna or at a coffee shop or at a party or something, that you go, "Yeah, I want to talk to that person more because they made me feel energized, and they weren't cynical." So yeah, I think the opposite of a serendipity mindset is cynicism as far as I can see.

   15. CBDr Christian Busch18:40

       Well, and that's really interesting, right? To exactly your point, I mean, one thing that I've found extremely helpful as someone, you know, who, y- you know, we live in a world designed for kind of more extroverted people, and then kind of, like, we try to make the best of it, right, and, and have spikes of extroversion. Everyone thinks you're an extrovert, but actually, then you're hiding in the toilet after the speech.

   16. CWChris Williamson18:57

       (laughs)

   17. CBDr Christian Busch18:57

       And so, it's kind of those things where, um, where, where those kind of things happen. And, and so, what I've... Like, there's two things I've found extremely helpful in that regard. One is to think about questions beforehand. So, you know, if you would ever run into that conference speaker or that potential love of your life or something else, you have one or two questions that feel authentic to, to yourself and, and that feel, "Oh, this I could literally ask everyone." I could literally ask everyone, "What do you enjoy doing?" Right? Instead of, "What do you do?" which puts someone into a box. If I slightly change it into, "What do you enjoy doing?" the other person can, can, can veer into whatever area they want. And I think you had a great point there on energy, right? Then, then they get in- out of their autopilot in terms of, "I'm this, I'm this, I'm this," to, "I actually enjoy this and this and this," where then you can pick up on whatever is most, most interesting. I think the second point, (laughs) you know, is really when you think about what holds us back a lot of times. What are the kind of fears that, that, that are there? You know, is it imposter syndrome? There's always this kind of small little imposter in there, or fear of rejection, things like this. Something that I've found extremely helpful is to think about what's the worst thing that can happen. Like, I always thought the worst thing that can happen is rejection, right? A conference speaker saying, "I don't have time for you." A love interest saying, "I don't find you interesting," whatever it is. But then, I realized that sting of rejection is nothing in comparison to this feeling of, ah, what could have happened had I spoken with that person. That feeling of regret, that feeling of, like, thinking the whole day, "Oh, if I had done this, could ha- could this and this happen?" It's a very Mark Twain thing in terms of that you will re- regret the things you, you haven't done over the things y- you have. And, and so, I think it's, it's very much this kind of thing of, of really reframing it away from, hey, rejection is really the thing that's, that's the worst here, to, hey, um, the worst thing that can happen is to not act on it and then feel, feel really bad about it.

4. 20:37 – 24:59

   Pain of Missed Opportunities

   1. CBDr Christian Busch20:37

   2. CWChris Williamson20:37

      That is the best takeaway that I had from your work. The fact that the pain of not closing a loop and the pain of a what if is way, way, way worse than the pain of rejection, especially if you can add a tiny bit of humor into it. Because if someone does, like, reject you in a rude way, you c- it's, it's funnier than it is rude.

   3. CBDr Christian Busch20:58

      (laughs)

   4. CWChris Williamson20:59

      Like, the, the worst sort of rejection isn't the one that's really rude, yet it's the one that you've got in your mind. And yeah, perfect example, the first weekend that I landed here in Austin in November last year, uh, Tim Ferriss, right? God of the podcasting world, one of the OGs, uh, was in the sauna cold plunge place that I go to. And he went in with somebody that I know, right? So, a past podcaster, uh, guest. Dr. Dan Angle owns that place. Dan knows me. Tim Ferriss walks in. I'm like, "Right, okay, I know Dan. I don't know Tim. I'd love to know Tim. Tim's right there." We went in, came back out, and then Tim was sat down reading a book. And I just thought, "I won't, I won't interrupt him. He'll- he'll- he's reading his book, and he's doing whatever." And now, even now, three and a half months on, I could've just gone up and said, "Hey man, I just wanted to let you know, you did a How to Start a Podcast podcast four years ago that I listened to. We're now 50 million plays deep. I just wanted to say thank you for the stuff that you've done." What's that? 10 seconds? 10 seconds. And Tim Ferriss is no way that big of a dick that he wouldn't have at least been accepting of it, if not, like, genuinely happy to feel that. Because I'd- I'd like to feel that, right, or- or hear that from someone. But I didn't do it, and it still plagues me to this day.

   5. CBDr Christian Busch22:12

      Mm-hmm.

   6. CWChris Williamson22:12

      That still hangs over me.

   7. CBDr Christian Busch22:14

      Mm-hmm.

   8. CWChris Williamson22:14

      Versus had I just gone up and tapped him on the arm and said, "Hey man, thank you for everything that you do," and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And who knows what would have come out of that. So, I don't have, I don't have many regrets. But that, that from the last couple of months is one that sticks with me.

   9. CBDr Christian Busch22:28

      Yeah. No, I- I feel you. And, and I think that's exactly... You know, when you think about it in terms of... It- it- it- it- now, it's at least also a good story, right? Either way, it- like, everything that... If- even if it would have been rejection, right, it would have been a good story. And so, the point is, like, to... Like, I'm- I've actually become a big fan of rejection in the sense of it feels really bad in the moment, but it literally closes other doors, right? So, the rejection of, you know, that love interest where you thought, "Oh my God, this is the love of my life," and then you realizing, "Well, actually, she's like a bit of a..." You know? Um, that might be great. If you would have figured it out in five years once you're married and have two kids, it's a bit too late, right?

   10. CWChris Williamson23:03

       Dude.

   11. CBDr Christian Busch23:03

       It's just... And, and, you know, that's what I found really fascinating in terms of when does something become the inflection point for something. And that actually, a lot of times, serendipity comes out of crisis. It comes out of, you know, something not working out, some kind of rejection for a job, and then you're like, "Oh my God. I could actually open up my own business and... or my own cool podcast," or whatever it is, right? There's a... So, so maybe, you know, Tim Ferriss would have said, "Hey, do this for me," and then it would have ended up as like a medium-type whatever thing versus now you have your own big thing. You know what I mean? So, it's kind of I feel almost, "Hey, great. Maybe that was also the best..." It's almost like, you know, um, it could become inflection points either way, but I think, um, that a lot of times serendipity actually comes out of crises or it comes out of things that didn't work. And rejection is a big one there, I guess.

   12. CWChris Williamson23:45

       There's a concept that I bro-scienced into existence called anxiety cost. So, you understand opportunity cost, right? That by doing one thing, you can't do another? Anxiety cost to me is the amount of time that you spend thinking about an unclosed loop.

   13. CBDr Christian Busch23:58

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CWChris Williamson23:58

       So, that is a cost that you could have fixed had you have just done the thing.

   15. CBDr Christian Busch24:02

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   16. CWChris Williamson24:02

       Had I gone up and spoken to Tim Ferriss, it would have taken me 20 seconds to walk across the, the room, 10 seconds to speak to him, 30 seconds total time investment. As opposed to probably hours that I've reflected on that situation. Or the same thing that I need to go to the gym today. If you go to the gym in the morning, that means that for the rest of the day, you can bathe in your self-congratulatory adulation and feel all prestigious because you went to the gym earlier, as opposed to leaving-

   17. CBDr Christian Busch24:27

       (laughs)

   18. CWChris Williamson24:27

       ... it til 8:00 PM, and you spent all of the day thinking to yourself, "I got to go to the gym. I got to go to the gym. I got to go to the gym." And-... yeah, I think that trying to limit that by just putting yourself into situations is such an easier way to do that. And remembering the pain of unfulfilled what-ifs is way worse than the pain of rejection for no matter how introverted you are, that's a pretty big motivator.

   19. CBDr Christian Busch24:53

       Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And I love the way you framed that. I think that's a very quotable sentence, uh, r- right there.

5. 24:59 – 32:37

   Types of Serendipity

   1. CBDr Christian Busch24:59

      (laughs)

   2. CWChris Williamson24:59

      What about different types of serendipity? There must be different categories of some kind.

   3. CBDr Christian Busch25:05

      Yeah. Well, it's interesting because in a way when you think about what is serendipity all about, it's a lot of times there's three different types that, that we found in our work. One is that you're saying you're already looking for something. Let's say you're looking for a job at, you know, XYZ Consultancy, and then you coincidentally run into someone that you didn't expect could even help you with this, and they get you that job. So, in a way you already knew what you wanted, but you find a very kind of unexpected way to, to get there. I mean, you know, the, the quintessential, uh, uh, example, there is Archimedes who, you know, he, for his, uh, for his king, he tried to figure out like, "Is that crown real gold or did someone kind of, um, you know, um, mess with the king?" And so, he didn't find a solution to this, and so he went, you know, chilled out in the baths, right? The kind of, uh, uh, in a way, the, uh, the, the old version of the, of the sauna. It seems like good things happen there, right? It's... that's fantastic. And so, he went to the, he went to the bath, and he lowered himself into the water, and he realized, oh, wow, like the water will be pushed differently depending on the weight of something. And so essentially, if I do that with a crown, I can, I can figure out if, if that is real gold. And so, he, he already knew what he would w- want, what he wanted to do, but he found an unexpected way to solve that. Uh, that's the first piece. The second piece is really when you kind of like you're not looking for anything, right? And then (snaps fingers) boom, thunderbolts, it happens, and you know, you sit in that coffee shop, you weren't looking for love, but you instantly know that is the person. And then, you know, it kind of like happens in that moment and, and develops from there. So, it's kind of a, uh, you're not looking for anything, but it happens. And then the third piece is really more the kind of Post-It notes type serendipity where you're looking for something, maybe you're looking for a job in consulting, and then you get that job, and you realize, oh, I actually don't really, uh, want it. But on the way, you realize, you know, one of the people who interviewed you could be an amazing co-founder for your business. And so, you start something completely different. So, you look for something, but then you find something completely different in the process. Like Post-It notes, right? They look for a stronger glue, but then realized, oh, wow, a weaker glue might be, might be much cooler than, than that. And so, the point is what they all have in common is there's always some kind of unexpected moment, right? Something that, that happens, but then again, we have to do something and connect the dots and, and, and, and act on it.

   4. CWChris Williamson27:11

      One of the problems that I had was with people who say things happen for a reason. So, they look back after some catastrophe that they've gone through, and they say, "Well, yeah, but this, this happened for a reason. I broke my legs for a reason. I crashed my car for a reason. I lost my job for a reason." The reason that I don't like that wording is that it seems to me to take the agency out of that person's actions, right? That, okay, let's say that in one version of this universe, this did happen for a reason, and you were meant to get into a car crash, and you were meant to break your legs, and you were meant to lose your job, right? And then out of the back of that, you've now got a better life. The other version of the story, which I believe, is that something shitty happened to you three times, like car crash, broken legs, lost your job, and you overcame that. You went through all of these different situations, and you made something good come out of something bad, or you made something great come out of something good. You know, "I had this great opportunity, and then I became whatever it is that I wanted, or I found my wife, or I did whatever," right? That to me is a much more empowering, inspiring, energizing story to tell yourself than like, what, what's the alter- what, what does, what do people mean when they say, "This happened for a reason"? You're like post hoc rationalizing all of the good stuff you did and outsourcing it to what? Like some higher power? Fuck that. Like, it's your... you were the person that made this go well. So, I don't... uh, it feels very disempowering to me when people say that. And it feels like it's kind of like the serendipity mindset or connect the dots as well that you're kind of reverse engineering your own input into this situation out of it and leaving it completely up to chance.

   5. CBDr Christian Busch28:52

      Well, that's the interesting thing, right? That if you think about it... and, you know, it reminds me of this, this beautiful idea that does the situation define you or do you define the situation, right? So, in a way, you know, most inspiring people that I know had some kind of inflection points in their life where the question was, will that situation define them? Will they be the one who was broken up with f- for the rest of their life? Will be the one... will they be the one who was bankrupt for the rest of their life, right? So, do they, do they settle with that idea that something went wrong, or do they say, "No, this becomes the inflection point for something, and now I find something better or something that, that fits better." And so, I think that's the fascinating thing, right? And it always reminds me, um, that kind of agency and, and that comes really back to, to, to the social constructedness of, of things. It reminds me of Viktor Frankl and, um, you know, he wrote this amazing book, Man's Search for Meaning. Uh, I read it when I had, uh, actually two near-death experiences. I, I re-read it recently. Um, but so I- I've been reading it, and, and what I've always found inspiring when he kind of... you know, he was in a concentration camp, which as you can imagine, or in, in several, but like as you can imagine, that's the toughest situation you can be in. Objectively, there's no hope, no meaning, nothing. It's objectively meaningless from the perspective of the person who's, who's in there and, and in general, from a societal, uh, uh, perspective. And, and so it's kind of the, the toughest situation it can be in. And he said, "You know what? I still have agency in this situation. Even in this most of meaningless situations, I will create meaning." And so, what he did was he was saying, "Look, every day I will still speak with another prisoner in this camp."... to make them feel better. And by doing this, now I have a meaning to wake up tomorrow morning. Now I have a reason to wake up tomorrow morning because I still have to talk with so many people to make them feel better. And then I also still want to write that book once I get out of here. And so what he did was he created this duality of meaning of a day-to-day meaning where every day there was a bit of a small meaning, and then also this big meaning, "Hey, this is still something I want to do when, when I'm out of here." And I've always found that inspiring is this idea that, look, if Viktor Frankl can do this in a concentration camp, if social entrepreneurs can do that in sub-Saharan Africa where a lot of our work is, I think we can do that in, in a lot of other contexts as well. And so I think there's always this huge element, I think, of, "Hey, what is our agency here and, and what can we do with it? And can we define that situation a little bit?"

   6. CWChris Williamson31:06

      What were you doing in Africa?

   7. CBDr Christian Busch31:08

      Well, so I, I started working there around 10 years ago, um, but, you know, first for my PhD, which was all around the question of how do entrepreneurs in that context develop their networks to somehow have an impact and, and, and, and to scale and to grow. And, um, it's become, you know, for me the context where I've learned the most from in the sense of especially Kenya and, and South Africa. I will never forget, for example, the first time I, I, I went there, a- and now a very good friend of mine, I asked him, "So, so me as someone coming to your context, what should I never ask you? What's the one thing that, you know, these white kids coming into your context always ask you, but, like, you should never, ne- never do that?" And he said, "Don't ask me what I need as the first question. If you would, if you ask me what I need as the first question, you put me into the role of the victim or the beneficiary of someone who kind of needs your benevolence. Whereas if you come in and say, 'What's here? What can we do together?' And then you can still, like, resource and whatever, but we then kind of meet on the same, uh, level." And, and I think that to me was extremely inspiring because I think, you know, when I think about all these development efforts over the last decades, a lot of them have failed because there's always this idea of, oh, people just need better nutrition and better education. No, people also need dignity and hope and the feeling that they can create their own luck and that you create, like, that you don't give them handouts. And I think that's kind of, for me, that was a big shift in thinking to say, no, it's not just about lower needs and fulfilling them first, it's starting with meaning, it's starting with dignity and, and then kind of getting from there. And I think that for me has informed everything else I've, I've been doing.

6. 32:37 – 42:45

   How to Reframe an Unlucky Situation

   1. CBDr Christian Busch32:37

   2. CWChris Williamson32:37

      What ro- uh, h- have y- what's the framework that you've got in that case for reframing things? You know, we've spoken about Viktor Frankl, we've spoken about people in sub-Saharan Africa, but, you know, being in a really shitty situation and just manifesting meaning seems like a pretty big task. So have you got some steps that people can go through?

   3. CBDr Christian Busch32:56

      Yeah, that's a great question. And again, you know, I would never, like, I, I, uh, I lived in this context for a little bit as a kind of guest, but I would never... You know, I think both from the inside and from the outside, you know, there's objectively resource constraints and we have to work on them, and I think that's a given. So, so that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about though is that in every context you find people who have a different mindset than, than, than other people in, in, in the same context. And so in this context, for example, there's this amazing organization that used an approach that I find extremely useful in those kind of contexts, which is scaling bricolage. So scaling the be- making the best out of what is at hand. So what they do is it's a organization that has a low cost education methodology. So, you know, it's things like 10 steps to use social media to build a business and stuff like that. And what they do is they go into other low income communities and instead of asking, "What do you need?" because they don't have resources that they could give, uh, and, and that's obviously not the approach they want to use, they say, "What's already here and how can we make the best out of this? There's an old garage. Fantastic. That could be a training center. There's a former drug dealer. Fantastic. That person has amazing resourcefulness probably, they probably have a lot of social capital, and if you turn them into a teacher, they can probably turn the whole community around." And so the point here is that you're looking at the world from the perspective of what can we make with what's here versus what we think we need. And that kind of, like, you can transfer, right? They've used that model in banks, for example, where the old school approach during the pandemic would be, we have to fire people because we don't have the resources now to have them sit in the office or have them sit at home or stuff like that. That's always the easy way out, right? To fire people to, quote unquote, decrease costs. With this kind of scaling bricolage model, the idea is that you go in and you say, "Okay, what's already here? We have this cashier and we don't need them because we have a machine for that now. Well, but maybe that could be a financial trainer and maybe the office could be the broadcast center for the online financial education course." And so the point here is that once you reframe it away from what do we need, we need more budget, more resources, yada ya, but to what's already here, how do we make the best of it, you can create budgets around this, right? Where you ask people, "Hey, have you already considered how you could use the chairs of your neighboring restaurant for your event rather than needing 10 chairs to buy and stuff like that?" And then once you do that, you get so used to this idea, oh, actually, there's always resources around us if we see it or not. And that comes back to the serendipity mindset that there's an abundance of potentiality, but we tend to not see it because we're so focused on particular resources and particular things.

   4. CWChris Williamson35:24

      What do you think it is about the when you're not looking for it, that's when it arrives mentality to do with luck? You know, that buses, you're waiting and waiting, and then when you finally turn away, that's when the bus arrives type thing. I think, you know, it's co- commonly held wisdom. Have you ever seen this arise inside of your own work at all? When people start focusing on things less, somehow opportunities arise too? Because that seems to run quite counter to what we're talking about. One of these is deliberateness, intentionality, whereas that is almost, I, I don't know, like, turn your back and forget about it and then it's gonna happen.

   5. CBDr Christian Busch35:57

      Yeah. Well, look, and, and I think, um, you know, those thunderbolt kind of serendipities happen a lot of times, right? When you're not looking for anything and then that beautiful thing happens where you fall in love and, and X, Y, Z, things like this. And, and I think, you know, to me that comes a lot back to the point of am I trying too hard for something? If I, if I want this one job in this one consultancy and I'm trying really hard, that can be really great, but I might also close my eyes now to all these other potential consultancies or to all these conversations randomly next to me where someone was talking about that they're looking for exactly the person that I am, but I didn't even listen to it, stuff like that.

   6. CWChris Williamson36:31

      Is that what you think the problem with wanting stuff too hard or trying too hard is then, that you become, um, like overly narrow focused?

   7. CBDr Christian Busch36:40

      Exactly. And, and I think what it creates is anxiety, right? A lot of anxiety. I mean, I remember I used to be very much like this. Like, "Hey, I need a plan. I want to know exactly what I'll map out and X, Y, Z." And then I had this amazing mentor, and he always- he used to tell me, "Christian, people like you always think there's one way to Rome, and then you realize you don't even want to be in Rome." And, and to me, that kind of like really drove it home, where you're like, "Geez, like, you think you know what you want, you think you know what it is. You know nothing." To your point earlier, we're all just winging it. Like, how can I know now what I want in 10 years? Like, how is that even possible? I don't know. You know, I, I know, you know, I have a beautiful family and things like this, but you know, w- we might kind of like... Whatever kind of like life kind of happens, happens, in terms of, you know, we'll find another city to live in, whatever, whatever. You never know what happens. The point is that, I think, you know, from our work, and, and I... The inner researcher in me comes out when, when you asked that question, the nerdy one, uh, uh, who says, "We just did a study actually with, with CEOs, where we tried to figure out what is it that makes the most successful CEOs really successful?" And the one key theme that they all have in common is that they're extremely good at saying, "Here's a sense of direction. If I'm running MasterCard, here is my sense of direction. We want to get 500 million people into the financial system who were previously unbanked. This is our North Star. This is our sense of direction. Here's an approximate strategy. But I'm already telling you now that we will adjust that strategy based on new information coming in." So what they do is they- they give people a sense of clarity of where we're going, but at the same time also build the unexpected as part of the plan. And I think that, to me, in my own life and- and in the lives of others, I've- I've seen that that decreases anxiety so much, because you're saying, "Yes, I have a key sense of direction, but I'm also open to the unexpected." And even if I don't, I work a lot with young people, and young people, there's so much pressure on them in terms of, "Find your purpose, find your meaning, find this and this." I mean, come on, when you're 18 years old, like how are you supposed to do all that? So I'm a big fan, actually, of asking them, "What's your curiosity?" Right? "What is, what is something that really you're curious about?" And then that becomes your sense of direction for a time, and then something else becomes, and then you more and more go towards the sense that- that- that who you are and who you want to be in this world. But I think as long as we don't know that, I think a key curiosity gives us a sense of direction without over-pressuring that plan. I think that's to your point. If we get too rigid with a plan, that's when things go wrong.

   8. CWChris Williamson38:59

      Well, as soon as you have that plan, especially one that's rigid, you then begin to measure the difference between where you are and where the plan said that you were. And inherent in that is that there's going to be some anxiety around however far away from it you are, and then over time this is going to diverge. Yeah, I um... I don't know. I think that that sort of flexible approach would... Implicit in that, the subtext of having that flexible approach, is that you can be more confident that future you will deal with whatever problems arise. Like, the reason that you have an unbelievably strictly laid out plan is basically because of a lack of faith that you could come up with a solution impromptu now and now and now and now and now. So by having a more flexible plan, that empowers the people who are following the direction to say, "Well, look, like, you know, we knew that this was going to be a thing." They're constantly being more vigilant because they know that they're actually on the lookout for new opportunities. And generally, I think... I- I have this friend who's, uh, spends way too much money on supercars, and he (laughs) always says that, um, when he buys another one, "I have faith that future Andrew will pay for it."

   9. CBDr Christian Busch40:09

      (laughs)

   10. CWChris Williamson40:09

       And the point is that he believes in himself so much that it doesn't matter. He's like, "I'll spend the money now, and the guy tomorrow will end up paying for it." Now, I am aware that some people have probably got themselves into some pretty severe credit card debt by also taking that point of view. But he has evidence as well over time that he's accumulated that shows him that he's probably going to be quite okay. But yeah, I think, um, I think taking a looser approach, heading towards some sort of a North Star, rough-hewn on the way up there, I think that that's a pretty good way to go about it.

   11. CBDr Christian Busch40:41

       Well, and the interesting thing is, to your point, right, if- if that's kind of being hand-in-hand with a kind of measured risk-taking approach, right, to your point, versus like overconfidence maybe that- that some people kind of, uh, uh, in- in- in some- some ways might- might do. Um, you know, that- that's kind of like, I think, what's fascinating about when you look at- at successful people and you study them. What always kind of is with them is that they... You know, to give an example, I was fascinated when COVID happened, and when COVID happened, you know, you had all these old school leaders, and the old school leadership mantra is, "Always portray strength. Always portray that you know everything, that- that- that you have everything under control." So it's a complete illusion of control, and- and some people buy it, some people don't, but- but in a way it's completely lying to everyone, right? And so, you know, when COVID happened, you had this kind of, in the US here, um, you had some governors or some kind of people who were running the state essentially saying, "Here's an exact timeline on when we open up. Here's exactly what we'll do. Here's exactly when like X, Y, Z will happen." Now, when new information comes in, of course now they have to either revise the timeline and look weak, or they have to hide the data, which a lot of them did, right? The other, the new school leadership approach, um, that's based on that kind of more the mindset we've been talking about is to say, "Hey, here's our kind of North Star. Here's our sense of direction, which is public health and economic health. Here's an approximate timeline based on these kind of things." The timeline is usually then the same as with the other. That's the funny thing, right? It's the same timeline they will- they will both give. But they will say, "We are ready to tell you now, as soon as new information comes in, we will revise the timeline, and that will be part of our plan." And by doing this now, when new information comes in and they revise the timeline, they look strong versus the other ones looking weak. And to me that's the big difference. This is really not about at all saying, "Let's let go of everything," and like, "Let's- let's kind of just be out there and float." No, this is actually being realistic about what you can control, and then controlling everything you can control, but then also letting go of the solution of control. And I think that's where it gets exciting because then, to your point, you don't get anxious about new data because that wasn't part of your plan, because you said, "When new information comes in, we'll adjust."

7. 42:45 – 48:40

   AI in Serendipity

   1. CWChris Williamson42:46

      Are you familiar with the control problem in artificial general intelligence? Have you heard about this?

   2. CBDr Christian Busch42:52

      I did, but, but please, I mean, yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson42:54

      Okay. So there's a, a, an issue that a misaligned superintelligent AGI that is given some optimization function could end up turning the entire world into paperclips because it didn't realize that we didn't quite mean, "Don't turn everybody into paperclips." And one of the, um, solutions that's proposed is kind of similar to what you're saying. It's called machine extrapolated volition, right, MEV. And what it proposes is that instead of trying to create in advance a bunch of rules which cover every single potential misinterpretation of every rule and it somehow manages to quantify in code what we mean by good and happy and human and life and, bruh, everything else, right, which we already can't define even just using words. Instead, what it says is that you ask the machine to come up with its own solution for what we would have wanted had we have known as much as it knows, right? So it's this ever-mutating, ever-progressing, ever-updating solution. It's constantly checking against what we would have asked for had we known what it knows, which is way, way more than we know. And it kind of feels a little bit like the malleable, uh, easy-to-move plan that you're saying the sort of new wave of politicians and business leaders are following, is kind of similar to that. We're not trying to say in advance exactly what we're going to do. We're going to have a plan which is going to be updated en route, and we know that it's going to be more optimal because it's going to be able to adjust to things that we couldn't see, like maybe a global pandemic. And it's going to make us look stronger because in advance we said that this was what we were going to do.

   4. CBDr Christian Busch44:38

      Well, this is, I mean, that's, that's a fascinating, um, theme, right? Because, um, and by the way, those of you interested in this, there's, um, the, the, the World Economic Forum, they have these knowledge maps which is essentially AI kind of building interest graphs and knowledge graphs and kind of like trying to, like AI trying to figure out how do we, how do we organize your knowledge differently than, than kind of traditional, uh, things did. And I've always found that super interesting in terms of what can AI do and, and, and how is, how is that being organized. But to your point, something that, uh, uh, uh, it's beautifully serendipitous that you, that, that you brought that up. We actually just finished a very nerdy paper, those of you just d- delighted to share, um, a- about exactly what is the role of AI in serendipity. Like how do we, you know, when you think about the relationship between AI and serendipity, how does that interplay? And, and one of the key kind of like conclusions we came to was that ser- like, like, like AI is extremely good at, to your point, once you have a certain idea of, you know, criteria of judgment, like something that you're saying, "Okay, this is what we think we might want or something like this. Here's a couple of criteria of judgment and then let them run with it." Extremely good, right, at getting all the information and all this stuff, but then serendipity a lot of times depends on meaning-making, right? It depends on sense-making. It depends on this kind of social context. It depends on, you know, AI can f- try to find me my love of my life, but then I have to still have that gut feel of, yes, this could be it versus not, right? And so that's the fascinating thing where this augmentation between AI and the human actually can then scale serendipitous innovation by saying AI can scale the information. It can scale the potential data point and recommend some stuff, and then human meaning-making can kind of like connect a couple of those dots. And then if you take that together, you can actually scale that up. And I think that's where these knowledge graphs become extremely interesting, where you can then potentially get more information quicker, but also connect the dots much quicker as, as well. But I think that's at the very beginning of, um... And, and I'm certainly, I'm, I'm a student of this. I'm still kind of trying to learn how all this is playing out. It's, it's a fascinating theme.

   5. CWChris Williamson46:35

      Dude, read Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom, or probably audible it because the, the book is a little bit of a heavy meal.

   6. CBDr Christian Busch46:42

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson46:42

      But that, that came out in 2014 or 2016, I think. Maybe 2014. And it was a New York Times bestseller, hardcore AI existential risk-

   8. CBDr Christian Busch46:53

      Mm.

   9. CWChris Williamson46:53

      ... understanding the different types of takeoffs. So the way, the... I have no idea how it became a New York Times bestseller, but obviously, 'cause it's very well-written and really engaging, right? But it shouldn't do, given the, the topic that-

   10. CBDr Christian Busch47:03

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson47:03

       ... it's about. Um, but that was, that really informed a lot of my understanding about AI systems, but also-

   12. CBDr Christian Busch47:11

       Mm.

   13. CWChris Williamson47:11

       ... the principles that underpin them. And machine extrapolated volition is such a useful tool just to have, even if you're not thinking about designing an AI, which obviously I'm not.

   14. CBDr Christian Busch47:21

       Mm-hmm.

   15. CWChris Williamson47:22

       But it's just a really useful thi- way to think about having an adaptive plan that moves forward and allowing cumulative wisdom to feed back into whatever it is that you want.

   16. CBDr Christian Busch47:31

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CWChris Williamson47:33

       Wasn't there a thing, didn't you do something to do with rabbits ears? Wasn't that in the book? The floppiness of rabbits ears?

   18. CBDr Christian Busch47:39

       Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson47:41

       What was that?

   20. CBDr Christian Busch47:42

       Yeah, yeah. Well, that, that's actually, you know, that's a beautiful example actually of, of counterfactuals, right, which I think is always the fascinating thing. What could have happened had you acted on something, right? The beautiful conversation we had earlier about that kind of thing of like, ah, had I gone through with this and X, Y, Z. And so the floppy rabbits is really about this idea that two researchers at the same time gave kind of rabbits some kind of injection, um, you know, testing something, and then the, the ra- rabbit's ears flopped and, and both of them were surprised. So both of them had the same random surprising observation, but only one of them acted on it and, you know, realized, "Oh my God, that's about blood flow. That's about kind of like, you know, accelerating, uh, blood flow and so on." So he kind of helped turn that into arthritis kind of tackling medication and became, like got a lot of prizes, whereas the other one didn't do anything with it. And so it's the fascinating thing, right, what we talked about in the coffee shop, that our reaction to that unexpected moment, then that's what makes it, it's... Yes, it's random, but then hey, what do we do with

8. 48:40 – 54:58

   Application into Daily Life

   1. CBDr Christian Busch48:40

      it?

   2. CWChris Williamson48:41

      So we've got the, uh, Serendipity Journal. We've got the hook strategy. What else, what are some other ways that people can apply what we've gone through today to try and get a bit more luck in their lives?

   3. CBDr Christian Busch48:54

      Well, look, I had two near-death experiences in life, so I'm a huge fan of actually trying to not have near-death experiences in your life, but to actually have the same logic that a lot of people like me have, uh, when you face death, which is, you just don't care about a lot of things anymore because you're like, "You know what?" When you're on your deathbed, you won't care about if you have four or five cars in your garage, um, and you won't care about so many things you think you care about now. Um, and I'm a big fan of, um, you know, I would literally Google, um, deathbed regrets, where there is a nurse that wrote down the kind of top deathbed regrets of people who, who she had on, on, on her deathbeds. And it's always the same things, right? It's always, "I wished I had lived a life, uh, truer to myself. I wished I had spent more time with the people I love and more meaningful connections with them," and stuff like that. And so, I think, to me, this is really at the absolute core of everything we just talked about. Serendipity is about potentiality, it's about who we could be, who others could be. And one thing that can really help us figure this out is to become clear about who, who, who do I want to be? What are the kind of being-in values, being at kind of non-negotiable values that, that I feel I want to stand for? So when I'm on my deathbed, that's what I will be happy about, what I'll be proud of. So I'm a big fan of this kind of pre-mortem where you're essentially saying, "Okay. How do I think about now what I would regret on my deathbed if I would run in front of a car tomorrow?" And, and I think, to me, this comes to a bigger point, Chris, which is, I think we always assume, you know, there's a lot of times to still, you know, do the things that feel really meaningful. So for example, a lot of my students, they first go into a job that they don't enjoy that much because it gives them a lot of money and networks, and then later on they do the things they really care about. And one conversation we have a lot is that yes, like, by any means, like if you have student debt and everything else, you've got to do something to pay that back. And at the same time, don't assume that you have a lot of time. Like don't assume that, you know, life might not be over very quickly. So try to do as much as you can now that actually gives you something meaningful. So if you join XYZ Bank, by any means, find out on day one if there's a board member who's excited about similar issues as you are, and can you then get that bank to tackle those issues? Or something like this where you leverage them as a platform then towards what you're really excited about and build that meaning into it. And I think that comes back to our earlier point, that even in those situations where some people might say, "Oh, I have to work in this bank now for five years before I can do XYZ." No. Try to figure out within this bank if you can somehow develop leverage. A lot of times it's interns who build the most meaningful stuff by finding a couple of people, couple of champions, and then, um, within the organization, then do something really meaningful. And so I think it's really about, um, you know, going on our deathbed and saying, "What would I regret?" And then thinking from, from there what's meaningful to us. And trying to find the people who feel meaningful to us. I think to your point, right, what are the kind of communities that feel meaningful to us? Uh, the kind of themes and, and so on.

   4. CWChris Williamson51:41

      There's a guy, Alex Hormozi, who's coming on the show next month, and he recently sold his business for some insane amount of money. And he put a tweet out the other day that said, "Stop saying that 50 years old is middle-aged. The average life expectancy of a man in the United States is 75.5 years old." He said, "37 years old is middle-aged. You have way less time than you think." And that's back to your point, right?

   5. CBDr Christian Busch52:09

      Mm-hmm.

   6. CWChris Williamson52:09

      That you do kind of need to remember that the clock ticks down to death, it doesn't tick up from birth.

   7. CBDr Christian Busch52:17

      Yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson52:17

      That's the way, that's the way that your life is going. There is a limited number of books that you get to read for the rest of your life.

   9. CBDr Christian Busch52:23

      (laughs)

   10. CWChris Williamson52:23

       There are a limited number of Netflix shows and meals out with friends and time that you get to spend with your parents and time that you get to spend with your kid, and so on and so forth. You need to make sure that you use them right. And a lot of the time if you, if you haven't done that pre-mortem, if you haven't looked at what is the direction that I want to go in, perfect to what you said earlier on, you think that you want to go to Rome, and halfway along the journey you realize that you, that wasn't even the place that you were supposed to end up at. And yeah, going through life to find out not only that you didn't mean to get there, but that you wanted to be somewhere else as well, that's a, that's a, a pretty dangerous situation to be in. So yeah, I, uh, I hope that that has scared some people into, into realizing they should probably do a little bit of reassessment.

   11. CBDr Christian Busch53:15

       Well, and, and to your point, right, I feel it's fascinating once you then face death, I think Steve Jobs says it beautifully, right? That like, of course, emotionally, like in those kind of situations when he, he got cancer, right? He, he had this beautiful, um, sentence that, that death can be life's greatest motivator, right? Imagine a situation where if you would live forever, right? I mean, what kind of sense of urgency would you feel? What kind of sense of meaning would you feel when you know, yeah, whatever I do, like I'll still be here in like 50,000 years, so whatever, right? Versus like now that you know, actually, I only have a limited amount of time, maybe that also can be meaningful in that sense. And so I've actually, um, you know, I spent a lot of times, um, after my first and, and second (laughs) near-death experience with people who have cancer, for example, and other terminal diseases, and what I found fascinating is how many of them have then found a deep purpose. So for example, taking the cancer and say this will be a campaign now, and I'll run this like I ran a campaign in politics. Or XYZ, XYZ, and I will inform others about how we can go about this and, and, you know, set up a foundation around it, you name it. And so the point is that I think it's, it's kind of hopefully it never comes to kind of those things, right? Terminal disease and so, which obviously is the worst thing that, that can happen. And at the same time, I think this question of how do we think about that, yes, li- life, life can be short, but also maybe that's not a bad thing in the sense that it can give us meaning to actually focus now on the things that are truly meaningful and, and then, you know ... I don't know if you're watching, I, I just started watching this, this show, and now I'm, I'm forgetting the name. But it's all about this kind of upload, um, where essentially people then get digitally uploaded and then they download again, and it's just a fascinating kind of whole, whole thing. I forgot the name of it. But my point is, who knows what happens afterwards, right? Who knows what, what comes next? So let's make the best of what we can do here.

9. 54:58 – 55:33

   Where to Find Dr Busch

   1. CBDr Christian Busch54:58

   2. CWChris Williamson54:58

      Dr. Christian Busch, ladies and gentlemen. If people want to keep up to date with what you do, where should they go?

   3. CBDr Christian Busch55:04

      So the home page is theserendipitymindset.com. Um, I'm @ChrisSerendip on Twitter. And, uh, the book is in bookstores around the world.

   4. CWChris Williamson55:13

      Thanks, mate. I appreciate you. What's happening, people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace.

Episode duration: 55:34