What do the examples have to do with “luck”? Each example seems to be more about paying attention to the circumstances in your present situation and then making a choice. If those choices yield good results, maybe you make them again. If those choices have less than good results, stop making them.
My understanding of luck is a situation where the circumstances “break” in your favor regardless of your attention or intention, or even in opposition to most likely outcome. (e.g. I was lucky not to get injured when X happened and many poeple around me were injured.)
What I see described in this post is something much closer to my concept of “common sense”.
I’m confused as to why people are voting it up. It is a nice reminder to do stuff you enjoy, ask for help and pay attention to trends, and I’m not disagreeing with it’s rating per se… but I’m sincerely interested as to why, at the time of my comment, this post has drawn the apparent acclaim that it has compared to say, this post or this one (the latter post I also think is rather nice-but-obvious).
Do people at LW know and really like the author of this post?
Is there some very valuable and novel aspect to the content I am overlooking?
Are people upvoting because they simply say, “This is generally true”?
Anyway, the post is a nice reminder to reach out to an expert so I am going to try do do that today. (Because the “systematic luck” I’ve observed in my life comes from not simply reading good advice, but incorporating it by actually doing.)
But I do think this post is a good example of the gaps created by the current “like/don’t like” rating format and inferential slience that exists in the comment system.
Speaking for myself: It is a simple actionable advice, and although it seems obvious in hindsight, people like me don’t follow it automatically.
I am not sure, maybe some people are doing this automatically, but for me it is not a usual way of thinking to 1) list the good things in my life, 2) find the situations that created them, and 3) try to replicate those situations. Sometimes, very rarely, I do the first part, and maybe with one very specific situation I tried the second and the third parts. Okay, the third part may be difficult, if the situation was exceptional. But the first two parts you can do any moment you have five minutes of free time.
The discussion moved to specific topics (martial arts), because I gave a specific example of my life and asked for ideas how to apply this advice. (The further discussion about martial arts is going away from the original topic.) I think it would be nice if other people who upvoted would give specific examples from their lives that the article resonated with (assuming they upvoted for similar reasons).
I’m not sure how a “game night” qualifies as an “unexpected positive event”. Surely game makers are aware that games are positive experiences for people...
For a person who is not an organizer and not a part of regularly-meeting community, the unexpected thing could be that they were invited. Imagine that you were invited to a game night, and you liked it. But for whatever reasons you don’t get invited again (for example the original organizers stopped doing it). Most people would just say: “oh, it was so good, too bad it doesn’t happen anymore”. But the recommended reaction would be to organize another game yourself (or manipulate someone else to do so).
Another unexpected aspect could be that you go to the game night, and you just expect to spend a few nice hours without further consequences. But what may really happen is that you find good friends who later give you a lot of value even outside of the gaming context. In that case, most people would just say: “I was lucky to find this friend”. But the recommended reaction would be to re-classify game night from “amusement” category to “opportunity to meet good friends” category.
At least 2 of the initial occurrences-the game night working so well and happening to hear about an important market trend-were not caused by any deliberate action on my part. They were basically random and unexpected. Systematizing them and making them continue to happen was not luck, but that’s the point of the post.
My understanding of luck is a situation where the circumstances “break” in your favor regardless of your attention or intention, or even in opposition to most likely outcome. (e.g. I was lucky not to get injured when X happened and many poeple around me were injured.)
People frequently refer to one-off positive events as “lucky breaks”, which is why I used that phrase. But I don’t care about the word luck specifically. The point of the post is to take one-off positive events or things that worked unexpectedly well and make them happen repeatedly and automatically.
What I see described in this post is something much closer to my concept of “common sense”.
Is there some very valuable and novel aspect to the content I am overlooking?
Most people don’t respond to positive events by setting them up to happen automatically and repeatedly in their lives. The lesson is not “do things you enjoy”, it’s “take something that worked really well and set it up so that it happens consistently without conscious effort on your part.”
Very few people respond to an unexpected positive event with “now I’ll set up a system to make this happen repeatedly.” Humans are generally good at repeatedly doing things that they intentionally tried and worked well, but not good at spotting the things that happened without effort on their part, but which could be copied and repeated. The game night is again a good example-I didn’t set up the initial game night, somebody else did. But I noticed that I enjoyed the game night a lot and got a lot of value out of it, so I set up a repeating game night at my apartment every two weeks.
I encourage people to focus on the “lucky breaks”, because those are common blind spots. Another important factor was taking a systematic approach (“let’s set up a repeating biweekly game night”) as opposed to an effortful approach (“I should attend more game nights.”)
People frequently refer to one-off positive events as “lucky breaks”, which is why I used that phrase. But I don’t care about the word luck specifically. The point of the post is to take one-off positive events or things that worked unexpectedly well and make them happen repeatedly and automatically.
Noted.
Very few people respond to an unexpected positive event with “now I’ll set up a system to make this happen repeatedly.”
I’m not sure how a “game night” qualifies as an “unexpected positive event”. Surely game makers are aware that games are positive experiences for people...
Humans are generally good at repeatedly doing things that they intentionally tried and worked well, but not good at spotting the things that happened without effort on their part, but which could be copied and repeated.
...and I don’t know that this is the case. Can you give an example of how people are “generally not good at this”?
It seems to me people (pretty commonly) intentionally incorporate things that work into their lives, and do so on an recurring schedule. You happen (luckily or not) upon something you enjoy/is helpful/is profitable/just works and you make it a part of your life.
Isn’t that the basis for how most people spend their time? Isn’t that just called “learning” and putting what you learn into practice? If not, can you explain the difference between what you are proposing and learning what works and then doing what you learn?
...and I don’t know that this is the case. Can you give an example of how people are “generally not good at this”?
You gave one yourself in your previous comment-you mentioned that you should talk to experts more. That suggests to me that you have not set up a system to repeatedly ensure that you talk to experts when it would be helpful.
Anyway, the post is a nice reminder to reach out to an expert so I am going to try do do that today.
The approach I suggest would be to set up a system to do this repeatedly, not just once. For example, you could set up a Beeminder task or calendar reminder to reach out to an expert every week.
Isn’t that the basis for how most people spend their time? Isn’t that just called “learning” and putting what you learn into practice? If not, can you explain the difference between what you are proposing and learning what works and then doing what you learn?
Learning what works and doing what you learn is an obviously good thing, my approach is one way of implementing that. Focusing on “lucky breaks” redirects your attention to things that have worked for you before which you haven’t already systematized-in your case, reaching out to experts. Focusing on making them systematic places the burden to do those things outside yourself, e.g. by using motivational tools such as Beeminder.
The responses I’ve received suggest that the phrase “systematic lucky breaks” resonates with a lot of people. But I think it would be helpful if you were to take the Beeminder/StickK idea and write a post specifically on that topic. And it would probably resonate with a segment of Less Wrong for whom my post doesn’t work.
Perhaps… though I’m not sure if another Beeminder post would be helpful at LW. I guess I’d need to look through what has already been written and see if there is anything I might be able to add. We’ll see.
And I’m not sure if the title or the article resonates with LW at all. It may, but it depends on what you mean by “resonates” and what the comments and votes mean.
As I mentioned in my first comment, I’m unclear on what X upvotes means at LW. Most of the commentary seems to be a discussion about martial arts… or our discussion about the merits and focus of the article.
If there is some rationale for a threshold for upvotes above which we can confidently say that an article is good/useful/novel/clear/appropriately-titled, then I’m certainly willing to take that into consideration. As it stands, I frankly have little clue what X upvotes and Y total comments indicates about an article’s ability to map the territory.
In any case, I’ll vote it up one more right now for providing the catalyst to an interesting discussion with you. :) (I’m not sure if that’s a valid reason to use the thumb’s up button, but it seems as good as any...)
Also, I should clarify on my suggestion for a title—Since, upon our further discussion, it seems your point was implementing a systematic approach to “doing things that work”, I meant to suggest you rename the post and add some clarifying language in the post about using accountability/akrasia-fighting tools like commitment contracts via Beeminder or StickK. Renaming the post without adding the requisite language in the post would be kinda silly.
What do the examples have to do with “luck”? Each example seems to be more about paying attention to the circumstances in your present situation and then making a choice. If those choices yield good results, maybe you make them again. If those choices have less than good results, stop making them.
My understanding of luck is a situation where the circumstances “break” in your favor regardless of your attention or intention, or even in opposition to most likely outcome. (e.g. I was lucky not to get injured when X happened and many poeple around me were injured.)
What I see described in this post is something much closer to my concept of “common sense”.
...
Note:
This post reminds me of aspects of a recent discussion on LW.
I’m confused as to why people are voting it up. It is a nice reminder to do stuff you enjoy, ask for help and pay attention to trends, and I’m not disagreeing with it’s rating per se… but I’m sincerely interested as to why, at the time of my comment, this post has drawn the apparent acclaim that it has compared to say, this post or this one (the latter post I also think is rather nice-but-obvious).
Do people at LW know and really like the author of this post?
Is there some very valuable and novel aspect to the content I am overlooking?
Are people upvoting because they simply say, “This is generally true”?
Anyway, the post is a nice reminder to reach out to an expert so I am going to try do do that today. (Because the “systematic luck” I’ve observed in my life comes from not simply reading good advice, but incorporating it by actually doing.)
But I do think this post is a good example of the gaps created by the current “like/don’t like” rating format and inferential slience that exists in the comment system.
Speaking for myself: It is a simple actionable advice, and although it seems obvious in hindsight, people like me don’t follow it automatically.
I am not sure, maybe some people are doing this automatically, but for me it is not a usual way of thinking to 1) list the good things in my life, 2) find the situations that created them, and 3) try to replicate those situations. Sometimes, very rarely, I do the first part, and maybe with one very specific situation I tried the second and the third parts. Okay, the third part may be difficult, if the situation was exceptional. But the first two parts you can do any moment you have five minutes of free time.
The discussion moved to specific topics (martial arts), because I gave a specific example of my life and asked for ideas how to apply this advice. (The further discussion about martial arts is going away from the original topic.) I think it would be nice if other people who upvoted would give specific examples from their lives that the article resonated with (assuming they upvoted for similar reasons).
For a person who is not an organizer and not a part of regularly-meeting community, the unexpected thing could be that they were invited. Imagine that you were invited to a game night, and you liked it. But for whatever reasons you don’t get invited again (for example the original organizers stopped doing it). Most people would just say: “oh, it was so good, too bad it doesn’t happen anymore”. But the recommended reaction would be to organize another game yourself (or manipulate someone else to do so).
Another unexpected aspect could be that you go to the game night, and you just expect to spend a few nice hours without further consequences. But what may really happen is that you find good friends who later give you a lot of value even outside of the gaming context. In that case, most people would just say: “I was lucky to find this friend”. But the recommended reaction would be to re-classify game night from “amusement” category to “opportunity to meet good friends” category.
At least 2 of the initial occurrences-the game night working so well and happening to hear about an important market trend-were not caused by any deliberate action on my part. They were basically random and unexpected. Systematizing them and making them continue to happen was not luck, but that’s the point of the post.
People frequently refer to one-off positive events as “lucky breaks”, which is why I used that phrase. But I don’t care about the word luck specifically. The point of the post is to take one-off positive events or things that worked unexpectedly well and make them happen repeatedly and automatically.
Most people don’t respond to positive events by setting them up to happen automatically and repeatedly in their lives. The lesson is not “do things you enjoy”, it’s “take something that worked really well and set it up so that it happens consistently without conscious effort on your part.”
Very few people respond to an unexpected positive event with “now I’ll set up a system to make this happen repeatedly.” Humans are generally good at repeatedly doing things that they intentionally tried and worked well, but not good at spotting the things that happened without effort on their part, but which could be copied and repeated. The game night is again a good example-I didn’t set up the initial game night, somebody else did. But I noticed that I enjoyed the game night a lot and got a lot of value out of it, so I set up a repeating game night at my apartment every two weeks.
I encourage people to focus on the “lucky breaks”, because those are common blind spots. Another important factor was taking a systematic approach (“let’s set up a repeating biweekly game night”) as opposed to an effortful approach (“I should attend more game nights.”)
Noted.
I’m not sure how a “game night” qualifies as an “unexpected positive event”. Surely game makers are aware that games are positive experiences for people...
...and I don’t know that this is the case. Can you give an example of how people are “generally not good at this”?
It seems to me people (pretty commonly) intentionally incorporate things that work into their lives, and do so on an recurring schedule. You happen (luckily or not) upon something you enjoy/is helpful/is profitable/just works and you make it a part of your life.
Isn’t that the basis for how most people spend their time? Isn’t that just called “learning” and putting what you learn into practice? If not, can you explain the difference between what you are proposing and learning what works and then doing what you learn?
Thanks for raising these points.
You gave one yourself in your previous comment-you mentioned that you should talk to experts more. That suggests to me that you have not set up a system to repeatedly ensure that you talk to experts when it would be helpful.
The approach I suggest would be to set up a system to do this repeatedly, not just once. For example, you could set up a Beeminder task or calendar reminder to reach out to an expert every week.
Learning what works and doing what you learn is an obviously good thing, my approach is one way of implementing that. Focusing on “lucky breaks” redirects your attention to things that have worked for you before which you haven’t already systematized-in your case, reaching out to experts. Focusing on making them systematic places the burden to do those things outside yourself, e.g. by using motivational tools such as Beeminder.
Suggestion for new post title: Beeminder (or StickK) Can Help You
The post doesn’t seem to be about lucky breaks. And it apparently isn’t specifically about learning.
The crux seems to be that a systematic approach to incorporating things that work can improve your life. I concur.
The responses I’ve received suggest that the phrase “systematic lucky breaks” resonates with a lot of people. But I think it would be helpful if you were to take the Beeminder/StickK idea and write a post specifically on that topic. And it would probably resonate with a segment of Less Wrong for whom my post doesn’t work.
Perhaps… though I’m not sure if another Beeminder post would be helpful at LW. I guess I’d need to look through what has already been written and see if there is anything I might be able to add. We’ll see.
And I’m not sure if the title or the article resonates with LW at all. It may, but it depends on what you mean by “resonates” and what the comments and votes mean.
As I mentioned in my first comment, I’m unclear on what X upvotes means at LW. Most of the commentary seems to be a discussion about martial arts… or our discussion about the merits and focus of the article.
If there is some rationale for a threshold for upvotes above which we can confidently say that an article is good/useful/novel/clear/appropriately-titled, then I’m certainly willing to take that into consideration. As it stands, I frankly have little clue what X upvotes and Y total comments indicates about an article’s ability to map the territory.
In any case, I’ll vote it up one more right now for providing the catalyst to an interesting discussion with you. :) (I’m not sure if that’s a valid reason to use the thumb’s up button, but it seems as good as any...)
Also, I should clarify on my suggestion for a title—Since, upon our further discussion, it seems your point was implementing a systematic approach to “doing things that work”, I meant to suggest you rename the post and add some clarifying language in the post about using accountability/akrasia-fighting tools like commitment contracts via Beeminder or StickK. Renaming the post without adding the requisite language in the post would be kinda silly.