Can You Create Good Luck? - Dr Christian Busch

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."

How would you get 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?

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.

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

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.