Good morning, friends.
I’ve always been fascinated by “mental models,” which refer to the frameworks that help us simplify and understand the world. You may remember Charlie Munger’s dossier that explains how we can use these models to make better decisions in investing, relationships, and life.
I recently came across George Mack, who studies how mental models influence our thinking. A self-described “mental models nerd,” George uses these thought frameworks to help clarify his decision-making in everyday life. He specializes in growth marketing for e-commerce and tech businesses, and shares some of his learnings in his newsletter.
In a recent podcast episode, George dove into the practical lessons he’s learned from mental model icons like Warren Buffett, Naval Ravikant, and Tobias Lutke.
George wrote a guest post for The Profile on the mental models he used to attract more luck into his life. Share your feedback with him here. I hope you enjoy. (Read the full post here.)
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3 Ways to Attract More Luck Into Your Life
By George Mack
There’s a lot that’s been written about games of skill. There’s the 10,000 hour theory. Deliberate practice. Flow state. The list goes on.
In contrast, there’s been little that’s been written about games of luck.
This is because by definition luck is a random event that we can’t control, so we don’t bother discussing it that much. I think there’s a secret hidden in plain sight, though. Luck is partially a game of skill — and you can increase your odds by following the rules of the game.
Here are three ways you can attract more luck into your life.
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1. Avoid Boring People
I stole this from Josh Wolfe, who stole it from Jim Watson. The phrase “Avoid boring people” has two meanings.
Read it again.
Avoid people that bore you.
Avoid being the boring person in the room.
The more interesting you are, the more interest you get. And the more interest you get, the more opportunities that come your way.
And of course, the more interesting friends you have, the more interest they get. And the more interest they get, the more opportunities will come their way, which will inevitably get passed on to you (as long as you’re not boring).
On a long enough time horizon, it will look like luck. But the act of being interesting to people and having interesting friends helped create those crazy moments of luck.
How to do this? It’s a flywheel.
First, focus on being an interesting person. If this isn’t intuitive, find someone you admire and break down to first principles what makes them interesting. “Command C” and “Command V.” Copy and paste.
The more interesting you get, the more interesting people you will meet. This will then result in you becoming more interesting. Flywheel. Flywheel. Flywheel. The Bezos way.
2. Have A Luck Razor
Let’s explore several mental models.
Occam’s Razor states that if all other factors are equal, you should choose the most simple option. Hanlon’s Razor states that if all other factors are equal, you should attribute bad behavior to stupidity rather than malice.
And then there’s what I call the Luck Razor. If all other factors are equal, choose the path that feels the luckiest.
This is a highly personal one for me. I was supposed to go for a drink with someone cool I met on Twitter. It was standard U.K. winter rainy weather (“Pissing it down” is what we call it). The person texted me before saying, “I’m tired and the weather is awful. I can still do tonight but happy to cancel if you are not up for it?”
When I got this text, I was tired and didn’t feel like commuting one hour in the rain. I wrote back “Let's do another time.”
Before I hit send, I asked myself: “What’s the luckier option? Going and meeting someone interesting or chilling at home watching Netflix?” The answer was obvious when viewed through this frame.
So I went.
Since that drink, two to three opportunities have come directly from that person. And numerous opportunities have come from those opportunities. (And more opportunities from those opportunities, and so on.)
On a long enough time scale, my hourly rate from taking the luckier option that evening has been the best hourly rate of my life so far.
3. Have a Poker Mindset
Roulette is a pure game of luck because you can’t control the outcome. The casino operator spins the wheel, and you get the number the ball lands on.
Poker is a game of luck and skill, in which you can control the outcome. Even though there are factors like the hand you are dealt, you can still use skill to play the hand you are dealt.
The luckiest people I know have a poker mindset — they are obsessed with finding a way to hack the system.
I’d even go so far as to make the following ridiculous statement: Playing a game of roulette thinking it’s poker is better than playing a game of poker thinking it’s roulette.
The person who plays poker with a roulette mindset will lose. They will cause more bad luck by attributing everything to luck and ignoring the influence they have.
The person who plays roulette with a poker mindset will probably turn it into a game of skill on a long enough time horizon.
If they are obsessed with identifying the areas they can control and influence, they’ll ultimately find a way to do it. They may design a chip that sits in the casino’s ball or simply bribe the guy at the wheel. Either way, it’s doable.
Even for games that feel like pure luck, question everything with a poker mindset. You may find a hack that nobody else has discovered because they thought it was roulette.
👉 If you enjoyed reading this guest column by George Mack, tweet so others can enjoy it too!
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PROFILES.
— The leader who killed her city [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— The Wall Street icon winning the COVID-19 crisis
— America’s Broadway revolutionary
— The boss of the beach
— The man wrongfully accused by an algorithm
— The White House savior
— The founder of the world’s biggest virtual pub quiz
— Wall Street’s most aggressive investor
— The startup tying credit to social media stats
PEOPLE TO KNOW.
The leader who killed her city: Carrie Lam has become the most unpopular and calamitous leader in Hong Kong’s modern history. In the last year, Hong Kong has sunk into a recession, slipped in the global business rankings, and the United States no longer believes the city to be highly autonomous from China. As this profile boldly states, “History will perhaps judge Lam as the leader who killed her city without needing any tanks.” (The Atlantic)
“When interests and aspirations on both sides differ, it is very difficult for the chief executive to strike the right balance.”
The Wall Street icon winning the COVID-19 crisis: Jesse Livermore made millions amid the wreckage of the 1929 crash. Jim Chanos cashed in as Enron unraveled during the dot-com collapse of the early 2000s. Now, as the world reels from COVID-19, Saba Capital Management founder Boaz Weinstein has joined that rarefied club. He made a trade that paid off handsomely, and he’s not entirely happy that you know that. (Institutional Investor)
“He had instinct and scrappiness combined with a quantitative strategic mindset.”
America’s Broadway revolutionary: Lin Manuel-Miranda’s Hamilton, a hip-hop-infused musical in which the nation’s white Founding Fathers and Mothers are played by Black, Latino and Asian-American actors, is being turned into a film. Six years ago, Miranda was known as the composer, lyricist and star of the 2008 musical In the Heights. Today, he’s morphed into something more — an inspirational figure, akin to a guru, a preacher, or a civil rights leader. Take a look at his next act. (WSJ; If you can’t access the story, reply to this email.)
“What we’re figuring out is how to best be of service to the moment, but also how to best celebrate this show that we’re really proud of.”
The boss of the beach: Peter B. Stein oversees the largest lifeguard corps in the United States. His 1,374 guards protect 13.3 million annual visitors to 14 miles of beach and 53 outdoor pools, from Coney Island to the Bronx. Stein, 75, has relied on a playbook of patronage, power brokering, and intimidation. Through tabloid scandals, wrongful-death lawsuits, and 79 on-duty drownings since 1988, Stein has successfully sidelined anyone who’s challenged him. What a story. (New York Magazine)
“Meet the godfather and mastermind. Let’s make lifeguarding great again.”
The man wrongfully accused by an algorithm: Facial recognition systems have been used by police forces for more than two decades. While the technology works relatively well on white men, the results are less accurate for other demographics, in part because of a lack of diversity in the images used to develop the underlying databases. So when Robert Julian-Borchak Williams was arrested with a crime he didn’t commit, the flaws of facial recognition algorithms were put into serious question. (The New York Times)
“I strongly suspect this is not the first case to misidentify someone to arrest them for a crime they didn’t commit.”
The White House savior: Kayleigh McEnany is a skillful steward of the covenant between the president and his religious supporters. It doesn’t appear to be an act — she believes that she speaks for a conservative Christian minority that feels deeply embattled, and sees Donald Trump as their defender. This profile delves into McEnany’s past and helps explain why some Christians have continued to back Trump. (The Atlantic)
“I stand as a Christian woman, someone who believes in equality and truth and loyalty and honesty.”
The founder of the world’s biggest virtual pub quiz: When Boris Johnson announced a nationwide lockdown in March, pubs had to shut their doors. The pub quiz could have died then too — but one Briton swooped in to save it. Jay Flynn is running the most popular virtual pub quiz on YouTube, where 180,000 people take part simultaneously. Here’s how Flynn went from living on the streets to the internet’s most beloved quizmaster. (Esquire)
“I epitomised the general definition of homelessness. I’m the cliché of: ‘You’re one or two paychecks away from not having anything.’”
COMPANIES TO WATCH.
Wall Street’s most aggressive investor: Apollo Global Management has long been known as one of Wall Street’s most aggressive investors. Apollo has spent approximately $50 billion, mostly from its credit business, in the first quarter of this year. The firm is betting that markets will recover fairly quickly — people will return to normal patterns, such as staying in hotels, hopping on planes, and eating in restaurants. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at Apollo's dealmaking blitz in the time of coronavirus. (Institutional Investor)
“This is about liquidity-driven dislocations. If you go back to the dark days of March, we quickly drew down capital and executed.”
The startup tying credit to social media stats: Imagine you’re a YouTube star with nearly 3 million subscribers, and you’re making $2 to $3 million a year. But traditional banks refuse to offer you credit because, well, they don’t think being an influencer is a real job. Enter Karat, a new startup offering financial services to influencer creators. Its credit limits are determined by an influencer’s social metrics, revenue streams, and cash in hand. Could this be the future of banking? (WIRED)
“The traditional banking system is messed up. It’s overlooking these vast swaths of underserved groups.”
This installment of The Profile is free for everyone. If you would like to get full access to all of the recommendations, including today’s audio and video sections, sign up below.
AUDIO TO HEAR.
Aaron Levie on building a resilient business: In this candid conversation, Box CEO Aaron Levie holds nothing back. He opens up about getting rejected by venture capitalists, pivoting the cloud file-sharing business to make it an enterprise product, and transitioning into the CEO of a public company. “Going public at the right time, with the right team, with the right business model, are really, really important because nothing will get easier about your company once you go public,” he says. (Recommendation sponsored by Bessemer Venture Partners)
Nora McInerny on processing paralyzing sadness: Nora McInerny knows a thing or two about grief. McInerny underwent tremendous pain in 2014 when she lost her unborn child, her father, and her husband in the span of a few weeks. “There are so many days in your life that will ring in your mind forever,” she says. In this podcast, McInerny explains how to grapple with grief in all of its different manifestations and what it takes to move forward in life. (Link available to premium members.)
Reid Hoffman on why distribution is the key to success: Reid Hoffman co-founded PayPal and LinkedIn and now invests in fast-growing companies at Greylock Partners. As an early investor in Airbnb and Facebook, he’s learned some key lessons about building valuable startups. In this conversation, he explains why the key to a successful network effects business is distribution. “While the entrepreneurial instinct is to build the product and then figure out distribution, you should figure out product and distribution together,” he says. (Link available to premium members.)
Jenn Hyman on coping with crisis: So much of Jenn Hyman’s business Rent the Runway hinges on people going out. You get dressed to go to work, hang out with friends, or attend an event. But in the days of coronavirus, people have no need to rent designer clothing. Revenue has dropped pretty dramatically during quarantine, Hyman says. “It’s gut-wrenching,” she adds. Here’s exactly what she did to cut costs and financially restructure her entire business. (Link available to premium members.)
VIDEOS TO SEE.
Andy Puddicombe on the power of mindfulness: When’s the last time you took 10 completely undisturbed minutes for yourself? Even in quarantine, we still manage to create busyness and stress. Puddicombe, creator of the meditation app Headspace, spent a decade as a Buddhist monk where he learned timeless lessons about cultivating a cool, calm mind. “The society that we live in is very much about fixing stuff once it’s already happened,” he says. “Meditation, at its best, is when we use it for prevention.” (Link available to premium members.)
The Spelling Bee champion’s relentlessness: Imagine being able to successfully spell words like “quatorzain,” “ampongue” and “choucroute.” For the last 12 years in a row, an Indian-American competitor has won the iconic Scripps National Spelling Bee. It is anything but easy. To win, you have to master 60,000 to 100,000 words. This documentary follows the lives of four contestants, and delves into what winning the Spelling Bee means for their families, communities, and future. (Link available to premium members.)
Lilia Tarawa’s escape from a religious cult: Lilia Tarawa was born and raised in New Zealand's infamous religious cult Gloriavale. The cult was run according to an oppressive interpretation of fundamental Christianity. A woman’s purpose was to cover her head, show no skin, submit to her husband, and birth as many babies as she could. Not wanting children was considered a sin. At age 18, Lilia fled with her eleven family members. Here’s how she went from despair to happiness. (Link available to premium members.)
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