Luck be a Lady!

OK, the title probably doesn't do justice to the post but hey, it's an old Sinatra song and I guess could segue well into the following post. Andreessen's hammered out another brilliant (althogh a bit technical) post on luck. He seems to have delved into the psychology of creativity and motivation, one of my favorite topics. Those of you who know me well, and know me home library, can attest to this. One way or another, his post is about luck, and forms of luck. A one sentence summary is that everyone is the master of his or her own luck. A bit longer summary can be deferred from these challenges directly from Marc's post as follows:

• How energetic are we? How inclined towards motion are we? Those of you who read my first age and the entrepreneur post will recognize that this is a variation on the "optimize for the maximum number of swings of the bat" principle. In a highly uncertain world, a bias to action is key to catalyzing success, and luck, and is often to be preferred to thinking things through more thoroughly.

• How curious are we? How determined are we to learn about our chosen field, other fields, and the world around us? In my post on hiring great people, I talked about the value I place on curiosity -- and specifically, curiosity over intelligence. This is why. Curious people are more likely to already have in their heads the building blocks for crafting a solution for any particular problem they come across, versus the more quote-unquote intelligent, but less curious, person who is trying to get by on logic and pure intellectual effort.

• How flexible and aggressive are we at synthesizing -- at linking together multiple, disparate, apparently unrelated experiences on the fly? I think this is a hard skill to consciously improve, but I think it is good to start most creative exercises with the idea that the solution may come from any of our past experiences or knowledge, as opposed to out of a textbook or the mouth of an expert. (And, if you are a manager and you have someone who is particularly good at synthesis, promote her as fast as you possibly can.)

• How uniquely are we developing a personal point of view -- a personal approach -- a personal set of "eccentric hobbies, personal lifestyles, and motor behaviors" that will uniquely prepare us to create? This, in a nutshell, is why I believe that most creative people are better off with more life experience and journeys afield into seemingly unrelated areas, as opposed to more formal domain-specific education -- at least if they want to create.

There's plenty of people out there telling you that you always need a bit of luck to be successful. I agree but I totally am of the opinion that you create your own luck and it doesn't just come out of somewhere and kick you in the balls. It's more of a light nudge by an subconscious hand which you control yourself. If you have the time, go read his full post.