IDL112 Season 3: Can You Create Luck? With Christian Busch

Can you make your luck? Is it possible to take accidents and make them into pivotal moments in your life? What can you do to boost your creativity and find new solutions to any situation?

Today I’m excited to introduce the author, Doctor Christian Busch. He is also a professor and works at New York University as well as being involved in Leaders on Purpose and Sandbox Network. Together we’re discussing the idea of serendipity, or as it’s more commonly known, luck. Christian sought out a scientific definition for luck, as well as a formula - and a key.

Meet Christian Busch

Dr. Christian Busch is the bestselling author of The Serendipity Mindset: The Art & Science of Creating Good Luck – “a wise, exciting, and life-changing book” (Arianna Huffington) that provides “a bracing antidote to a world addicted to control” (Dan Pink).

Christian teaches at NYU and LSE and is the director of NYU’s CGA Global Economy Program. He is also a cofounder of Leaders on Purpose and Sandbox Network, and a former director of LSE's Innovation Lab.

Christian’s work has been featured by Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and the BBC, and he is a member of the WEF’s Expert Forum, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and among the 30 thinkers "most likely to shape the future” (Thinkers50).

Visit The Serendipity Mindset website and connect on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:

• Serendipity is earned luck 03:51

• You can prepare for your luck 07:04

• How people get stuck in old routines 19:25

• Choose your response to life 23:51

Serendipity is earned luck

Serendipity is the occurrence of seemingly random and positive things in both your personal and professional life. However, it is not fully spontaneous.

Serendipity is earned luck. By consistent work, intentional decisions, and working hard, you increase your chances of experiencing great things that may seem like luck to others.

Many moments happen in your day that have the potential to become great things if you are intentional and brave enough to step up and seize them, and make the most of them.

When you feel that potential in the air around meeting someone new, finding something, or seeing something that catches your eye – it could be anything – take that as a chance to explore what is possible, and see where it takes you.

You can prepare for your luck

Make it easier for people to connect with you. When you enter into new spaces, be vulnerable and honest about who you are, what excites and interests you, and where your goals are taking you.

People are much more likely to truly connect with you and help you on that journey when you meet them with that honesty.

Additionally, that authenticity puts you immediately on the path that you’re meant to be on, and then those accidents and coincidental meetings can become so much more meaningful and pivotal.

How people get stuck in old routines

People are taught in schools that there is only one correct answer. This method of teaching slowly chips away at people’s creative thinking and builds in them a fear of saying or doing the “wrong” thing in pursuit of finding the answer.

How can you get away from assuming that this is the one way, or the one route, to achieving your goal? How can you begin to embrace the failings along the way as an important process of finding the answer, instead of being discouraged by them?

Choose your response to life

What can you make from a bad situation? What can you learn from a difficult point in your life?

Every moment, you have a choice. You either let a situation define you, or you step forward and define the situation yourself.

Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:

Dr. Christian Busch – The Serendipity Mindset: The Art & Science of Creating Good Luck

Sir Ken Robinson Ph.D. and Lou Aronica – Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That's Transforming Education

Viktor E. Frankl – Man's Search for Meaning

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – The Little Prince

Joey Cofone – The Laws of Creativity: Unlock Your Originality and Awaken Your Creative Genius

Visit The Serendipity Mindset website and connect on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Awaken the Leader Workshop April 3rd and 4th 2023: theimpactdrivenleader.com

Sign up for the roundtable at: hello@theimpactdrivenleader.com

Check out the Practice Of the Practice

www.tylerdickerhoof.com

About the Impact Driven Leader Podcast

The Impact Driven Leader Podcast, hosted by Tyler Dickerhoof, is for Xillennial leaders who have felt alone and ill-equipped to lead in today's world. Through inspiring interviews with authors from around the world, Tyler uncovers how unique leadership strengths can empower others to achieve so much more, with real impact.

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We can, in a way, build a muscle for the unexpected. It’s this idea that luck favors the prepared.

Christian Busch

Podcast Transcription

[TYLER DICKERHOOF] Welcome back to the Impact Driven Leader Podcast. This is your host, Tyler Dickerhoof. Excited to be here with you. If you're watching on YouTube, good to see you. Look good. You look good. Me, got a split lip. Oh, life is, I'm bold, eh, I look as good as I can be. Anyways, if you're listening, wherever you're listening, man I'm thankful that you're a subscriber. If you're not a subscriber, hit that subscribe button. Join us, be a part of the family. Be a part of the Impact Driven Leader community, where I release an episode every Friday. In the meantime, I share a couple blogs. I also have a live segment that I share across multiple different platforms, whether it's Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, that I call Coffee Chat, sharing a little idea that I have each day for my reading, my preparations called Thought of the Day. It's just an extension of ways to learn and grow with me, because it's just what I'm learning and growing through. Today, I'm excited to introduce author Dr. Christian Busch. He is also a professor, works at New York University. As well, he is involved with Sandbox as well Leaders on Purpose, those organizations. But we're going to talk about this idea of serendipity or maybe, as you might otherwise know, this idea of luck. Serendipity is the occurrence in development events by chance in a happier, beneficial way. A lot of people call that luck Well, as Christian sought out to really create scientific definition and say, is this really the case or is there more to it, I'm going to spoil it and say that there's more to it, because it isn't just this luck by chance. It isn't unlucky by chance either. It's the culmination of preparation and action. But there's one key that we discussed, one key that I think underlines everything. I'm going to leave that as a teaser. You're going to hear about this conversation. I'll wrap up at the end and we'll discuss it more. I hope you enjoy this conversation. I surely, surely did. [TYLER] Christian, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. I'm excited to have this conversation. I'm thankful for our mutual friend Alex Budak, who introduced us and really introduced me to this whole serendipity mindset. I love that you have as a part of it, mindset, but I want to do this because it's early on in your book, but it's pretty telling, I'd love for you to share the origin of serendipity. That story I think is cool and just really further connects the dots when we talk about this whole conversation. [DR. CHRISTIAN BUSCH] Yeah, absolutely. I think it beautifully shows that in a way it's so much about this open-mindedness and opening our eyes to the world. It's essentially King Jaffa, who used to be ruling the kingdom. He had a couple of princes who he felt, well, they might be a little bit too spoiled here, so let's send them out in the world and let's have them have some adventures. So they go on adventures and then one day there's a camel missing in one of the kingdoms. They're about and people are looking for this camel and the prince is like, "Well, we think we know where it is because we saw prints on the street and we saw that," there a couple of specifics about how the camel looked like because there was a honey dips around and things like that. So essentially they can describe the camel so well that people first think they might have stolen the camel, but then it turns out, no, they just somehow connected the dots and had the sagacity to then link that to this incident. That's really what serendipity is about. Serendipity is about somehow identifying something unexpected, connecting the dots and turning into something positive. [TYLER] I think the serendipity or in this discussion, it's often, I don't want to say thrust about as luck. If we look at different avenues of leadership and different avenues of relationships, sometimes it'll be people, well, how did they get that position? Well, it was luck or it was about who they knew. But really that is serendipity at its best. As you work through and as you're researching as the book, The Serendipity Mindset, which we can see in the background there describes it's beyond that. It is being so intentional about those actions, the preparation that you create the luck, but it's not luck, it's just that is bringing about serendipity. Is that fair? [DR. CHRISTIAN] That's really the interesting thing. Usually when we think about luck, we think about it as something passive, something that just happens to us, being born into a nice family, stuff like that that creates a lot of societal inequality, that kind of passive luck. But then there's serenity, which is active luck. It's this openness to the unexpected and then turning them into something positive. Take an example where, imagine you're in a coffee shop and you have erratic hand movements like I do. Then you unexpectedly spill coffee over someone and that person looks at you slightly annoyed, but you sense there might be something there. You don't know what it is you just sends, there might be something there and now you have a couple of options. One option is to just say, I'm so sorry, you walk outside, but you have that feeling there might have been something. Then now you think, ah, what could have happened had I spoken to the person? Option two you have that feeling there might be something so you start that conversation with a person and that person turns out to become your co-founder, the love of your life, you name it. The point is, our reaction to the unexpected moment, making the accident meaningful is what serendipity is about. That's what's so fascinating that we can make accidents more meaningful, but also create more meaningful accidents. [TYLER] I think that is, that to me is the intriguing part. You shared a little bit about this in your book that you played a bit of soccer, football growing up. There's a phenomena, I'm huge soccer fan, soccer coach, and hopefully not going to lose the audience here because we can connect it to other sports, but soccer predominantly it has the phrase, and I don't know if it was this way in Germany, but it's either unlucky or lucky. Oh, that was a unlucky play. That was a lucky pass. That's synonymous with soccer. Yet, as I've learned and developed as a coach or a player myself, and realizing that is absolutely discounting preparation and action. If we look at our life and we take that to business, oh, we got that account because of luck, did you, or did you do all the preparation and take the action at the right time that it ended up leading to that? You talk about the coffee shop, that strange circumstance, I spill my coffee and I can either try to quickly hustle out of the room and hide in embarrassment or I can just say, hey, it is what it is, and have a conversation with the person and that humility of vulnerability actually leads to something much greater. So that's a whole lot packed into it, but I'd love for you to dissect that a little bit more, especially this preparation and action, how it feeds into everything we do. [DR. CHRISTIAN] Absolutely. That's an interesting thing that we can in a way build a muscle for the unexpected is this idea that luck favors the prepared. That in a way, if you, for example, let's take the example of the hook strategy, where you can literally see how you can create the positively unexpected just by being more aware of your surroundings where the hook strategy is all about saying, think about two or three things that are important to you in your life at the moment. So I'm Tyler, I'm doing this amazing podcast at the moment, I'm thinking about the upside of optimism, but what I'm really excited about is playing the piano. Now, so these are three potential hooks, so now if you go to an event and instead of saying, I'm Tyler, I'm podcast host, you say, I'm Tyler, I'm podcast host. At the moment, really excited about this new book that's about the upside of optimism but what I'm really excited about is playing the piano. Now, the likelihood that someone might say something like, oh my god, such a coincidence, my CEO is hosting piano sessions, come by. Oh my God, such a coincidence. I just published a book. You should, we should have a conversation. That becomes much more likely if you give people potential dots that they could connect for you. Give an example, I had an entrepreneur, a gaming entrepreneur a couple of weeks ago. We did a seminar around this and he started sending these hooks and then just got an email a few days ago where he is like, "Christian." Now I introduced myself saying I'm a gaming entrepreneur, but I'm really excited about black holes in the metaverse. I did that at a conference. So there was this other person who said, "Oh my God, like I'm so excited about black holes." They geeked out for an hour. After an hour, the person asked him, "Hey, I really like you. How can I help you? Is there anything I can help you with?" He's like, "Well, I'm currently looking for investment." "Oh, great, I'm an investor. I know a couple of people who can put you in touch. Let's make it happen." The point here is that the beautiful thing is once you use these different hooks, it not only makes conversations more meaningful and you go deeper in those conversations, but also people are much more likely to actually then want to make the things happen, versus if you just pitch them on something and then they feel, oh, you're one of a thousand people who want to pitch you an idea. [TYLER] Totally. There's a couple pieces, I would say threads in there that end up being wound in, woven into this tapestry. One of them is the willingness to be bold. You talk about that you're introducing yourself to someone that's like, okay, this is what I'm here for, but there's the boldness and the courageousness to say, but you know what, this is what excites me. I've had a recent guest, so fun, we talked about creativity and one of the things he shares about creativity is being willing to be weird. I think there's that element in that as you talk about the hooks, and that's one of the strategies you talk about in the serendipity mindset is when you share those things, it's like you throw your fishing line out into the pond and you just, you never know what fish is going to grab it, but the more hooks that you throw out there or the more interesting hook that you throw out there, you never know what you're going to catch. If I think there's a part of it that you share there that, it's not the spearfishing aspect, which that can feel really ugly and gross. It's more of just throw that hook out there and just be amazed at what you catch and allow that to go wherever it goes. [DR. CHRISTIAN] I think you hit the nail on the head there, that is really the opposite of the pitching or the icky, let me be manipulative and more in terms of saying what's authentic to me? Like what is something, what are the hooks that feel really true to me? Then I can be aware of that and then I have that in conversations because I want to find a meaningful overlap versus some like throwing something at people. I think you make a really good point there in terms of that, depending on the context you might use then different types of hooks. If I'm going, I do a lot of work in Germany. I'm German originally. In Germany I use slightly tempered down hooks sometimes because it's culturally you wouldn't be the person who goes all in and says, these are the five things I'm really excited about. But it doesn't mean that you can't use those hooks. So it's really to your point, like the context and the authenticity that that really matters. [TYLER] You know, there's, there's a piece there and you mentioned connection and to me, our world is yearning for more authentic connection, whether it's in just community, whether it's in the workplace, it doesn't matter where, I mean, politics. All of it is the more that we find ways to be authentically connected with others, the more we're going to be able to influence. I think there's an absolute piece here of serendipity that yields to influence, meaning if we go back to the hook conversation. You're at the gaming gentleman is at that event. Now, he could take that a lot of different ways, and instead he's just is very organic, authentic and look what it yielded, it yielded someone that's like, I want to do what you're doing. I believe if we do more of that in our workplace, say for example, as a leader, I go and interact with people and I am willing to throw hooks and connect with them, I believe you're going to end up working better together longer term than if you're just, well, this is our objective, this is what we're going to do. either fit in or fit out. [DR. CHRISTIAN] Absolutely. I feel you're pointing to really important thing there, which is how do we understand what really motivates people and what could really bring us together? The hook strategy is one way to do that. Then the flip side also, the another way to do that is exactly like, how do we ask questions also differently, that we allow people to talk about the things they're most excited about. So for example, let's say you are in a presentation together with your peers, and then afterwards, instead of just saying, hey look, here's the weather. What do you think about the weather? What do you think about this and this? Which keeps us on this rather small talkie type level. Like why not ask something like what inspired you about this? Or what did you find most interesting? Or something that opens up that's, that potentiality of what we could learn about them that's truly meaningful to them? I think to your point the interesting thing is that we're so hyperconnected in the world we live in, but actually we're quite lonely because the way we connect a lot of times is so like routinized, standardized, what do you do? I do this, versus like, no, like, what makes you tick and hey, great, let me understand what really connects us. I think that's why I was delighted to come on here because I feel Alex, our mutual friend, he was like, "Hey, this is the person, Tyler's the person who is also directly trying to dive into what's really meaningful versus oh, great, like let's tick some of the boxes and then move forward." [TYLER] Well, I mean, I appreciate that. To that next point, one of the, I believe somebody can set up an entire framework, here's how you act. Here's the processes that you need to go about in your everyday life, be almost robotic. And I think there's a place for that but then the great opportunity is to see that framework and work outside of it. When you work outside of that's when people usually assume it's luck. Oh, you were lucky that you have, a you're at NYU, especially if someone that knew you in your pre-collegiate, pre-university days are like, man, as you described in the book, Christian, man, you're really lucky to be where you're at. But then that discounts all the work and effort you've put in. And I think when people, they just throw luck at it instead of understanding all the pieces and parts to it, they don't see the bigger mindset. They don't see the bigger ideology behind all of it that luck comes to those that prepare and act. It's not this random by chance. It's the preparation and action that leads to everything. [DR. CHRISTIAN] It's interesting. I mean, I have a lot of those conversations with my students around how do you set yourself up for that luck? One of the big conversations we have is take a career. Like, if you are a 23-year-old that goes out in the world that's so uncertain where you can't just know that you will be partner at expose company in this linear way because life is more like a squiggle, how do you prepare for this? So our conversation a lot of times is yes, of course apply to all the jobs that are written out. That's important, like casting net wide apply to them, but at the same time, look at how you can co-create some jobs. Like run into the CEO of X Company at an event and tell them about how excited you are about X topic. They might be like, "Oh my God, such a coincidence. I didn't even know about Bitcoin, that that plays a role for us. But you know what, why don't you come in for two weeks and if I like you, like we'll make it happen." Whatever it is, then I think about the most exciting, interesting people I know, they co-created their jobs. They were not one of a thousand applicants who applied for an analyst position at X company. They were the person who went to events where the interesting people are who had meaningful conversations with them. Those people liked them and said let's create a position for you. I think that's the interesting thing and a bit of a mindset shift to say yes, exactly, to your point, if you're within the box and like within the system of how you apply, then it seems like yes, you worked hard, you applied, and then it worked out. But now if you coincidentally got this amazing job offer because you just had that one conversation with X person, yes, but you can work really hard to make that coincidence more likely. [TYLER] Which camp, which group do you see your students, your current students, right now that you're in classwork, which one do you see them in most? Do you see them in that box of, all right, we have to fit inside the box or the ones that are just like, okay, there's the box, but how can I operate outside of that? [DR. CHRISTIAN] Well, I've been thinking a lot about the education system because I feel it literally educates us out of creativity. As Ken Robinson would say like that in a way, a lot of times we are being told this is the way how it's supposed to work. This is kind of the rules. Then you go out in the real world and you realize all of these rules are just made up and if you question them, you can actually then be part of writing new rules and you can rethink those things. I see in my classes you always have people who intuitively are these entrepreneurial, like creative disruptor type people who just come in and question everything and then you have others who might be more used to assuming that there's a given world and there's given principles and given rules and they should follow them. And I think it's so fascinating then to me that when thinking about the mindset we're talking about, I always assume that those entrepreneurial minds would be the ones who would be the natural group that you can even more inspire. Yes, for them it's great because they get a language, how they can talk about cultivating serendipity versus just being unexpectedly surprised and things like that. But then actually the group of those people who might say, this is not me, this is different from what I'm doing. Once they start doing small things, casting a couple of hooks, asking questions slightly differently, they have the biggest shift because for them it's a real shift in their life. So I've become extremely excited about exactly this to say, what are the baby steps, like casting hooks and things like that have an impact on people's lives because they can directly see the results. And I will never forget I had a colleague in London, a very eminent professor, and he would always say, "Christian, I love you. I love your content, but why do I need it? Like, I have everything. I have a great career, I have a great family, why do I need serendipity?" So we made a deal and we said, do a couple of things differently, couple of hooks, couple of questions differently, and then let's meet again. Couple of weeks later, he comes back and he is like, "Christian, I didn't know life can be so joyful." That was the thing that you have to try it. Like you can, abstractly talking about it doesn't help. People just got to go in and try it. [TYLER] I mentioned this as we started, one of my great joys and yes, I put a lot of work and effort into preparation and background and understanding, but I love having these moments where it's like, oh, it's that aha. It's that exciting moment. To me, that's what you just described. If I know if I do all the work, then it's going to allow me to navigate to that point, but I want to be able to have a conversation. I want the listener to be able to like, wow, it sounded like they had a real conversation and not just this static, here's question by question, by question by question interview. To me that's more enjoyable in life and you just described that. So how do, and obviously your work is getting to be well to that point, but talk about the professor. Why do you think he was static where he was, and yet willing to look at you to say, all right, I'll look at your work. I'll take that bet. Why do you think people find themselves in that static well, this is just the way it is? [DR. CHRISTIAN] Well, it's interesting and in a way, most of us are in one way or the other culprit of that, that we might have a certain functional fixedness or this almost like, because we become really good at something then almost thinking, oh, like everything will always be that way because X, Y, Z is the way I've learned. It's the hammer nail problem where if you're used to a hammer, like when you need a nail in the wall, you always look for the hammer. Because that's the one method that you're so used to, even though there might be other heavy objects that can much easier help you what you want to accomplish. So it's really that idea of, and I think that's what I find extremely interesting also from how people can help other people have more serendipity to really work with them, of breaking out of that functional fixes and saying, how can I get you away from assuming that this is the one way or this one routine? One way that I find extremely useful always is to just ask the very simple question why. Because if you start asking why it's kind of very Socratic method type where then you start questioning your assumptions and you ask, okay, why am I actually doing this? Why do I use the hammer even though I could use this other object? I think we can learn a lot from kids there. Like if you ask kids, for example, did you find money in the street, I bet you they find more money in the street than any adult. Why? Because they don't expect it to not be there. We have this fixedness so we educate ourselves out of this idea that the positively unexpected might be there, even though it is there all the time and kids see it. Adults a lot of times unfortunately, don't. [TYLER] Well, and I think that's really the foundation of this whole mindset of serendipity, is be willing to transform yourself into the unimaginable is possible instead of the other, whereas the unimaginable is impossible. So we just look for things that just fall into our pattern of life, well, if you do the work, if you if you go to college, if you go about life and you're in the dating scene, you just, you have this script for life instead of being able to really look at it and say, every day is a new day to rewrite whatever if I just, if I act accordingly, if whatever desire I want is achievable, if I just act. [DR. CHRISTIAN] That's the fascinating thing. There's a lot of experiments that show that people who do exactly that tend to be luckier in the future, not because of some abracadabra fall from the sky type thing but because of the way they look at the world. There's one of my absolute favorite experiments where they pick people who self-identify as quite lucky, like very lucky, and people who self-identify as very unlucky. So people who say, bad things tend to happen to me, I'm always in accidents and so on. Then they pick one of each and they say, walk down the streets, go to a coffee shop, sit down, and then we'll have our conversation. What they don't tell them is that there's hidden cameras alongside the street and inside the coffee shop. In front of the coffee shop, there's a pound note, a five or 10 pound note so there's money in front of the shop and inside the shop, the table next to the counter, there's this extremely successful businessman who can make big dreams happen. Now, the lucky person walks down the street, sees the money, picks it up, goes inside the shop, orders a coffee, sits next to the businessman, they have a conversation, they exchange business cards, and potentially an opportunity comes of it. We don't know that part. The unlucky person walks down the street, steps over the five pound note, so doesn't see it, goes inside the shop, orders a coffee, sits next to the businessman, ignores the businessman. That's it. Now, at the end of the day, they ask both people, how was your day today? So the lucky person says, "Well, it was amazing. I found money in the street, made a new friend, and potentially a new opportunity coming of it." The unlucky person just says, "Well, nothing really happened." That's the funny thing. You can put people into exactly the same situation, and one of them will have a little bit more luck than others just because they look at that there could be potentially good things that could happen to them. I'm a big fan of really training ourselves in that because we train ourselves a lot to look for the negatively unexpected. When we cross the street, we might still look left right because we don't, don't trust that there might not be a car just hitting the red light --- [TYLER] Some 18 year old driving down the road [DR. CHRISTIAN] Exactly. So why not do the same for the positive unexpected? [TYLER] Well, to me, that's choosing to have a response framework that really comes to this ideology, life is for you, not against you. Whether that is in business, whether that is in personal relationships or whether that's just by pure circumstance, I believe if we look at it's like, hey, everything, even though it may not feel good right now, maybe it's a setback per se, it's for my benefit. I just need to find those ways and be curious enough and courageous enough to be bold enough, as we mentioned earlier, to dive into that, to say, all right, what pathway forward is there here in the dark, instead of succumbing to the darkness and just saying, whoa is life. It's always going to be like this. [DR. CHRISTIAN] It's interesting. So a lot of our work, especially with CEOs and leaders of large companies, it's exactly that, that they had inflection points in their life where something went really wrong. They lost a loved one, their company almost went bankrupt, you name it. Then they said, okay, do I let this situation define me or do I try to define that situation and then do I go from this? Of course, in the moment itself, it never feels like this. They wouldn't have, like, they post rationalized that. They wouldn't have felt that in the moment. But by being active about it and still saying, okay, the life, life is not over. It always reminds me of this old saying, if you want a happy ending, don't stop your story too early. Like, if you stop at that point where someone breaks up with you, then you'll always be the broken up with, versus if you continue dating and then you find the love of your life, then thank you so much for this breakup. Otherwise, I couldn't have found the love of my life. So it's these things where these inflection points, and I mean, at the same time, I'm a big believer that we can never blame anyone for bad luck. We can never, we all have a lot of bad luck potentially set out. There's a lot of diseases and everything out there. So I think that's something, yes, we can never blame anyone for that. Then to your point, at the same time, the question always is there still something in this particular situation? I've learned so much from Viktor Frankl there, like highly recommended. He wrote this amazing book, Man's Search for Meaning, and he was so fascinating about this idea that even if objectively sometimes there's no meaning in the situation, you can subject subjectively create a sense of it. You can, he was in a concentration camp, toughest situation you can imagine and he said, objectively no meaning here, "But I still want to make people feel better when I talk with them tomorrow so now I have reason to wake up so that I can speak with another prisoner to make them feel better and so that gives me meaning." So it's, you can apply that to your own life. This is a bad situation during Covid, but I can still help my neighbor tomorrow to get food so I have a reason now to wake up tomorrow morning. [TYLER] How much of that obviously, a great book from a perspective of being in the worst places and yet seeing the beauty and the possibility and purpose? Do you connect, totally rant, but do you connect this idea of being able to appreciate serendipity and coincide with purpose? [DR. CHRISTIAN] What's interesting is, so my original research, how I came to serendipity was purpose-driven leadership. So it actually came from the purpose question. It came from the question of how do we live a life that feels meaningful and find something that gives us meaning and then those people who seem to have that purpose seem to have a lot of serendipity. Why? Because they're extremely good at connecting the dots to something they care about. That's something if you think about. Think about, you're the CEO of MasterCard. If you are MasterCard, 10 years ago, if you're an employee, you're like, okay, well, we produced some financial system stuff, transactions, cards, like who cares versus like, when Aja Bank came in, he said I want that we have a bigger purpose here. So I want to get 500 million people who were previously unbanked and not in the financial system, so didn't have access to resourcing. I want them in the financial system, and now this is our bigger purpose that we get them in here. They can become entrepreneurs and so on. Now, I have a bigger purpose here as an organization and as an individual within the organization. I know what I'm working towards. Now when I, over dinner, coincidentally, so run into a tech entrepreneur who tells me about this cool new solution of how to get people out of poverty, now I can connect the dots to this and say, wow, at MasterCard we could integrate that. So the point is, I care more when I have a purpose and I want to connect the dots more, and it becomes easier. [TYLER] You shared this a little bit in your book. I heard this actually last fall as well, is you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only do it looking back. I think there's a point of reflecting at points to say, to allow yourself to look back and connect the dots backwards. That propels you forward to be able to see the next opportunity. You just mentioned about the MasterCard executive and that idea of the only way to get to that end purpose is maybe looking back to say where we've been. Okay, great. Those were the dots connected. How can we look for greater opportunities either outside of what we're doing now or that continue to propel us along that pathway? Is that something that you find that when you talk to people about the serendipity mindset, that you try to curate more and more? It's like how to reflect, be able to look forward. [DR. CHRISTIAN] Absolutely. I think the initial Steve Jobs idea of, hey, look, it's easier to connect the dots at hindsight, I completely agree with this in the sense of you look at your CV and you think about, oh, it all looks so random but actually maybe there's a thread here that I've always loved to work with people. I've always loved to work with ideas. So you realize, oh, wow, maybe there is more of a common thread here than I thought. That then makes it also easier going forward to say, oh, it seems like I've always been excited about X, Y, Z do now that can become part of my narrative going forward as well. I think that's why I'm actually a huge fan of that connecting the dots backward helps us to connect the dots better going forward. That really, that connects dot, connecting the dots going forward is part of building our uncertainty muscle that we think about what do actually want to connect the dots to? I feel there's a lot of pressure, especially on young people, sometimes find your purpose, find your passion. So I'm a huge fan actually, of find your curiosity, because it's a lot about saying if you're a young person, you might not have figured out yet what you're burning for, but maybe you're curious about expose direction. Once you then put yourself into communities that do that or meet people around this, then at some point you're like, oh my God, I didn't even know the position exists. Let me learn more about it. Then you rubber stamp yourself into that. [TYLER] I think it, if an overarching thread that I see in life and I believe it's a major facet in leadership, I hear from you as well in this idea of serendipity, it's always choose to be curious, whether it's that asking the questions why, whether it's just wonder. Because by wonder you see things that you wouldn't otherwise see because you're not so blinded by, well, this is just the world I'm in, this is the way it's going to be. I think that not only provides a more fruitful life, but it creates those opportunities for serendipity. In creates those opportunities for otherwise relationships. It really, I think again, we can't underestimate curiosity. [DR. CHRISTIAN] Absolutely, especially also because, so if I were sitting at home, I would point now on one of my favorite books, The Little Prince, which is all about essentially that little boy who runs around and always asks questions, why, why, why, why would that matter, why would that matter? A lot of times we lose that over time because we get so used to particular themes of how we think about life or we think is important. Then what I found extremely interesting is when people get close to retirement or close to death, then they're like, oh, no, let me step back and think about again, why was it interesting what I did? Or maybe not. Then there's a lot of regret. So I'm a huge fan actually of thinking about what could I potentially regret much earlier in life versus when we're on our deathbed. So I think that asking why, I think the earlier we do that, the earlier then we might realize what I'm currently doing at the moment. If I would run in front of a car tomorrow morning, I would probably not feel that my life was as worthwhile as it could have been had I focused already on the things that I think I should do in 10 years. Life might not be as long. Things happen so we might as well now focus already on the things. There, I'm a huge fan of really thinking about careers more as portfolios and like platforms of, like, let's say you are a consultant at XYZ consultancy, and you always think about, okay, I'll do this for a couple of years to make money to build my context, and then afterwards I do the thing, I really want to do the NGO or whatever. But you might not have the time so what you might want to do is think about how you can already integrate that now into your job. So for example, let's say you're excited about how woman empowerment can work in Kenya. Well, then try to find the board member or the partner at your consultancy who's excited about this, pitch it to them, and then make it a consultancy project at that consultancy where then out of this, you spin out an NGO and do that. So it's really thinking about, can I bring already what I'm excited about into the platforms I'm in versus waiting for 20 years and then maybe life is over sooner than that? [TYLER] There's a little bit of a timeline essence there. I have to think that probably one of the biggest confounders, if you track people and their mindset on, alright, is this serendipitous, meaning am I having a, is where we create it in a finite factor? Meaning, well, I need it to happen in this time. I need this, if I'm pursuing that NGO you just mentioned, and I put a timeframe in, well, I want this completed in the next 12 months. And then you almost lose the ability for it to naturally occur maybe at 16 months where that next opportunity comes that actually makes it all happen and seeing that timing as perfect, instead of I need to truncate it because that's what I have in my mindset. [DR. CHRISTIAN] That's why I think what we see with a lot of leaders, especially in our research, is that they're extremely good at saying, here's a plan, here's a strategy, here's where we want to go. But I'm already telling you now that we will adjust that timeline based on new information coming in. That's not a bad thing. That's actually because we're open, because we want to constantly have new information come in and learn about it. So I think that's actually something when you look at old school leadership mindsets versus like the new type of leadership mindset, you shift right away from, I pretend I know everything. I pretend I can't control everything, which is just an illusion of control and nobody believes it anyways to, hey, this is like, I can't give you certainty, but I can give you clarity of where we're going and what the timeline is, but I'll adjust it. Now when I adjust the timeline, I look strong because I told people from the beginning, I will adjust it. That's what I do as a leader. I think that's the new definition of a leader to say, at the end of the day, you're not here to pretend you know everything. You're here to create the environment so that people can help you get all the knowledge that's out there and then you together as a collective know everything that needs to be known to solve a problem. [TYLER] Man, that's an amazing thought to I guess punctuate this conversation because I agree with that entirely, and it's that willing, the leader that's willing to say, I don't know, but I'm clear about what I do know and where I want to help everyone go to. Christian, thank you so much. This has been a great conversation. I love this idea of really creating our own luck. And it's not luck. It is again, the preparation, the action, the being curious enough to just wonder, and through that man, all sorts of good things can happen and they do. [DR. CHRISTIAN] Thanks so much. Such a pleasure to talk with you. [TYLER] There is a segment there where I brought up with Christian well, just one of my recent guests, Joey Cofone, the author of The Laws of Creativity. I'm going to read this for you. I read this for Christian as we went off camera, but the three devastating perspectives on young minds. We talked about all three of these in Christian's peace. It's that authority is unquestionable, number two, that manmade rules must be followed and number three, the end is visible from the start. If we go about it, we talked about that, if we're trying to connect our dots forward, we're never going to see it. At the same point, if authority, if we have to accept everything we're told, we're not going to see necessarily serendipity going forward. Or at the same point, if we have to follow all the rules, we're not going to look outside of that for what opportunities. He talked about applying for a job. If we just go to that job saying, well, this is all you have available, instead of saying, man, I'm excited about this within your organization, are you guys doing any of that? You never know what might happen. See is that curiosity, is that wonder that brings great opportunity. It's where I love to say this and this mindset of give me a box and I'm going to figure out every way to operate outside of that. That's exciting to me. That's fun. That is enjoyable. What I found is when I have enough preparation and the action of doing it in curiosity, the best things occur in my life. I could have never known that I would be here doing this, sitting in front of a camera recording this for you today. But yet, if I look at all my experiences and all the opportunities have got me here, man, I was perfectly set for this. I had a career where I needed to be curious and I needed to wonder, but I also had to get outside of the framework that that was building. Man, I hope you've gotten value from this today and I hope you also take away from the very last thing that Christian shared is the leader today is not totally certain. In reality they are uncertain, but their clear in their uncertainty and they evolve and they navigate and they change and they accept serendipity as it comes and look for more of it. I hope you can take that away from today and I hope you got value from this. Thanks again for being here. If you're not a subscriber to YouTube or on, wherever you're listening to podcast, hit subscribe. As well coming up in just a few weeks, another Awaken the Leader Within Workshop. You can go to theimpactdrivenleader.com. You can sign up for that. I would love to have you join in that workshop, help yourself grow, grow with me. I'm in this process of growing, not alone, but we're in it together. Thanks for being here. Catch next time.