How to Maximize Serendipity

Author: David Perell URL: https://www.perell.com/blog/serendipity One-line: Serendipity is a state of mind you can engineer — chiefly by writing and publishing online, which makes you findable and “manufactures” unexpected opportunity.

Key claims

• Serendipity is a state of mind that “births unexpected opportunities which fuel progress.” You can maximize it deliberately. “Chance favors the prepared mind.” (Louis Pasteur)
• Writing is the best kind of networking — publishing regularly (blogs, podcasts, videos) makes you findable and “creates a vehicle for serendipity” that opens doors you didn’t know existed (Writing).
• Maintain a website so people can find your bio, share your work, and describe you favorably (Personal Websites).
• The best networking is indirect. Conferences feel “like trying to stand on your tiptoes at a parade”; meet people on the basketball court, in the gym, or at a meal. “The people you want to meet don’t go to networking events.”
• Health is social capital. “People want to be with healthy people”; eat well, sleep, sweat daily — “people who sweat together stay together.”
• “Avoid Boring People” (two meanings): stay away from dull people, and don’t be boring yourself.
• Don’t “pick someone’s brain” — help them instead. Perell’s move is to ask to interview people, making the time productive for them. And Twitter “connects you with people in your future.”

Notable quotes

“Writing is the best kind of networking. By making it easy for people to find you online, you’ll create a vehicle for serendipity.”

“Chance favors the prepared mind.” — Louis Pasteur

“If Facebook connects you with people from your past, Twitter connects you with people in your future.”

“Always dress well enough to walk into a bathroom at a hotel you’re not staying at and get away with it.” (the “Hotel Bathroom” dress code)

How it connects

• Networking — the core subject; serendipity as engineered, indirect networking.
• Writing / Personal Websites — the mechanism: publishing makes you findable.
• Twitter — the forward-looking relationship network.
• Riding the Writing Wave / Hyper Publishing — writing as the activation energy behind opportunity.