On starting, persisting and getting lucky
As of late I have been thinking about the intertwined relationship between starting, inertia, and serendipity. In many walks of life, both on a personal and professional focus I see that these elements build a lot of what we see around us: businesses, relationships, books..et al.
First: it’s all about starting. Recently, I had the opportunity to see how a Maasai started a fire with a stick and a small rock near the Masai Mara national park. Although the man had access to a lighter and matches, the ability to light the stick and to create fire was well-regarded in the community. I expected (anchored on what I wouldn’t know) that he would be fast and do it in no time, but the actual demonstration was far more interesting.
During his first attempts, the man spent a lot of energy with repeated and powerful strokes of the rock on the stick. As time passed and the fire was nowhere closer to being lit than at the start, his enthusiasm started to fade away (it looked tiring): longer pauses, shorter tries. At some point, I thought he would give up and leave the show for another time: maybe lousy weather or bad luck.
After some time, someone offered help so that he could rest — another positive thing of starting: when we are going in one direction, with clear goals and intentions, there will always be people aligned with our mission to help us out; if we are open to being helped, that is. After a short rest, he resumed his efforts. After what seemed like 20 minutes — but was probably just 5 -, some wisps of smoke started coming out, and soon enough, we had a raging fire. As said by many before, it takes an ember to start a fire. Here’s to embers, to starting!
Next: trust in inertia. Inertia is the idea that a body will continue the same movement until some other force overpowers it. The power of “business as usual” is strong in all aspects of life, and it is usually perceived negatively: “Don’t get stuck in inertia” and “You have to get out of the state of inertia” are common admonitions.
However, this is mostly bad publicity, and I’ll try to prove my point by comparing inertia to a similar phenomenon: compound interest. There are infinite Twitter threads, posts, and books that have been written about the magic of compounding your investments. And in its core, the (justified) reason for applauding compounding interest is that “you don’t have to do nothing”; it simply happens by waiting!
So why does inertia, which is the force that allows things to follow their existing trajectory, receive so much criticism? Once we start, it is easy to change paths to get sidetracked: there are so many exciting things to do out there! But persisting in the same direction can have the powerful effects of compounding interest. Being part of a community, working on the same problem, and collaborating with the same people can be tedious in our FOMO era (hats off to Patrick McGinnis!). Still, if we wait enough, the growth can be exponential. Here’s to compounding through inertia!
Yes, I know what you are probably thinking now. Inertia eventually fades out, and the movement stops. That is where serendipity comes along. For it to happen, we need the first two elements: starting and inertia (or persisting). As in sailing, to make the most of the wind (an opportunity that could be a random encounter with someone, paying attention to something on the streets or social media), you must have a direction (started something, and still on it!).
And once we are out there with our little starter pack of Starting & Persisting, “Afuera pasan cosas / Things happen out there” as the Paris Jazz Club of Buenos Aires says in one of its songs. Serendipity is everywhere, waiting for us to make the most of it. And it is very real. Just take a moment to think about your life and try to find situations that looked innocuous at first glance (or pointed in another direction) and ended up leading you to a new breakout, idea, solution, friend, or couple.
On an endnote, one of the best traits of serendipity is that its subjectivity makes it almost unlimited. It is not a zero-sum game in which a limited amount of opportunities lie around for us to compete for: a random conversation with a stranger in a coffee shop or in a plane can mean the world to someone and just a fond memory for others.
So here’s to starting, persisting, and keeping our eyes open to serendipity..and getting lucky!
