In Dallas, Texas, years ago, I sat down at a bar to have a drink with a friend. My friend ordered a scotch on the rocks. My friend had a special request for his order. He asked the bartender for crushed ice in the scotch instead of ice cubes. When the bartender returned with our drinks, curiosity got the better of me. I asked my friend why he ordered crushed ice. And what he said revealed a secret about luck and probability. My friend said crushed ice has more surface area touching the scotch. The surface area of a three dimensional object is the amount of space on the outside of it. Thus, the more surface area you have, the more contact you have with your environment. Therefore, the drink chills faster. I left the bar that night and couldn’t get what he said out of my mind. Could the ice cube lesson have other applications? I dug deeper and found some fascinating surface area research. For instance, our lungs and intestines have a huge surface area to increase the absorption of oxygen and nutrients.
see, serial entrepreneur Jason Roberts coined the phrase “luck surface area”. Luck Surface Area has two variables: D for doing and T for telling. For any project we work on, we spend time doing the project but we also spend time telling others about it. The variables doing and telling were created by Jason Roberts who coined the phrase “Luck Surface Area” and created the first Luck Surface Area model. The Luck Surface Area formula is:
If you don’t follow your passion by doing nothing, then D = 0 which makes L = 0 1. If you don’t tell anybody about what you’re doing, then T = 0 which makes L = 0 2. The key to embracing your luck surface area is to do as much as you can. Leverage your skills and others to help you. Then you magnify this by telling as many people as you can about what you do. When you're passionate about doing, the telling gets easier. Your passion becomes infectious which makes a percentage of people you tell want to tell others. To increase your luck, do more and tell more.
L = D * T.
Translating this equation, we see that your doing gets magnified by how many people you tell. Because this equation uses multiplication, each thing you do or each person you tell scales your luck faster and faster. Consider this example: If you do 2 things and tell 3 people, your luck surface area equals 6. What if you did 2 things but told 4 people? Now your Luck increases to 8. What if you increased the original D by 1 and original T by 1? You’d have a luck score of 3 * 4 = 12. This is double the original Luck surface area.
Don Sevcik is the creator and president of the fastest math tutor on the planet, MathCelebrity. MathCelebrity served 8.2 million parents and students in over 190 countries. He’s a best-selling author of 5 books and also consults on SEO and mental models. donsevcik@gmail.com.
But surface area plays another important role in life. Luck. You
This equation reveals two more truths about luck…
Click Here For Previous Articles From Don
| The Bellwether |
Listen to This Article Here
Powered by FlippingBook