Kaplan Janice - How luck happens: using the science of luck to transform work, love, and life

The Gratitude Diaries

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

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New York, New York 10014

Copyright 2018 by Janice Kaplan and Barnaby Marsh

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Kaplan, Janice, author. | Marsh, Barnaby, author.

Title: How luck happens : using the new science of luck to transform work, love, and life / Janice Kaplan, Barnaby Marsh.

Description: 1 Edition. | New York : Dutton, 2018.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017035996 (print) | LCCN 2017041723 (ebook) | ISBN 9781101986400 (ebook) | ISBN 9781101986394 (hardback) | ISBN 9781524743284 (export edition)

Subjects: LCSH: Self-actualization (Psychology) | Success. | BISAC: SELF-HELP / Personal Growth / Success. | MATHEMATICS / Probability & Statistics / General.

Classification: LCC BF637.S4 (ebook) | LCC BF637.S4 K33212 2018 (print) | DDC 158dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017035996

While the authors have made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the authors assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

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For our wonderful children... and everybody who wants to make more luck in the world

Preface

You dont have to travel very far in Hollywood to encounter men and women driving Uber cars or doing chores for TaskRabbit as they wait for the lucky break that will catapult them to stardom. Many majored in drama in college or starred in a hometown production of Rentand now they need someone else to notice their talent, too.

You have to give yourself a chance to get lucky, said Cassie, a bright-eyed redhead I met one warm evening at a caf on Sunset Boulevard. She was behind the bar, making her signature Moscow mulevodka, lime, and ginger beer. (I ordered a Diet Coke.) But making the perfect drink wasnt what kept Cassie going. As we chatted, she told me she had recently graduated from college and had driven her beat-up Kia two thousand miles west to come to Hollywood. Now she was waiting for the lucky encounter that would make her a star.

I just keep saying to myself, Harrison Ford, Cassie said.

Ah, yes, lucky Harrison. His early adventures are as legendary among acting aspirants as the exploits of Indiana Jones. When he first arrived in Los Angeles in the 1960s, Ford got so little attention for his acting prowess that he started working as a carpenter. A young director who was also starting out hired him to build some cabinets for his house. They got to know and like each other, and the director gave Ford a part in a small movie he was shooting on a minimal budget. It was turned down by six movie studios but eventually became an unexpectedly massive hit.

The movie was American Graffiti. The director was George Lucas. Perhaps youve heard of him? A few years later, Lucas got the go-ahead to make another movie the studios didnt really believe inStar Warsand he cast his new buddy Harrison Ford in it.

You think youll find your own George Lucas in the bar? I asked Cassie when she came over to refill my drink.

You bet, she said with a grin.

And why not? She had put herself in a place to get lucky, right here at the edge of the Hollywood Hills, where many producers and directors live. Maybe the next guy she served would be an executive at Paramount (or at least the Disney Channel) who would spot her potential.

For Harrison Ford, the chance encounter with Lucas led to the cascade of events that made him one of the biggest stars of his generation. If not for those cabinets, he might never have rocketed to international fame in Star Wars. A different actor would have been frozen in a large block of carbonite as the very cool Han Solo.

The idea that chance events can play such a huge role in a career is both encouraging (It can happen to me!) and discouraging (But what if it doesnt?). Many people in Hollywood and elsewhere believe you make your own luck, which explains the would-be screenwriters who have their scripts with them at all times, ready to present to anyone with a friendly face.

Watching Cassie dash around the caf with her big smile and lively chatter, I realized that it was possible I would see her on the big screen someday. But more than a single chance encounter would be at play. In moving to Hollywood, working at the bar, and talking to people (like me), she was creating her own opportunities. She had put all the pieces in place to make her own luck.

We chatted a little more until a friend of mine arrived, and Cassie discovered that I had once been a TV producer with a fun and interesting career. At the end of the evening, when Cassie dropped the bill off at our table, she asked, Any advice on how I can be one of the lucky ones?

You will be, I said encouragingly.

I left a big tip and walked out with an even bigger question spinning in my head.

What can any of usincluding Cassiedo to make ourselves one of the lucky ones? Sure, random chance plays a role in life, but we cant just shrug our shoulders and leave it at that. We have to take the right steps and control what we can.

I thought of the poem by Emily Dickinson in which she wrote that luck isnt chance, its hard work, and Fortunes expensive smile / is earned Ive always liked that phrase, and now, as I walked to my car in the warm Los Angeles night, I wondered what it takes to win fortunes expensive smile. How do we go about making our own luck?

I was still thinking about that question when I got back to New York and had afternoon tea with my friend Barnaby Marsh. Having gone to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, Barnaby still likes strong tea and scones, and Im always happy to join him. Barnaby is in his early forties, with a quirky, original way of thinking, and he holds appointments at both the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvard. In other words, hes the kind of guy you turn to when youre trying to figure something out.

So I told him about Cassie, and I presented the Harrison Ford conundrum: If the now-famous actor hadnt met George Lucas, would he still be making his living with a hammer and nails?

Barnaby sat very still for a minute or two, staring off into the distance, thinking about the problem.

Its complicated, he said finally. Unforeseen eventslike that meeting with Lucascan play a role. But if you put enough of the right elements in place, you can take some of the onus off its all being random chance.