[IshanMi]

I remember someone telling me that they thought of luck as being as one of four kinds:

- blind luck (which is what people usually mean by "luck")

- stirring the pot (if you apply to 100 jobs you might get more "luck" than if you applied for just 10)

- domain expertise (the more knowledge you have, the more opportunities you can spot that others might miss)

- reputation (if you're the world's best painter then when people want a painting they'll immediately think of you)

[TrainedMonkey]

A couple studies have shown that people who believe they are lucky get better outcomes. Something about looking at most positive outcomes - https://www.frameofmindcoaching.com/blog/why-are-some-people...

[gessha]

Swyx talked about it in his blog post which gets resubmitted every year or so:

https://www.swyx.io/writing/create-luck

[antisthenes]

So they just didn't know what luck was and invented their own definition to sound smart?

2 and 3 are definitely not luck, because it's affected by your actions. 4 can have partial luck, because people sometimes view you better or worse than you expect, and you can't predict your complete reputational outreach.

1 is the only definite piece of luck here, like being born to the right parents, or a stranger that you held the door for being the CEO that offers you a job.

[bryanrasmussen]

If the stranger you held the door for being the CEO that offers you a job that is luck, but you would be stirring the pot if you were always super polite and held the door for everybody. This assumes that holding the door somehow led to the job offer which I think the original description assumes, based on how the English language generally works.

Aside from that in the stirring the pot scenario you apply to 10 jobs, two of them offer you jobs, one below market rate, one at market rate.

You stir the pot and apply to 100 jobs, 2 of which offer you jobs signficantly above market rate.

Stirring the pot is not strictly luck, but it is precursory to what is often described as luck and as such can often be described as a form of luck that you make yourself by adopting behaviors more likely to lead to lucky outcomes.

on edit: I see akamoonknight had the same thought I did, but didn't take as long to write the comment. Lucky.

[doctor_eval]

Right. Stirring the pot is creating opportunities for luck to happen.

[akamoonknight]

It's funny because in that last sentence I think you're describing something like in the article. "Holding the door open" might not be something that people do to strictly have the potential to hold the door open for a CEO, but they definitely hit on that possibility more often than those who don't hold the door open at all. So is that "blind luck", or in the parent example (and i think sort of the articles) is that more along the lines of "stirring the pot"?