I define “luck” as the discrepancy between the achieving success and probability of success.

If you rolled a fair dice once and correctly guessed the number I would consider you lucky. The probability of guessing right was 1/6.

If you rolled a fair dice one hundred times, only correctly guessing on your one hundredth try, I would consider you unlucky. The probability of guessing right was 1/6 always. But you couldn’t get 5/6 lucky one time in ninety nine attempts.

Whether you achieve success or not, that is up to destiny to decide, but using my definition, luck is measurable. In the chart above you can only become lucky once you have surpassed the minimum agency required to get lucky.

In our “rolling the dice” example that is: picking up the dice, throwing it and guessing.

If you correctly guessed the number on the first roll, the probability of guessing right was 1/6, so your luck was 5/6. If you correctly guessed the number on the second roll, the probability of guessing right was 1/6, but you had two attempts, so your luck was 4/6 or 2/3.

If you correctly guessed the number on the eighteenth roll, the probability of guessing right was 1/6, but you had eighteen attempts, your expected to have correctly guessed three times by now yet you only got one, so your unluck was 2.

"I would rather have a general who was lucky than one who was good" — Napoleon Bonaparte

A friend of mine worked as a recruiter briefly and shared a story in which his boss picked up all the CVs for a job application and threw the top half in the bin before stating “I don’t work with unlucky people".

Unfortunately this anecdote is likely fiction because:

1. Most CVs are not printed on paper, they are PDFs.
2. Recruiters don’t “work with” the successful candidates unless they where hiring for an internal position.
3. Other recruiters make the same joke about different recruiting agencies.

Although this may be fiction, who would want to be with someone with no or low luck?

How to guarantee you have no luck?

• Low/no agency → The single guarantor that someone will never achieve luck
• Low/no energy → Death by inertia.
• Low/no direction → The energy is used inefficiently, never reaches escape velocity.

The only way to guarantee you have no luck is to never surpass the minimum agency required to get lucky.

Naval’s 4 types of luck:

• Blind Luck - Something that happens outside of your control,
• Hustler Luck - When you create lots of opportunities, luck will find you,
• Spotting Luck - Becoming an expert in a field helps you find others lucky breaks first,
• Unique Luck - You build a unique character and luck finds you.

One of the luckiest people I know:

Arguably my most successful friend, is also the luckiest. Not the hardest worker, but he works harder than 90%.

He put himself in high-upside environments, repeatedly meeting famous founders walking the streets of London.

Many people walked past the same founders and never got lucky, they never completed the minimum required agency to get lucky.

My friend always had a purpose for the conversation, steered it in one direction, and through conveying his intelligence and credibility demonstrated he wasn’t another fanboy.

That level of preparation is the minimum agency required for “luck.”

He put in around 1,200 hours of work on his idea over 6 months.

Now he gets lucky every week.

If you want to cold-approach founders on the street, keep three things front of mind:

• A reason to speak to them,
• Something of value for them,
• A reason they should help you.

Traits I correlate with people who identify as low luck?

• Low/no charisma → People with low energy, sad vibes and low vibrations steal an envirnments good energy. I never wan't to be around these people.
• Complete pessimism → So hopeless that any effort exerted would surely be wasted, so less than required effort is exerted, they are always right.
• Complete optimism → So confident that they don’t little effort is exerted to meet the minimum required agency for escape velocity, sometimes they are right.

Some people just have a natural charisma/aura and the world seems to bend to their will, I believe this trait can be learned.

I believe the perfect balance of extreme pessimism and extreme optimism is required. The fear that the future will be soo bad that it will be unbearable, yet the belief that they can make a difference and change their destiny for a path of opulence.

I see that a lot of extremely successful founders have deep levels of insecurity that they are not enough, or the descendants of immigrants where insecurity is normal.

Things you can do to increase your luck:

• What are you trying to get lucky for?
  • Identify this
• Who has already become lucky in the same way you aspire to?
  • Understand any underlying patterns
• What have you done before which you consider lucky?
  • Understand any underlying patterns
• What have you done before which you consider unlucky?
  • Try avoid these

Create your environment to maximise luck.

Become a extreme pessimist and extreme optimist with charisma.

Always exceed the minimum agency required to get lucky.