Serendipity | How To Increase Your Luck

What is Serendipity?

In short, serendipity is an unplanned fortunate discovery or accident. It has played a prominent role in many scientific discoveries which shaped the way we live today. Fortunate unplanned discoveries include penicillin, Viagra, x-rays, radioactivity, and microwave ovens.

Similarly, serendipity plays a big part in success. It is responsible for uncontrollable and unpredictable success. In the case of content creation, many YouTubers get famous overnight when one of their videos unexpectedly goes viral. For example, MrBeast channel grew rapidly when his video on counting from 1 to 100,000 became viral on youtube. In some way, Canadian pop singer Shawn Mendes also got famous overnight when he posted his cover of Justin Bieber’s “As Long as You Love Me” on Vine. That particular clip got Mendes thousands of followers in a day and propelled him into stardom.

Can we control Serendipity?

Since serendipity is an unplanned fortunate discovery or accident, can we control it? Kinda. Even though we cannot control which accident or discovery will be the one, we can increase the probability and chances of having such discovery. And these are a couple of ways.

Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash

Put yourself out there in the world

It is 2021 and everyone is online. The fastest way to increase your chances of such an unexpected fortunate event is to showcase your work online and be more active digitally. Platforms like LinkedIn, Medium, and Youtube are perfect platforms to showcase yourself and your work.

By putting yourself and your work on these platforms, you are indirectly sharing your work with the world, allowing billions to have the chance to view your work. And you never know who will be interested in your work.

Perhaps a friend of a friend found your work interesting and like to collaborate with you for his or her next big project. Or it could be someone living in a totally different timezone who likes what you are doing and hope to know you better. There are endless possibilities just by exposing yourself to the internet. As Belarusian-American entrepreneur Gary Vee said once:

“It just takes one piece of content to change your life. You just never know which one that’s going to be”.

Of course, this occurrence may take a few years or could never happen as well. After all, its occurrence cannot be controlled. You can only increase the probability of the occurrence by putting yourself out there into the world.

Switch up your everyday routine.

Doing the same thing every day will not increase the chances of serendipity. Taking the same route of commute to work daily won’t increase the chances of you bumping into an old friend or a stranger that could have been your future business partner or even life partner. Switch it up! Attend new classes, try out different things and be flexible with your schedule. The simple act of taking the bus instead of the train to work already increases the chances of serendipity as you are doing something different.

People are an important aspect of serendipity.

A new stranger, a new friend, or a new teacher can be your lifelong partner or mentor.

Take it easy

Lastly, take it slow. Even though trying out new things and putting yourself out there will increase the chances of serendipity, have an open mind. Don’t expect too much from these changes.

The more you expect serendipity, the more it won’t occur.

Take it easy and let the dots connect. Don’t view every new stranger or friend you meet as your future partner or business partner. View them just as a stranger or a friend. Let things develop and progress naturally.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we all wish to master serendipity. However, the trick is to focus on improving your craft and have an open mind and flexible lifestyle. Stay unpredictable!

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This post was previously published on Medium.

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