good morning believe nation that today
we’re going to talk about five ways that
you can create your own luck number
three is my personal favorite and make
sure to stick around to the end for my
opinion on how to do it you have to have
a healthy dose of luck to become
successful that’s just the way it is you
can’t you can’t prepare for it but you
can be ready for it if it does come to
you I was very lucky to get that role on
x-files simply because I was physically
in the city where it was casting and I
was out of the city for three weeks
prior and I very could have easily not
been in town and they just go on and
someone else would have got the role and
who knows where I would have been I
certainly odds are very high that I
wouldn’t have gotten Breaking Bad had I
not met Vince Gilligan before so it’s
one of those things where you you have
to just do your work do the best you can
and hope for the lucky breaks here and
there
so at 30 I started Wine Library TV
YouTube blows up at 31 I’m on Conan
O’Brien Ellen there’s articles being
written about me now they’re writing
that the business grew from three to
sixty million dollars in sales I’m
becoming this guy I got so many goddamn
emails from friends in high school
during that period when I was showing up
in all these magazines and TV shows and
every single one of them was like hey
Carrie you remember me from high school
oh my god you’re so lucky I wrote back
every single one of them and said let me
just clarify one thing I’m not lucky I
worked I worked every goddamn weekend at
every holiday since I was 14 years old
so you can keep that luck in your pocket
I hope people say I’m the luckiest man
on the planet I like to think I stay
ready wise man once told me luck is a
some mystical energy that dances around
the universe randomly bestowing people
with satisfaction and joy you create
your money
be notified when it goes in I’m gonna
paint and I’m gonna read you myself
chairman is down
when I was in high school I must have
been maybe 16 or 17 years old and I went
rock climbing in Eldorado Canyon where I
near where I grew up in Boulder as I’ve
been climbing about three or four years
and I went to do a climb called t2 now
at the time t2 was a relatively
difficult climb and I went at it with a
kind of an arrogant lack of preparation
and I hadn’t prepared for being able to
do certain kinds of finger cracks I
figured I’ll figure it out when I get
there and I also didn’t pause and this
is I think about boldness and discipline
I didn’t pause to really double smack
double-check all my systems okay so I’m
on the fourth pitch I’m about 400 feet
above the ground I’m going across this
slanting crack system that I’d had
trouble that I started after over
whether my forearms started to engorge
with blood and lactic acid which means
at some point even if you’re on a big
hold your hands are going to melt off
okay and I’m about to fall I’m 400 feet
above the ground but it should be okay
because there’s protection
I’m tied into the rope I may take a fall
but I’ll get caught for some reason and
to this day I still don’t know why my
brain triggered that I should look at my
knot and I looked down at my not my knot
had come untied I had made the mistake
of jet of never really thinking about
the best not for certain types of
situations and I tied him with what’s a
bowline now the advantage of a bowline
is it’s easy to untie if you write the
disadvantage of a Boldin is it’s easy to
untie it had come untied as I kept
moving across and it is just hanging in
my harness I’m seconds away from falling
only now I will die I will die if I fall
off my forearms are melting
and the not had come untied and so I
called down to my partner I said why not
comment I was he gonna do he can’t do
anything you just watch me fall to my
death and I there was an old fixed Pete
hub in the rock that we put there from
the first ascent an old soft iron Pete
on and I looked at it and I probably had
15 20 seconds before my hands went
unwrapped if that maybe 10 I took a
runner and I clipped it into the Piton I
clipped the Pete on into my heart that
runner into my harness and just went
please hold
and I let go and it helped I put in a
backup I grabbed the not be tied it went
to the legend didn’t convulsed and I
can’t I was very calm at that moment
when I got to the ledge I went into
convulsive shaking I was sick to my
stomach for days because of the the
whatever happens chemically what I
learned from that is two things the
first is that when you’re in an
unforgiving world gravity is unforgiving
it doesn’t care it never takes a day off
ever and if you make one mistake it can
kill you if it’s the wrong kind of
mistake and what I learned is that sense
of yeah I want to do adventurous things
I want to climb rocks I want to be a
nice emiti I want to do things that get
my adrenaline going
I but I need the discipline to always do
all the right preparation to always
think about the right nuts to always be
cross-checking my systems so that I can
do those bold things and stay alive in
an unforgiving environment and as you
and I spoke about earlier today I think
that’s the rest I think we are all
heading into an unforgiving environment
where we’re going to have to be both
bold and disciplined the second thing I
learned what if that piton had not been
there we might not be here together
it was just by chance that that Pete Tom
was right there and once you realize
when you rewind the tape of your own
life is that there are these crucial
moments where if the luck had gone the
other way you might have gotten killed
and so what you have to do is to always
be X putting those extra
disciplines in place because I was lucky
to live and what I took from that is I
never want to have to be lucky to live
again I want to live because of my
discipline not because of my luck a plan
for both good and bad luck and part of
what it is is people say what do you
mean plan for good luck you know I have
this idea you know it works out and then
I and then things keep going well good
luck actually comes in opportunities
that you don’t you don’t normally you
don’t normally see so for example PayPal
started as a encryption on mobile phones
company because it was too close friends
of mine I joined the board when they
founded it
even though I thought encryption
technology and mobile phones back in
December 9 ta twas a was a not a good
idea which I told them but it was kind
of like you also back people and then
they were like well okay not not
encryption of all phones maybe cache
some old phones or maybe not just cache
and mobile phones maybe cache on Palm
Pilots maybe cache from Palm Pilots and
payment service to the web and then they
launched with that and for the first
week they said well all this growth is
is coming through eBay but that’s not
really what we planned we planned on
people like bringing their Palm Pilot
around with them exchanging money you
know these aren’t our customers we
should figure out how to get them off
and then of course part of PayPal’s
great strength was being able to pivot
fast and then when oh oh no these are
our customers right all the rest of that
stuff doesn’t work this is this is the
thing that we need to go to and that’s
an instance of what I think of as
planning for good luck which is you
basically you go okay sometimes what
happens when you start the journey of
going down to companies you’re looking
for an opportunity that you may not
recognize Eve started it but then
suddenly you kind of you know like the
pioneering parallel you come around the
corner and all of a sudden there’s new
opportunities available to you and that
you head very strongly to that and so
good luck is not just oh look my plan
worked
it’s you will encounter
opportunities that you will need to move
quickly and grow into an exploit by
having been on the journey now planning
for bad luck is unfortunately a little
bit more straightforward which is
sometimes you find yourself you know
pioneering going that you can’t find a
way through the mountains how do what a
year what’s your plan B right and one of
the ways that I frequently think about
this is I kind of have a plan a a plan
being a plan Z the plan a is okay this
is what we’re thinking doing Plan B is
well if that’s not working what are my
parameters of flexibility I’m still
trying to get to that the same you know
build the same product the same product
market fit I’m still trying to get there
but maybe if I try this rather than that
and so for example when I when I when we
launch LinkedIn you know our hope was
that people would just invite each other
and and the invitations would work and
it would grow in a big network and then
and you know and that that would be all
we need to do in order to grow the
network well as it turned out we
launched the network and you know and a
couple weeks later we’re growing at
2,000 people a week and I was like no
that’s not fast enough
so what were the other ideas we had in
mind the kind of plan B and the plan B
was well actually if we one of the
questions that people most have when
they come to LinkedIn is who else do I
know who’s here so why don’t we build an
address book utility that allows them
people to say okay how do I quickly find
out who else do I know is here I upload
my address book I see who’s here we
invented that whole pattern and that
caused our growth rate to go from like
two thousand a week to like I think it
was about like twenty thousand a week
right so and that’s you know without
that I don’t know if we would have
succeeded maybe other Plan B’s would
have worked and then plan Z is what
happens when it’s just not working at
all right it’s kind of a lifeboat plan
and that’s part of the how you you plan
for both good and bad luck there is a
way believe it or not that you can
actually be luckier
and has found simpler than you realize
especially when you understand some of
the science and the biochemistry and
your chemistry as to what’s really going
on and you know what I say lucky I’m
talking about things just falling into
place
seemingly so or you know if you meet the
right person or the right deal Rams on
your plate and a lot of this is actually
able to you’re able to set this up in a
way where the odds are more in your
favor
just like if you’re in a casino life for
some people is where you put enough
quarters in the machine and you know you
may get three cherries in a row because
there’s so much going on in life so many
plates spinning simultaneously that
occasionally yes you’ll just be lucky
and get three cherries in a loan that
happens but more often than not how do
we stack the odds in our favor now if
you go to the roulette table and you’re
betting black and red the house will
always win over time white because it’s
not 50/50 then there’s also a little
green you know option called zero which
stacks the odds in the houses favor yet
a little bit more than 50% so
mathematically the house will always win
you may get lucky but the house will
always win over time so how do you go
from being a person spinning the wheel
in life hoping that it’s going to land
on your color versus becoming the house
where by every single time overtime you
know ultimately things are gonna work
out in your favor
well let me share with you an incredible
part of the human anatomy that allows
that to happen it’s called the reticular
activating system
and it’s a part of the brain that has a
very specific job to do and it’s usually
misunderstood but the reticular
activating system is really the
gatekeeper between the conscious and the
unconscious mind and it has a sway over
what information it allows in from the
sensory input now how do we make the
reticular activating system work for us
when we want to be quote unquote lucky
well we need to understand that it does
one job and one job only primarily for
the purposes of this video and that is
it allows in to our conscious
information that falls under two
categories one is information that can
be harmful to us and the other is
information that we vote on it being
relevant so for example let’s talk about
the first yeah type of information stuff
that can be harmful so we’re driving
along and we’re somewhat unconscious as
most people I want to call sleeping
awake which is why you tend to drive to
work on your day off because you’ve done
it so many times you’re unconscious
you’re moving forward just out of habit
but we tend to have yeah wake up just as
the car in front of us breaks that
little earlier snaps as out that’s
because the reticular activating system
is constantly scanning for something
that could be danger and it works in
conjunction with another part of the
brain called the amygdala whose job is
to really notice things that are
negative or dangerous before positive so
the amygdala will notice that flag it up
to the reticular activating system bring
it into your conscious awareness while
everything else meanwhile is swept under
the carpet
so yeah and the amygdala is a
fascinating part of the brain as I say
if you’re walking past the tree ten
thousand years ago and you miss an apple
no big deal but if you miss a snake it
could be a big deal so it’s always
scanning in conjunction with the
reticular activating system to see if
there’s anything in our wind so it could
be dangerous harmful or threaten us
physically so in terms of the other
information what we tell it is important
now here’s where we start getting
interesting when we talk about getting
lucky see if the receptor activating
system will as a faithful servant
irrespective of the nature of the input
do its job so if you freeze
and named we know our name is important
to us so with we’re at a party and we’re
having a conversation with somebody and
there’s lots of background conversations
going on but somebody the other side of
the room happens to mention our name in
mid conversation we will be pulled out
and look over to see who mentioned our
name across the room in the middle of
another conversation why is that because
the reticular activating system is
constantly scanning all of this
information and it’s deleting distorting
and generalizing 99% of it I say
otherwise would be completely
overwhelmed and it’s sweeping that under
the carpet of our awareness a conscious
awareness and just flagging up what’s
important that’s why we didn’t hear
somebody else’s name but we would hear
our name so if we tell the reticular
activating system what is important it
will don’t find it in the millions of
bytes and bits of information a second
that is being processed so you could
walk down the street and completely miss
an opportunity because you haven’t told
the reticular activating system or your
brain that it is relevant or important
even though it’s looking at millions of
pieces of information every second
you’ve another example if you have a
six-year-old daughter and she turns
around say daddy daddy please
I would love a bike for my birthday
please that’s all I want is a bike you
know okay honey and you say to your wife
you know I’ve got to get me other
daughter a bike and you’re driving to
work the next day and all of a sudden
you drive past a bike shop and you
notice a bike shop on the way to work
now it’s been there for the last five
years every day you’ve driven to work
you noticed it in your reticular
activating system but because you
haven’t told your brand names important
it swept it under the carpet of
awareness and you didn’t notice it in
your conscious but now you’ve said it’s
relevant so it pulls it out of all of
the information says hey guess what Wow
just the same as if you buy a car and
you stop seeing that car everywhere on
the road of course it was there before
only there wasn’t a half-price sale on
and everybody’s bought the same car no
you’ve now hold your reticular
activating system this particular car
make model color what have you is now
more
to me in my life and then out of the
hundreds of thousands of cars on the
road whenever it spots one as it always
did it will flag it up yeah basic
neuroscience so how do we make that work
for us well if it’s going to constantly
24/7 look for all of the information
that is out there that’s beyond our
conscious comprehension our ability to
process consciously and start scanning
what a great opportunity that is see if
we turn around and say yeah right now
I’m looking for a business partner I’m
looking for a store in to a premises a
vacant premises I’m looking for certain
kind of property and you say it’s
relevant
you’re gonna start noticing things like
that while you’re driving along in the
process of normal conversations when
you’re standing in the line up at
Starbucks overhearing somebody talk
about a business that’s relevant to you
because you’re telling it it’s important
so my quick take on it is I think you
need to put yourself in position to
receive the luck so I get a lot of
business in my youtube channel as an
example and I’ve gotten deals with
Microsoft and sage and big companies
through my youtube channel I’ve gotten
speaking gigs they’ve gotten a book deal
mostly to my youtube channel is it lucky
that people happen to search something
on YouTube and one of my videos comes up
or it shows up in the side and then they
click on it and they like it and they
contact me sure I mean think about your
experience you found me somehow somebody
told you about it or maybe you’re just
doing a google or youtube search and one
of my videos showed up when you watched
it and you like then you subscribe so
there’s a bit of luck to it but I give
myself the best chance at it it’s
because I’m producing three to four
videos a days because I love the content
that I’m creating this because I’m proud
of what I’m doing it’s because I’m
pouring my heart into making stuff that
I want to show my grandkids and
hopefully you guys are enjoying the
finding value in – so is it a little bit
of luck that people find myself sure but
I’m giving myself the best chance
possible and not just chilling back and
blaming the fact that I don’t have any
good luck and I almost didn’t make this
video I saw this topic come up and I I
almost didn’t make the video because I
think people use luck as a crutch too
often I think people blame bad luck on
their circumstances and then that’s a
story that they tell themselves for the
rest of their life
I’m from a poor country so you know I
have bad luck and I won’t be successful
or my parents you know I don’t have the
right parents so that’s my bad luck
right in go to the right school and so
that’s my bad luck and that’s the story
that you tell yourself for the rest of
your life and then you never break free
like as long as you believe that if you
believe you have bad luck then you’re
never gonna break three you never gonna
be able to do something amazing and too
many people use that as a crutch I
instead of going out and chasing their
dreams
I look at where I’m from sure I’m I’m
lucky to live in Canada I’m lucky to go
and have the parents that I did I’m
lucky to have gone to university and I’m
lucky to have the upbringing environment
that I’ve had but I created a lot of
that for myself and if you know a
nuclear bomb dropped on Toronto please
don’t do that and I somehow managed to
survive no matter how you know badly
beaten and bruised I was I would still
go and get mine it doesn’t matter who
wins the next presidential election if
it’s Trump or Hillary I’m still gonna go
and get mine it doesn’t matter if they
raise taxes a hundred percent I’m still
going to go and get mine the things that
you blame stuff on the outside
environment that you call bad luck I’m
still gonna go and get mine and if you
look that people have had massive
success they don’t blame their
circumstances they don’t blame like you
can look at somebody and say wow that
person had so much bad luck you look at
Abe Lincoln who ran for office like
seven times and failed who’s first all
of his life died who’s three of his four
kids died before they hit adulthood
whose second wife had depression and had
to go to a mental asylum who Abe Lincoln
himself had the pressure like all this
bad luck that happened to him he could
easily believe that and then that’s it
give up I know then he decided I’m gonna
run for president and by some accounts
the greatest president of all time or at
least in the top five because all that
bad luck you look at John Paul DeJoria
who was homeless who you know his
parents gave up on him who had to go to
shelters who joined the gang who did
drugs who had crappy jobs and now he’s a
billionaire you look at Oprah who was
made fun of a kid who was so poor that
she wore potato sacks as a dress to
school can you imagine wearing potato
tag potato sacks as a dress to go to
school how much you’ve been made fun of
by the other kids got
less than abused by her family and their
friends had you know ran away from home
had a teenage pregnancy that didn’t work
out like all of this bad luck that
happens to these people and yet they
still turn it around because that’s not
their story they refuse to believe that
they’re just unlucky and not gonna do
anything about it so what if you come
for a poor country so what if you feel
like you’re disadvantaged like you’re
gonna get beat down so many times as an
entrepreneur you’re gonna get punch to
the stomach hard and then as you’re like
wobbling around and trying to shake off
that first punch boom you get hit with
an uppercut and you’re down on the mat
like that’s entrepreneurship that’s life
for a lot of times and so what do you do
do you just stay down on the mat do you
get up you have to get up if you have
the big dream that you want to chase you
want to go out there you have to get up
and stop blaming bad luck you look at
people who’ve made it who’ve had success
most of the time it’s they started as
nothing they were self-made and if you
look at businesses where the founder
spent decades building something poor
anything they had into it started from
nothing and built this amazing
enterprise and then they hand it off to
their kids what happens most of the time
the kids run it into the ground the kids
who had all the luck in the world had
parents who cared about them grew up in
a business environment had mentors to
learn from had all the luck on their
side and they run the business into the
ground that happens so often so it’s not
about bad luck and if you believe that
you just have bad luck and blame it on
that all the time you’re never gonna go
out and reach your goals your minds it
should be no matter what happens in my
external environment I am going to go
get mine that’s my ticket so I got a
little bit excited for Sunday morning
and hopefully you guys enjoyed the rant
I love to know what clip you enjoyed the
most and not to know what you think
about luck leave it in the comments
below and I will join in the discussion
I made this video because Anna young
asked me to so if there’s a topic that
you want me to cover in the next edition
of believe life leave in the comments
below and I’ll see what I can do finally
I want to give a quick shout out to
Murray chef Rodriguez reishi cup TV
thank you so much for ordering my book
it means a lot to me for those of you
who want your shot at a shadow in a
future video make sure you buy the book
and send in your receipt so we can keep
tracking you thank you guys so much for
watching having a
they continue to believe or whatever
your one where it is and I’ll see you
soon
we’re going to talk about five ways that
you can create your own luck number
three is my personal favorite and make
sure to stick around to the end for my
opinion on how to do it you have to have
a healthy dose of luck to become
successful that’s just the way it is you
can’t you can’t prepare for it but you
can be ready for it if it does come to
you I was very lucky to get that role on
x-files simply because I was physically
in the city where it was casting and I
was out of the city for three weeks
prior and I very could have easily not
been in town and they just go on and
someone else would have got the role and
who knows where I would have been I
certainly odds are very high that I
wouldn’t have gotten Breaking Bad had I
not met Vince Gilligan before so it’s
one of those things where you you have
to just do your work do the best you can
and hope for the lucky breaks here and
there
so at 30 I started Wine Library TV
YouTube blows up at 31 I’m on Conan
O’Brien Ellen there’s articles being
written about me now they’re writing
that the business grew from three to
sixty million dollars in sales I’m
becoming this guy I got so many goddamn
emails from friends in high school
during that period when I was showing up
in all these magazines and TV shows and
every single one of them was like hey
Carrie you remember me from high school
oh my god you’re so lucky I wrote back
every single one of them and said let me
just clarify one thing I’m not lucky I
worked I worked every goddamn weekend at
every holiday since I was 14 years old
so you can keep that luck in your pocket
I hope people say I’m the luckiest man
on the planet I like to think I stay
ready wise man once told me luck is a
some mystical energy that dances around
the universe randomly bestowing people
with satisfaction and joy you create
your money
be notified when it goes in I’m gonna
paint and I’m gonna read you myself
chairman is down
when I was in high school I must have
been maybe 16 or 17 years old and I went
rock climbing in Eldorado Canyon where I
near where I grew up in Boulder as I’ve
been climbing about three or four years
and I went to do a climb called t2 now
at the time t2 was a relatively
difficult climb and I went at it with a
kind of an arrogant lack of preparation
and I hadn’t prepared for being able to
do certain kinds of finger cracks I
figured I’ll figure it out when I get
there and I also didn’t pause and this
is I think about boldness and discipline
I didn’t pause to really double smack
double-check all my systems okay so I’m
on the fourth pitch I’m about 400 feet
above the ground I’m going across this
slanting crack system that I’d had
trouble that I started after over
whether my forearms started to engorge
with blood and lactic acid which means
at some point even if you’re on a big
hold your hands are going to melt off
okay and I’m about to fall I’m 400 feet
above the ground but it should be okay
because there’s protection
I’m tied into the rope I may take a fall
but I’ll get caught for some reason and
to this day I still don’t know why my
brain triggered that I should look at my
knot and I looked down at my not my knot
had come untied I had made the mistake
of jet of never really thinking about
the best not for certain types of
situations and I tied him with what’s a
bowline now the advantage of a bowline
is it’s easy to untie if you write the
disadvantage of a Boldin is it’s easy to
untie it had come untied as I kept
moving across and it is just hanging in
my harness I’m seconds away from falling
only now I will die I will die if I fall
off my forearms are melting
and the not had come untied and so I
called down to my partner I said why not
comment I was he gonna do he can’t do
anything you just watch me fall to my
death and I there was an old fixed Pete
hub in the rock that we put there from
the first ascent an old soft iron Pete
on and I looked at it and I probably had
15 20 seconds before my hands went
unwrapped if that maybe 10 I took a
runner and I clipped it into the Piton I
clipped the Pete on into my heart that
runner into my harness and just went
please hold
and I let go and it helped I put in a
backup I grabbed the not be tied it went
to the legend didn’t convulsed and I
can’t I was very calm at that moment
when I got to the ledge I went into
convulsive shaking I was sick to my
stomach for days because of the the
whatever happens chemically what I
learned from that is two things the
first is that when you’re in an
unforgiving world gravity is unforgiving
it doesn’t care it never takes a day off
ever and if you make one mistake it can
kill you if it’s the wrong kind of
mistake and what I learned is that sense
of yeah I want to do adventurous things
I want to climb rocks I want to be a
nice emiti I want to do things that get
my adrenaline going
I but I need the discipline to always do
all the right preparation to always
think about the right nuts to always be
cross-checking my systems so that I can
do those bold things and stay alive in
an unforgiving environment and as you
and I spoke about earlier today I think
that’s the rest I think we are all
heading into an unforgiving environment
where we’re going to have to be both
bold and disciplined the second thing I
learned what if that piton had not been
there we might not be here together
it was just by chance that that Pete Tom
was right there and once you realize
when you rewind the tape of your own
life is that there are these crucial
moments where if the luck had gone the
other way you might have gotten killed
and so what you have to do is to always
be X putting those extra
disciplines in place because I was lucky
to live and what I took from that is I
never want to have to be lucky to live
again I want to live because of my
discipline not because of my luck a plan
for both good and bad luck and part of
what it is is people say what do you
mean plan for good luck you know I have
this idea you know it works out and then
I and then things keep going well good
luck actually comes in opportunities
that you don’t you don’t normally you
don’t normally see so for example PayPal
started as a encryption on mobile phones
company because it was too close friends
of mine I joined the board when they
founded it
even though I thought encryption
technology and mobile phones back in
December 9 ta twas a was a not a good
idea which I told them but it was kind
of like you also back people and then
they were like well okay not not
encryption of all phones maybe cache
some old phones or maybe not just cache
and mobile phones maybe cache on Palm
Pilots maybe cache from Palm Pilots and
payment service to the web and then they
launched with that and for the first
week they said well all this growth is
is coming through eBay but that’s not
really what we planned we planned on
people like bringing their Palm Pilot
around with them exchanging money you
know these aren’t our customers we
should figure out how to get them off
and then of course part of PayPal’s
great strength was being able to pivot
fast and then when oh oh no these are
our customers right all the rest of that
stuff doesn’t work this is this is the
thing that we need to go to and that’s
an instance of what I think of as
planning for good luck which is you
basically you go okay sometimes what
happens when you start the journey of
going down to companies you’re looking
for an opportunity that you may not
recognize Eve started it but then
suddenly you kind of you know like the
pioneering parallel you come around the
corner and all of a sudden there’s new
opportunities available to you and that
you head very strongly to that and so
good luck is not just oh look my plan
worked
it’s you will encounter
opportunities that you will need to move
quickly and grow into an exploit by
having been on the journey now planning
for bad luck is unfortunately a little
bit more straightforward which is
sometimes you find yourself you know
pioneering going that you can’t find a
way through the mountains how do what a
year what’s your plan B right and one of
the ways that I frequently think about
this is I kind of have a plan a a plan
being a plan Z the plan a is okay this
is what we’re thinking doing Plan B is
well if that’s not working what are my
parameters of flexibility I’m still
trying to get to that the same you know
build the same product the same product
market fit I’m still trying to get there
but maybe if I try this rather than that
and so for example when I when I when we
launch LinkedIn you know our hope was
that people would just invite each other
and and the invitations would work and
it would grow in a big network and then
and you know and that that would be all
we need to do in order to grow the
network well as it turned out we
launched the network and you know and a
couple weeks later we’re growing at
2,000 people a week and I was like no
that’s not fast enough
so what were the other ideas we had in
mind the kind of plan B and the plan B
was well actually if we one of the
questions that people most have when
they come to LinkedIn is who else do I
know who’s here so why don’t we build an
address book utility that allows them
people to say okay how do I quickly find
out who else do I know is here I upload
my address book I see who’s here we
invented that whole pattern and that
caused our growth rate to go from like
two thousand a week to like I think it
was about like twenty thousand a week
right so and that’s you know without
that I don’t know if we would have
succeeded maybe other Plan B’s would
have worked and then plan Z is what
happens when it’s just not working at
all right it’s kind of a lifeboat plan
and that’s part of the how you you plan
for both good and bad luck there is a
way believe it or not that you can
actually be luckier
and has found simpler than you realize
especially when you understand some of
the science and the biochemistry and
your chemistry as to what’s really going
on and you know what I say lucky I’m
talking about things just falling into
place
seemingly so or you know if you meet the
right person or the right deal Rams on
your plate and a lot of this is actually
able to you’re able to set this up in a
way where the odds are more in your
favor
just like if you’re in a casino life for
some people is where you put enough
quarters in the machine and you know you
may get three cherries in a row because
there’s so much going on in life so many
plates spinning simultaneously that
occasionally yes you’ll just be lucky
and get three cherries in a loan that
happens but more often than not how do
we stack the odds in our favor now if
you go to the roulette table and you’re
betting black and red the house will
always win over time white because it’s
not 50/50 then there’s also a little
green you know option called zero which
stacks the odds in the houses favor yet
a little bit more than 50% so
mathematically the house will always win
you may get lucky but the house will
always win over time so how do you go
from being a person spinning the wheel
in life hoping that it’s going to land
on your color versus becoming the house
where by every single time overtime you
know ultimately things are gonna work
out in your favor
well let me share with you an incredible
part of the human anatomy that allows
that to happen it’s called the reticular
activating system
and it’s a part of the brain that has a
very specific job to do and it’s usually
misunderstood but the reticular
activating system is really the
gatekeeper between the conscious and the
unconscious mind and it has a sway over
what information it allows in from the
sensory input now how do we make the
reticular activating system work for us
when we want to be quote unquote lucky
well we need to understand that it does
one job and one job only primarily for
the purposes of this video and that is
it allows in to our conscious
information that falls under two
categories one is information that can
be harmful to us and the other is
information that we vote on it being
relevant so for example let’s talk about
the first yeah type of information stuff
that can be harmful so we’re driving
along and we’re somewhat unconscious as
most people I want to call sleeping
awake which is why you tend to drive to
work on your day off because you’ve done
it so many times you’re unconscious
you’re moving forward just out of habit
but we tend to have yeah wake up just as
the car in front of us breaks that
little earlier snaps as out that’s
because the reticular activating system
is constantly scanning for something
that could be danger and it works in
conjunction with another part of the
brain called the amygdala whose job is
to really notice things that are
negative or dangerous before positive so
the amygdala will notice that flag it up
to the reticular activating system bring
it into your conscious awareness while
everything else meanwhile is swept under
the carpet
so yeah and the amygdala is a
fascinating part of the brain as I say
if you’re walking past the tree ten
thousand years ago and you miss an apple
no big deal but if you miss a snake it
could be a big deal so it’s always
scanning in conjunction with the
reticular activating system to see if
there’s anything in our wind so it could
be dangerous harmful or threaten us
physically so in terms of the other
information what we tell it is important
now here’s where we start getting
interesting when we talk about getting
lucky see if the receptor activating
system will as a faithful servant
irrespective of the nature of the input
do its job so if you freeze
and named we know our name is important
to us so with we’re at a party and we’re
having a conversation with somebody and
there’s lots of background conversations
going on but somebody the other side of
the room happens to mention our name in
mid conversation we will be pulled out
and look over to see who mentioned our
name across the room in the middle of
another conversation why is that because
the reticular activating system is
constantly scanning all of this
information and it’s deleting distorting
and generalizing 99% of it I say
otherwise would be completely
overwhelmed and it’s sweeping that under
the carpet of our awareness a conscious
awareness and just flagging up what’s
important that’s why we didn’t hear
somebody else’s name but we would hear
our name so if we tell the reticular
activating system what is important it
will don’t find it in the millions of
bytes and bits of information a second
that is being processed so you could
walk down the street and completely miss
an opportunity because you haven’t told
the reticular activating system or your
brain that it is relevant or important
even though it’s looking at millions of
pieces of information every second
you’ve another example if you have a
six-year-old daughter and she turns
around say daddy daddy please
I would love a bike for my birthday
please that’s all I want is a bike you
know okay honey and you say to your wife
you know I’ve got to get me other
daughter a bike and you’re driving to
work the next day and all of a sudden
you drive past a bike shop and you
notice a bike shop on the way to work
now it’s been there for the last five
years every day you’ve driven to work
you noticed it in your reticular
activating system but because you
haven’t told your brand names important
it swept it under the carpet of
awareness and you didn’t notice it in
your conscious but now you’ve said it’s
relevant so it pulls it out of all of
the information says hey guess what Wow
just the same as if you buy a car and
you stop seeing that car everywhere on
the road of course it was there before
only there wasn’t a half-price sale on
and everybody’s bought the same car no
you’ve now hold your reticular
activating system this particular car
make model color what have you is now
more
to me in my life and then out of the
hundreds of thousands of cars on the
road whenever it spots one as it always
did it will flag it up yeah basic
neuroscience so how do we make that work
for us well if it’s going to constantly
24/7 look for all of the information
that is out there that’s beyond our
conscious comprehension our ability to
process consciously and start scanning
what a great opportunity that is see if
we turn around and say yeah right now
I’m looking for a business partner I’m
looking for a store in to a premises a
vacant premises I’m looking for certain
kind of property and you say it’s
relevant
you’re gonna start noticing things like
that while you’re driving along in the
process of normal conversations when
you’re standing in the line up at
Starbucks overhearing somebody talk
about a business that’s relevant to you
because you’re telling it it’s important
so my quick take on it is I think you
need to put yourself in position to
receive the luck so I get a lot of
business in my youtube channel as an
example and I’ve gotten deals with
Microsoft and sage and big companies
through my youtube channel I’ve gotten
speaking gigs they’ve gotten a book deal
mostly to my youtube channel is it lucky
that people happen to search something
on YouTube and one of my videos comes up
or it shows up in the side and then they
click on it and they like it and they
contact me sure I mean think about your
experience you found me somehow somebody
told you about it or maybe you’re just
doing a google or youtube search and one
of my videos showed up when you watched
it and you like then you subscribe so
there’s a bit of luck to it but I give
myself the best chance at it it’s
because I’m producing three to four
videos a days because I love the content
that I’m creating this because I’m proud
of what I’m doing it’s because I’m
pouring my heart into making stuff that
I want to show my grandkids and
hopefully you guys are enjoying the
finding value in – so is it a little bit
of luck that people find myself sure but
I’m giving myself the best chance
possible and not just chilling back and
blaming the fact that I don’t have any
good luck and I almost didn’t make this
video I saw this topic come up and I I
almost didn’t make the video because I
think people use luck as a crutch too
often I think people blame bad luck on
their circumstances and then that’s a
story that they tell themselves for the
rest of their life
I’m from a poor country so you know I
have bad luck and I won’t be successful
or my parents you know I don’t have the
right parents so that’s my bad luck
right in go to the right school and so
that’s my bad luck and that’s the story
that you tell yourself for the rest of
your life and then you never break free
like as long as you believe that if you
believe you have bad luck then you’re
never gonna break three you never gonna
be able to do something amazing and too
many people use that as a crutch I
instead of going out and chasing their
dreams
I look at where I’m from sure I’m I’m
lucky to live in Canada I’m lucky to go
and have the parents that I did I’m
lucky to have gone to university and I’m
lucky to have the upbringing environment
that I’ve had but I created a lot of
that for myself and if you know a
nuclear bomb dropped on Toronto please
don’t do that and I somehow managed to
survive no matter how you know badly
beaten and bruised I was I would still
go and get mine it doesn’t matter who
wins the next presidential election if
it’s Trump or Hillary I’m still gonna go
and get mine it doesn’t matter if they
raise taxes a hundred percent I’m still
going to go and get mine the things that
you blame stuff on the outside
environment that you call bad luck I’m
still gonna go and get mine and if you
look that people have had massive
success they don’t blame their
circumstances they don’t blame like you
can look at somebody and say wow that
person had so much bad luck you look at
Abe Lincoln who ran for office like
seven times and failed who’s first all
of his life died who’s three of his four
kids died before they hit adulthood
whose second wife had depression and had
to go to a mental asylum who Abe Lincoln
himself had the pressure like all this
bad luck that happened to him he could
easily believe that and then that’s it
give up I know then he decided I’m gonna
run for president and by some accounts
the greatest president of all time or at
least in the top five because all that
bad luck you look at John Paul DeJoria
who was homeless who you know his
parents gave up on him who had to go to
shelters who joined the gang who did
drugs who had crappy jobs and now he’s a
billionaire you look at Oprah who was
made fun of a kid who was so poor that
she wore potato sacks as a dress to
school can you imagine wearing potato
tag potato sacks as a dress to go to
school how much you’ve been made fun of
by the other kids got
less than abused by her family and their
friends had you know ran away from home
had a teenage pregnancy that didn’t work
out like all of this bad luck that
happens to these people and yet they
still turn it around because that’s not
their story they refuse to believe that
they’re just unlucky and not gonna do
anything about it so what if you come
for a poor country so what if you feel
like you’re disadvantaged like you’re
gonna get beat down so many times as an
entrepreneur you’re gonna get punch to
the stomach hard and then as you’re like
wobbling around and trying to shake off
that first punch boom you get hit with
an uppercut and you’re down on the mat
like that’s entrepreneurship that’s life
for a lot of times and so what do you do
do you just stay down on the mat do you
get up you have to get up if you have
the big dream that you want to chase you
want to go out there you have to get up
and stop blaming bad luck you look at
people who’ve made it who’ve had success
most of the time it’s they started as
nothing they were self-made and if you
look at businesses where the founder
spent decades building something poor
anything they had into it started from
nothing and built this amazing
enterprise and then they hand it off to
their kids what happens most of the time
the kids run it into the ground the kids
who had all the luck in the world had
parents who cared about them grew up in
a business environment had mentors to
learn from had all the luck on their
side and they run the business into the
ground that happens so often so it’s not
about bad luck and if you believe that
you just have bad luck and blame it on
that all the time you’re never gonna go
out and reach your goals your minds it
should be no matter what happens in my
external environment I am going to go
get mine that’s my ticket so I got a
little bit excited for Sunday morning
and hopefully you guys enjoyed the rant
I love to know what clip you enjoyed the
most and not to know what you think
about luck leave it in the comments
below and I will join in the discussion
I made this video because Anna young
asked me to so if there’s a topic that
you want me to cover in the next edition
of believe life leave in the comments
below and I’ll see what I can do finally
I want to give a quick shout out to
Murray chef Rodriguez reishi cup TV
thank you so much for ordering my book
it means a lot to me for those of you
who want your shot at a shadow in a
future video make sure you buy the book
and send in your receipt so we can keep
tracking you thank you guys so much for
watching having a
they continue to believe or whatever
your one where it is and I’ll see you
soon
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