The Serendipity Mindset_ The Art and Scien - Christian Busch

✏️ Highlights

are we really in control of our lives? Or is this just an illusion?

Studies suggest that around 30 to 50 percent of major scientific breakthroughs emerge as the result of accidents or coincidences.

Napoléon Bonaparte said he would rather have lucky generals than good ones.

Imagine a world driven by curiosity, opportunity, and a sense of connection, rather than by fear, scarcity, and jealousy.

As an eighteen-year-old in Germany, I crashed my car into several parked cars at a speed of more than 50 mph. Miraculously, I survived, but the cars I hit were severely damaged, as was my own. Until then I had never really believed stories about near-death experiences. But my life really did flash before my eyes in the split second before that collision, when my car was spinning out of control and I felt absolutely powerless, certain that I would die.

When I turned eighteen, I got my first car. It was exciting and I transferred my hedonistic and overoptimistic attitude into my driving style.

The old proverb that “death is life’s greatest motivator” started to make a lot of sense to me. When you face death, you don’t worry about how much money you have in the bank, how many cars you have in the garage, how great last night’s clubbing experience was.

The next step is to develop the conditions—in our families, our communities, our organizations—that allow serendipity to be nurtured and used to create opportunities and value. This

SERENDIPITY More Than Blind Luck Humiliating to human pride as it may be, we must recognize that the advance and even the preservation of civilization are dependent upon a maximum of opportunity for accidents to happen. FRIEDRICH HAYEK, WINNER OF THE 1974

SERENDIPITY More Than Blind Luck Humiliating to human pride as it may be, we must recognize that the advance and even the preservation of civilization are dependent upon a maximum of opportunity for accidents to happen. FRIEDRICH HAYEK, WINNER OF THE 1974 NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS

1754, the British writer and politician Horace Walpole wrote to a friend about an unexpected discovery,

he compared to the story of the three princes. In doing so, he coined the word serendipity, describing the princes as people who “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.”

In a world where we often cannot predict what will happen tomorrow, the best we can do is to embrace unexpected conditions and make the most out of the randomness of life.

how to cultivate serendipity for ourselves and others. This powerful mechanism for unleashing human potential demonstrates not only that (smart) luck favors the prepared but also that there are ways in which we can accelerate, nurture, and harness the positive coincidences in our lives.

the book is peppered with examples of small, immediate adjustments that will directly make a difference in your day-to-day experiences, allowing you to live a more meaningful, joyful, inspiring, and successful life.

understand how to develop a space that we can control in which serendipity can happen—a serendipity field.

By definition, serendipity is not controllable, let alone predictable. However, there are tangible, achievable ways to develop the conditions in which serendipity can happen,

where many may have been deterred by the lack of resources, he used his enthusiasm and negotiation skills to convince a local coworking office to donate space for the event, used the innovation community Sandbox to recruit volunteers, and enlisted top people like Larry Brilliant, the former executive director of Google.org (Google’s charitable arm), to give extemporaneous talks. Nathaniel’s ability to connect the dots produced a world-class event with no budget within a day and a half, in a city where he previously had a limited network.

Dr. Nico Rose, a German organizational psychologist, was on a business trip in 2018 when he ran into former world heavyweight champion boxer Wladimir Klitschko in the gym of a Boston hotel.

The resulting chat led to a selfie, and off they went to do their separate workouts. When they had finished, Klitschko was looking for the elevator—so Nico walked with him and they chatted further.

Klitschko asked Nico to introduce him to the corporate university where he worked for speaking opportunities. In turn, Nico told him about his upcoming book, for which Klitschko ended up agreeing to write the foreword.

Which one of us hasn’t presented their CV as if their life was, in fact, a coherent, rationally organized plan? In truth, we might not have had a clear plan for our careers at all. The reality was almost certainly different, often driven by coincidences and accidents, by an unexpected idea, encounter, or conversation.

Serendipity Is Everywhere It’s true. Inventions such as nylon, Velcro, Viagra, Post-it Notes, X-rays, penicillin, rubber, and microwave ovens all involved serendipity.

Even love may be said to be the child of serendipity. I met almost all my romantic partners in coffee shops or airports, often because of a spilled coffee or a laptop that needed to be watched, sparking a conversation that unveiled common interests. Many of the most famous love stories—including that of Michelle and Barack Obama, who met when a young and impossibly tardy Barack joined Michelle’s law firm and was allocated to her as a mentee—were born out of the unexpected.

take the invention of Sofar Sounds, a global movement that reimagines live music events. When Rafe Offer, Rocky Start, and singer-songwriter Dave Alexander went to see indie rock band Friendly Fires live, they were annoyed by other concertgoers nearby who talked over the music and stared at their smartphones. Struck by the realization that the days when people attending a show focused solely on the music were long gone, in 2009 they decided to organize an intimate gig in Rocky’s front room, in North London, with Dave performing his songs to a small, hand-picked audience.

Sofar (an acronym of “songs from a room”)

more than four hundred cities around the world, partnering with companies as varied as Airbnb and Virgin Group.

the original Staphylococcus bacteria had disappeared. The mold was penicillium chrysogenum. Thus was penicillin discovered as an agent that would kill certain bacteria.

An accidental contamination leads to a mold, which turns out to be a lifesaving drug. But which type of serendipity is this?

Qualitative research methods such as grounded theory similarly look not for statistical patterns but for the surprising or unexpected insight.11 In that respect, researchers do have a lot in common with Sherlock Holmes.

Companies such as Haier, the world’s leading white goods company, deal with this by “disrupting ourselves before we get disrupted,” in the words of its CEO Zhang Ruimin.

Who would have thought that Chinese farmers would use Haier’s washing machines to clean their potatoes?

Some will ask, and I have asked myself: Is serendipity still serendipity once we take a more active role in it? The answer is a resounding yes, because that is the precise difference between serendipity and just plain, blind luck.

Serendipity is active, “smart” luck that depends on our ability to spot and connect the dots.

Each time a student mentions their birthday, there are many potential “pairs” that could happen. Student No. 1, for example, has fifty-nine other people who could potentially have the same birthday as they do; student No. 2 still has fifty-eight potential people with the same birthday (assuming the first one had a different birthday), and so on.

known as the birthday paradox (see figure below).

It’s proof that we often underestimate the unexpected because we think linearly—often “according to plan”—rather than exponentially (or in contingencies). But the unexpected happens all the time, even if we are either surprised when we see it, or if we don’t see it at all.

When asked to explain their success, many people will describe their hard work and careful planning—the long-term vision and strategy that inexorably led to glory. Sometimes this is accurate, but often it is not.

The key turning points in life often are moments of serendipity (or sometimes even just blind luck)

We Underestimate the Unexpected

The unexpected, the unlikely, and indeed the downright extraordinary happen all the time. What matters is whether we spot them and whether we grasp them and nurture them when they can be useful.

students who start with the mindset of “I win, you lose” often take longer to identify that there are ways of “increasing the pie” that benefit both.

The ones with a win-win mindset are often able to build trust and exchange information about the actual underlying interests, and they can prioritize more effectively than those that assume that a benefit for one means a loss for the other.)

an employee negotiating for a new job or a prospective homeowner trying to buy their first house. In these situations, often unexpected dots need to be connected in order to find a mutually agreeable solution.

But what if we could broaden the range of what we expect? Then, increasingly we will see the connections and come to understand that unlikely things are happening all around us, just waiting for us to take advantage of them.

British psychology professor Richard Wiseman conducted a fascinating experiment about self-perception: He found people who identify as either “extremely lucky” or “extremely unlucky,” and he tested how they perceive the world.3 In one experiment, he selected two participants: Martin, who considers himself lucky, and Brenda, who considers herself unlucky (for example, she had the feeling that often bad things happen to her).

are we really in control of our lives? Or is this just an illusion?

Studies suggest that around 30 to 50 percent of major scientific breakthroughs emerge as the result of accidents or coincidences.

Napoléon Bonaparte said he would rather have lucky generals than good ones.

Imagine a world driven by curiosity, opportunity, and a sense of connection, rather than by fear, scarcity, and jealousy.

As an eighteen-year-old in Germany, I crashed my car into several parked cars at a speed of more than 50 mph. Miraculously, I survived, but the cars I hit were severely damaged, as was my own. Until then I had never really believed stories about near-death experiences. But my life really did flash before my eyes in the split second before that collision, when my car was spinning out of control and I felt absolutely powerless, certain that I would die.

When I turned eighteen, I got my first car. It was exciting and I transferred my hedonistic and overoptimistic attitude into my driving style.

The old proverb that “death is life’s greatest motivator” started to make a lot of sense to me. When you face death, you don’t worry about how much money you have in the bank, how many cars you have in the garage, how great last night’s clubbing experience was.

The next step is to develop the conditions—in our families, our communities, our organizations—that allow serendipity to be nurtured and used to create opportunities and value. This

SERENDIPITY More Than Blind Luck Humiliating to human pride as it may be, we must recognize that the advance and even the preservation of civilization are dependent upon a maximum of opportunity for accidents to happen. FRIEDRICH HAYEK, WINNER OF THE 1974

SERENDIPITY More Than Blind Luck Humiliating to human pride as it may be, we must recognize that the advance and even the preservation of civilization are dependent upon a maximum of opportunity for accidents to happen. FRIEDRICH HAYEK, WINNER OF THE 1974 NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS

1754, the British writer and politician Horace Walpole wrote to a friend about an unexpected discovery,

he compared to the story of the three princes. In doing so, he coined the word serendipity, describing the princes as people who “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.”

In a world where we often cannot predict what will happen tomorrow, the best we can do is to embrace unexpected conditions and make the most out of the randomness of life.

how to cultivate serendipity for ourselves and others. This powerful mechanism for unleashing human potential demonstrates not only that (smart) luck favors the prepared but also that there are ways in which we can accelerate, nurture, and harness the positive coincidences in our lives.

the book is peppered with examples of small, immediate adjustments that will directly make a difference in your day-to-day experiences, allowing you to live a more meaningful, joyful, inspiring, and successful life.

understand how to develop a space that we can control in which serendipity can happen—a serendipity field.

By definition, serendipity is not controllable, let alone predictable. However, there are tangible, achievable ways to develop the conditions in which serendipity can happen,

where many may have been deterred by the lack of resources, he used his enthusiasm and negotiation skills to convince a local coworking office to donate space for the event, used the innovation community Sandbox to recruit volunteers, and enlisted top people like Larry Brilliant, the former executive director of Google.org (Google’s charitable arm), to give extemporaneous talks. Nathaniel’s ability to connect the dots produced a world-class event with no budget within a day and a half, in a city where he previously had a limited network.

Dr. Nico Rose, a German organizational psychologist, was on a business trip in 2018 when he ran into former world heavyweight champion boxer Wladimir Klitschko in the gym of a Boston hotel.

The resulting chat led to a selfie, and off they went to do their separate workouts. When they had finished, Klitschko was looking for the elevator—so Nico walked with him and they chatted further.

Klitschko asked Nico to introduce him to the corporate university where he worked for speaking opportunities. In turn, Nico told him about his upcoming book, for which Klitschko ended up agreeing to write the foreword.

Which one of us hasn’t presented their CV as if their life was, in fact, a coherent, rationally organized plan? In truth, we might not have had a clear plan for our careers at all. The reality was almost certainly different, often driven by coincidences and accidents, by an unexpected idea, encounter, or conversation.

Serendipity Is Everywhere It’s true. Inventions such as nylon, Velcro, Viagra, Post-it Notes, X-rays, penicillin, rubber, and microwave ovens all involved serendipity.

Even love may be said to be the child of serendipity. I met almost all my romantic partners in coffee shops or airports, often because of a spilled coffee or a laptop that needed to be watched, sparking a conversation that unveiled common interests. Many of the most famous love stories—including that of Michelle and Barack Obama, who met when a young and impossibly tardy Barack joined Michelle’s law firm and was allocated to her as a mentee—were born out of the unexpected.

take the invention of Sofar Sounds, a global movement that reimagines live music events. When Rafe Offer, Rocky Start, and singer-songwriter Dave Alexander went to see indie rock band Friendly Fires live, they were annoyed by other concertgoers nearby who talked over the music and stared at their smartphones. Struck by the realization that the days when people attending a show focused solely on the music were long gone, in 2009 they decided to organize an intimate gig in Rocky’s front room, in North London, with Dave performing his songs to a small, hand-picked audience.

Sofar (an acronym of “songs from a room”)

more than four hundred cities around the world, partnering with companies as varied as Airbnb and Virgin Group.

the original Staphylococcus bacteria had disappeared. The mold was penicillium chrysogenum. Thus was penicillin discovered as an agent that would kill certain bacteria.

An accidental contamination leads to a mold, which turns out to be a lifesaving drug. But which type of serendipity is this?

Qualitative research methods such as grounded theory similarly look not for statistical patterns but for the surprising or unexpected insight.11 In that respect, researchers do have a lot in common with Sherlock Holmes.

Companies such as Haier, the world’s leading white goods company, deal with this by “disrupting ourselves before we get disrupted,” in the words of its CEO Zhang Ruimin.

Who would have thought that Chinese farmers would use Haier’s washing machines to clean their potatoes?

Some will ask, and I have asked myself: Is serendipity still serendipity once we take a more active role in it? The answer is a resounding yes, because that is the precise difference between serendipity and just plain, blind luck.

Serendipity is active, “smart” luck that depends on our ability to spot and connect the dots.

Each time a student mentions their birthday, there are many potential “pairs” that could happen. Student No. 1, for example, has fifty-nine other people who could potentially have the same birthday as they do; student No. 2 still has fifty-eight potential people with the same birthday (assuming the first one had a different birthday), and so on.

known as the birthday paradox (see figure below).

It’s proof that we often underestimate the unexpected because we think linearly—often “according to plan”—rather than exponentially (or in contingencies). But the unexpected happens all the time, even if we are either surprised when we see it, or if we don’t see it at all.

When asked to explain their success, many people will describe their hard work and careful planning—the long-term vision and strategy that inexorably led to glory. Sometimes this is accurate, but often it is not.

The key turning points in life often are moments of serendipity (or sometimes even just blind luck)

We Underestimate the Unexpected

The unexpected, the unlikely, and indeed the downright extraordinary happen all the time. What matters is whether we spot them and whether we grasp them and nurture them when they can be useful.

students who start with the mindset of “I win, you lose” often take longer to identify that there are ways of “increasing the pie” that benefit both.

The ones with a win-win mindset are often able to build trust and exchange information about the actual underlying interests, and they can prioritize more effectively than those that assume that a benefit for one means a loss for the other.)

an employee negotiating for a new job or a prospective homeowner trying to buy their first house. In these situations, often unexpected dots need to be connected in order to find a mutually agreeable solution.

But what if we could broaden the range of what we expect? Then, increasingly we will see the connections and come to understand that unlikely things are happening all around us, just waiting for us to take advantage of them.

British psychology professor Richard Wiseman conducted a fascinating experiment about self-perception: He found people who identify as either “extremely lucky” or “extremely unlucky,” and he tested how they perceive the world.3 In one experiment, he selected two participants: Martin, who considers himself lucky, and Brenda, who considers herself unlucky (for example, she had the feeling that often bad things happen to her).

Martin are lucky all or most of the time for a number of reasons, but among the most important ones is their ability to recognize the unexpected.

what about all the occasions on which we might have overlooked serendipity, or narrowly missed out on it?

researchers found at least six major examples of “serendipity gained” at the company.

People who are aware of the unexpected—like the executives in the examples of this furniture producer and Haier—are open to serendipity because they are already in the state of mind of looking out for the hidden value in unexpected data and events.

the CEO of one of India’s largest companies, Mahindra Group, ponder about installing “serendipity spotters” across the organization.

There are good reasons many of us may have a tendency to conform to the majority. Consensus is safety. And large numbers of individuals can make surprisingly accurate decisions—often better than the smartest people among them would.

the pressure to conform to the majority view can kill serendipity, especially if it makes us ignore or look down on life’s unexpected encounters, or if politics or unhealthy group dynamics take over.

This herd mentality can kill serendipity. So ignoring the majority carries some risk, but we should always question the majority view.

Whenever I visit a new company or community for a consulting project, I do what I call the “watercooler test.” I sit down somewhere where people talk openly—be it the cafeteria, the kitchen area, the coffee shop, or the actual watercooler—and pretend to work on my laptop. What I’m actually doing is listening in on people’s conversations.

Have you ever seen the Man in the Moon? Well, others have seen the Virgin Mary in grilled cheese sandwiches.

Our minds respond to a stimulus—such as a sound or an image—by looking for a familiar pattern or for an identity we know. Often we find one when none is there—a phenomenon known as “pareidolia.”

People have heard indistinct voices in the whir of fans or air conditioners, they have interpreted hidden messages in music played backward or at lower-than-normal speeds, and some see faces of animals in cloud formations.14

“apophenia,” our tendency to attribute meaning to patterns or perceived connections that are unrelated.

hungry pigeon was placed inside a box. Then food pellets were released into the box at entirely random intervals. Obviously, the pigeon had no way of predicting when the pellets dropped, and no way of causing it. But the pigeon began

hungry pigeon was placed inside a box. Then food pellets were released into the box at entirely random intervals. Obviously, the pigeon had no way of predicting when the pellets dropped, and no way of causing it. But the pigeon began to behave as if it could.

pattern in which pellets were falling was entirely random, but the pigeon began acting as if it was a predictable event over which it could exercise some control.

Put bluntly, if we airbrush serendipity out of our history, we make it far harder to spot when it happens again.

I’m almost ten years CEO, and I can tell you I’m not always in control. It doesn’t always feel good to say, but I’m not always in control.” We are often trained to tell a linear story, portraying how we were in control at all times. We might retrospectively adapt the storyline to what suits best.

Harvard has shown that once we are honest about it, what is supposed to be a linear story—our original plan—often becomes a “squiggle story.”

Pearson’s CEO, John Fallon, succinctly summarized it in our Leaders on Purpose 2018 CEO study: “Trying to get the original plan and the official story more aligned with actual experience

Knowledge and expertise are both a blessing and a curse when it comes to serendipity.

having a deep knowledge of a particular domain makes it more likely that you will spot bisociations or connections that others might miss.

deep domain-specific knowledge can also lead to “functional fixedness.”

often blocked mentally from seeing or using that same tool in a novel way.

“if you have a hammer then you see everything as a nail”

People usually display the highest degree of creativity when they use problem-solving approaches that they do not routinely use.20 Companies and individuals

Ojos que Sienten (which means “eyes that feel” in Spanish). Founded by Mexican social entrepreneur Gina Badenoch, it aims to transform the lives and role in society of the visually impaired.

we do not need to be born with the ability to overcome functional fixedness—we can practice it,

The best-known Ojos que Sienten initiative is its “dining in the dark” experience, which is exactly what it sounds like. In a dark room, blind waiters guide guests to their seat at the table and the participants sit next to people they have never met before.

Without facial expression cues, people become more attuned to vocal tones and inflections, and in turn they’re more expressive in their own speech in order to be sure they are understood correctly.

have had some of my deepest and most meaningful conversations in these settings, because the focus is on the conversation (and the food), and nothing else.

But what if you had never heard of a hammer, never seen one, and certainly never watched someone use one to bang in a nail?

You won’t search for a hammer, and you won’t even realize that you are missing the obvious tool. You will simply reach for the first suitable heavy object.

Charlie Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett’s ideas sparring partner, is renowned for his sharpness. His belief is that remembering isolated facts often does not help. Instead, we need a “latticework of theory” to connect facts and make sense out of them. This avoids solving problems from only the basis of what we know already—our availability heuristics.

the mind works a bit like a sperm and egg: The first idea gets in and then the mind shuts. But our tendency to settle on first conclusions leads us to accept many erroneous results and to stop asking questions.

Munger estimates that with fifty or so models at our disposal we can be a “worldly wise person.”

Frameworks can act in two ways—they can be a barrier to serendipity if they blind us to anomalies or if they lead us to discredit or simply miss altogether those unexpected things that do not fit.

I met my good friend and ex-girlfriend Sophie

a love story can have a happy ending even if the two people don’t stay together!”

start keeping a serendipity journal, and to write down what comes to you when

Write down the serendipitous encounters and related ideas that excited you but you never followed up on.

When giving advice to someone, don’t focus on what worked for you—no two situations or people are the same. Instead, start by asking the person asking for advice: “What is your intuition about it?”

“What do you think might solve your problem?” Often, the best advice you could give is already present within the person and their situation.

Thinking about different scenarios will help you understand the actual situation and how likely or unlikely it was to happen.

Isabelle Franklin (not her real name) lives in Freiburg, Germany, and told me about her husband, a pharmacist. In the laboratory he was trained to look out for details that don’t fit in. As a result, she said, “he looks at the world with the eyes of a child—or more like a detective. Lots of serendipitous things happen to him!” When I asked how often serendipity happens in her life, Isabelle said that “the last time I had serendipity in my life was when I met my husband.”

An unprepared mind discards unusual encounters, and often overlooks serendipity.

When we do not take structures and constraints for granted, we look at the world with different eyes. We start to see bridges where others see gaps.

If we see a car accident as purely bad luck, it stays just that—bad luck. If we consider a bad decision as defining us, it will define us forever.

For some time I let myself be defined by that decision, that mistake I made. I wouldn’t talk about it with colleagues, as I couldn’t make sense out of the cognitive dissonance that I felt.

I also realized that this was one of the few situations in my life that made me painfully experience what I now treasure most in life: that I want to do what “feels” right rather than what looks better on a spreadsheet.

there are no black or white decisions.

“Things tend to work out in the end—and if they haven’t, it’s not yet the end!”

Lucky people, in turn, tend to take control and often aim to understand the root cause of a problem, so to be able to learn from the situation.

We become a passive recipient of fate. But once we start focusing on the elements that we can control, we start becoming agents of our own luck.

once we start focusing on the elements that we can control, we start becoming agents of our own luck.

the base level of serendipity will be very different for a child born into a privileged family in the industrialized world than that of a child born into a family in the impoverished Cape Flats.

They are not smarter than other people, but they approach life differently, and by doing so they tend to make better decisions and experience more serendipity.

There are many ways to develop the foundations for this, both emotionally and cognitively. This can include approaches such as meditation, turning an abstract challenge or fear into concrete action steps,6 or focusing on the positive elements of a situation while mitigating the risks of the bad ones.

Fascinating experiments have shown that self-fulfilling prophecies particularly apply to the way we frame the world: If we think things will turn out well, they turn out well more often—and the opposite is true as well. We quite literally “manifest” and “speak into existence.”

Starting to see every situation—and particularly, every conversation—as an opportunity to experience serendipity is an active decision

on others’ ideas, rather than trying to “compete” with them,

Building on others’ ideas, rather than trying to “compete” with them, trains us in connecting the dots, for ourselves and for others (see chapter 5). Take Shaa Wasmund,

Building on others’ ideas, rather than trying to “compete” with them, trains us in connecting the dots, for ourselves and for others (see chapter

Paul Polman, cofounder of Imagine and former CEO of Unilever, where he reoriented one of the world’s largest companies toward creating societal impact, told me that because he has so many interests—in business as well as in issues of climate change, poverty, and sustainability—people might think he is distracted when taking on projects that unexpectedly come out of conversations.

he is actually very intentional about what he does. He takes on a variety of projects but always with a specific intention that helps him focus.

each one. Life could have turned out very differently for me, but a dear mentor told me whenever I had to make a choice: “People

One such case—and one that transformed the world for the better—

Thunderbolt serendipity happens when no search or deliberate problem solving is underway.

We often fall in love this way, and many new ideas and approaches emerge from this type of serendipity.