The Four Types of Luck
"The chief prevention against getting old is to remain astonished." - Kevin Kelly
In 1978, a neurologist named Dr. James Austin published a book entitled Chase, Chance, & Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty. In it, he proposed that there are 4 types of luck:
Blind Luck
Luck from Motion
Luck from Awareness
Luck from Uniqueness
Type 1: Blind Luck
Completely out of your control:
Where you are born
Who you are born to
Base circumstances of your life
"Acts of God"
These are the truly random occurrences of the universe.
Type 2: Luck from Motion
You’re creating motion and collisions through hustle and energy that you are inserting into an ecosystem. You increase your luck surface area through simple movement. The increase in collisions opens you up to more lucky events.
Type 3: Luck from Awareness
Depth of understanding within a given arena allows you to become very good at positioning yourself for lucky breaks. You can “spot luck” from a mile away because of your knowledge and experience.
Type 4: Luck from Uniqueness Your unique set of attributes attracts specific luck to you. “Type 4 favors those with distinctive, if not eccentric hobbies, personal lifestyles, and motor behaviors.” - Dr. James Austin
Type 4 Luck actually seeks you out.
Let’s focus for a moment on Type 1 (Blind Luck). Please read the following:
"... accidents of birth might affect the trajectories of our lives far more comprehensively than we realise, dictating not only the socioeconomic position into which we’re born, but also our personalities and experiences as a whole: our talents and our weaknesses, our capacity for joy, and our ability to overcome tendencies toward violence, laziness or despair, and the paths we end up travelling. There is a deep sense of human fellowship in this picture of reality – in the idea that, in our utter exposure to forces beyond our control, we might all be in the same boat, clinging on for our lives, adrift on the storm-tossed ocean of luck"
-- Oliver Burkeman
I think deep down we all know how random it is to be born, first of all, on a planet in a solar system that supports life. Now that NASA spent $20 billion USD and the world has access to the remarkable Webb telescope, you would think for that kind of money we’d at least see aliens waving back at us. But no…
Seriously, how we burst forth onto this blue marble of a planet and where exactly our origin is, is not only a wondrous mystery, but it sets our path for most of life’s unfolding. So the “blind” aspect of this type of luck seems to refer to the utter mystery of having a very specific origin.
It seems logical that this “blind” beginning would give each of us an insatiable curiosity to travel to as many places in the world as possible in order to, at the very least, expose ourselves to cultural contrasts and thus deeper insights into our own origin. We know all too well what it’s like to be us, and for most if not all of the people reading this, we also know we’ve been quite lucky.
Is the entire world as lucky as I am? Go find out!
Other Lucks:
Type 4, Luck from Uniqueness. You may know someone who just seems to be ridiculously lucky. He or she effortlessly strides through the world and gets what she wants. I do believe there are people who are fortunate enough where “luck” seeks them out.
Type 3, Luck from Awareness. This seems to be either an effect of being in the right place at the right time, or just following your passion in order to sniff out those lucky moments, some of which may even have an accidental nature. But being there patiently and gazing out of the binoculars at the right moment is the recipe for this type of luck.
Type 2, Luck from Motion. This is the result of the hustle, or networking, or just being driven to succeed. The 9 to 5 worker doesn’t have access to this type of luck. There can be burnout at the end of this trail, but the person can’t help herself.
That’s it for now.
Best of luck! :)
Neill
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