8d • General discussion
Luck, Success and Small world Theory
I've been thinking about network theory and how it might explain something that's always bothered me: the relationship between luck and hard work in success. In network theory, there's a striking principle: social networks need only a small degree of randomness to function dramatically differently. You don't just know people in your immediate surroundings (your Umgebung) - you also know some random person in America, for instance. This tiny amount of randomness creates a massive effect: it's why you can reach anyone in the world through only six people. Without any randomness, that same connection would take 40 million people.
This resolves a question I've struggled with: does randomness play the biggest role in success, or is it hard work? And if it's really randomness - just luck - then why isn't everything random? Why do we see such remarkable accomplishments?
The answer lies in understanding that the system needs only a tiny bit of randomness, yet that small amount makes the biggest difference. So it's not all luck - in fact, it's mainly not luck. But luck does play the biggest role, in the sense that it has a disproportionate impact.
What's particularly interesting is the concept of weak ties - people you know casually, not close friends. These weak ties are what make it possible to know everyone in the world through only six connections. And here's the empowering part: it's in your hands to create these ties. It's in my hands to let luck play a role in my life and make great success possible.
However, there's an important nuance: in network theory, those random connections work because they connect already well-connected clusters. The randomness is powerful because there's underlying structure. Similarly, being open to serendipity works best when you've built skills, relationships, and put yourself in environments where lucky breaks can happen. The randomness multiplies what's already there - it doesn't create something from nothing. This realization hit me hard because I haven't been allowing this in my life at all. I don't do anything that isn't on the calendar. I hate when things deviate from the plan. But in reality, leaving room for randomness makes the biggest difference.
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Luck, Success and Small world Theory
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