Time To Get Lucky
Sam Parr, one of the hosts of the My First Million podcast recounted a job interview he had at Airbnb. He had made it through the preliminary interviews to the final with company founder Joe Gebbia. Joe only asked one question. “On a scale of 1 to 10, how lucky are you?”
Sam responded that he was a 9. He said he was lucky for a variety of reasons and explained them. Sam didn’t know if it was luck or not but he seemed to get his way a lot. Sam asked Joe why he asked that.
Joe said “If luck is real, then I want to be around lucky people. And even if it’s not, I want to be around people who tend to get their way. If you’re really lucky, either luck’s real, in which case I want to be around you or you just make it work. And if you’re unlucky, I don’t want to be around you. Or you’re a victim and I don’t want to be around that.”
Turns out Jeff Bezos’s favorite question is “are you a lucky person? It was a great way to filter for optimists and people who manifest success. The humble leader, the right answer for this starts with I’m the luckiest person on earth. I’ve worked really hard to get where I am but a lot of things had to go right for me and I’ve taken full advantage of my luck. Perceiving yourself as lucky is a proxy for optimism.”
So if luck is so important to these highly successful people, what actually is it, and how do you get it? Ben Wilson defines it as “an accumulation of tiny advantages. So that when something lucky does happen, you can take advantage.”
Meaning it’s a mindset. The “lucky” person views scenarios and circumstances as opportunities and advantages. Comedian Bert Kreisher is constantly saying he’s the luckiest man alive. I listen to him recount stories and past experiences and he’s definitely been through some crap. And yet, he lives a pretty charmed life. I think that’s because he looks for the good.
The more you look for something, the more of it you’ll find. And when you practice something, you’ll get better and better at it until it becomes a natural thing you do without even thinking. And if you are constantly finding things that work in your favor, you will feel like a lucky person.
You are an incredibly lucky person. Just look and you’ll find it.
Favorite Thing I Drew This Month
Another page from Trevor Astra. I drew the page and the environment looked a bit too Star Trek/Vasquez Rocks. So I covered it all with some sort of tubular vegetation. If you click the image it should make it bigger to show the detail.
Favorite Thing I Didn’t Draw
I really like Lee Gatlin’s art. Such a fun style and interpretation of characters. He also occasionally does some pretty humorous gag comics.
Did you watch it? No? Go watch it!
An animated trailer for a graphic novel. How cool is that? Once again, the French are killing it with comics. Man I want to read that, but it’s in French. I wonder if there’s an English version. Oh snap, there is! Woot woot! So yeah, I picked Kairos by Ulysse Malassagne up and I’m looking forward to reading it.
Family Stuff
Discovered a new cookie place I like in L.A. Fleurs et Sel. A nice selection of classic and unique flavors. Their chocolate chip cookie was pretty great. I also like the smores cookie. Sophia liked the highbrow flavors like matcha and Nutella raspberry.
River and Mom had a fun craft day where he got to make his first baking soda and vinegar volcano. Required childhood experience unlocked. Sophia also added dish soap into the mix so that it would foam more. Who knew? Probably lots of people but I hadn’t heard of it before. So add that to your concoction next time.
That’s it for this month. Next month, the world’s biggest ditch! Thanks for reading.
-Josh
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