what's luck got to do with it?
As part of his
hiring process, the founder and CEO of Zappo's, Tony Hseih, asks candidates,
"On a scale of one to ten, how lucky do you think you are? With one being,
'I don't know why bad things always happen to me, I stubbed my foot this morning'.
And ten being 'I don't know why great things always happen to me'."
The reason that Tony
asks that question is based on a research study where participants were asked that exact question. The participants were given the task of going through a newspaper and counting the number of pictures in that newspaper. When they
were done counting, they were told to submit their answer to the researchers.
The people who
considered themselves unlucky in life, went through and did the task of
counting and came up with the right answer of 39. What none of them knew is
that it was actually a fake newspaper, and sprinkled throughout the newspaper
were headlines like, "If you are reading this headline right now, you can
stop counting, the answer is 39, and plus you get an extra hundred bucks from
the researcher." Whereas the people who considered themselves lucky in life,
caught the headlines and collected the extra hundred dollars.
The take-away isn't
so much that people are actually lucky or unlucky. It's that people who
consider themselves to be lucky are actually just more open to opportunity and
aren't so focused on just what is the actual task at hand, which is why Zappo's
asks that question as part of their hiring process, because they want
open-minded people who are opportunistic.
Tony goes on to
apply the same principle to how he embraces opportunities to meet random people without any agenda in mind. He say's "It's not just about meeting people who can help your
business right now. Just meet them because they are nice and interesting
without worrying about what the angle is or what you can extract from them. Get
to know them because you are truly interested, and you'll be surprised how
you'll find ways that you may end up working together in a lucky turn of events that you never could have
predicted when you originally met."
This is just one of
the nuggets of wisdom that I transcribed from Tony's 80 minute talk at
Underground Online Seminar, http://www.undergroundonlineseminar.com/zappos/thanks.php
about the innovative practices that compose the fabric of their company culture
renowned for integrity and service.
This anecdote caught
my attention because it was the first time I have heard of a study that unpacks
luckiness, and the conclusion drives home just how much our
ability to be present in the moment plays into the opportunities that we encounter
in life.
How lucky in life are you?
