#485 - Lucky, Hinges, Robbers

Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week. 

In this issue: 

- Thoughts on Luck
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Thoughts on Luck

• Sometimes, we're lucky. There's nothing wrong with admitting it. If unlucky events can bring us down, it's okay to relish good fortune. 
• Some people struggle with the idea that luck plays a significant role in their lives. That's okay. It's hard to pinpoint where hard work, talent, and serendipity come together. As Ina Garten titled her book, "Be Ready For The Luck."
• The only time it's not right to pooh-pooh luck is when you come across someone who has not risen above their circumstances. It is possible to work hard, have talent, but never get a break. Don't look down on that unfortunate soul. It happens. 
• Be patient. Successful living comes not so much from lightning bolts of luck, but little edges gained every day. 

Being Human - The little things

“Big doors swing on little hinges." –W. Clement Stone

On our last trip to Los Angeles, we made a quick trip to a house built by famed architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. It's called Hollyhock House, and it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's situated on top of a hill with great views of, well, everything. 

Walking into the house, the first thing you see are the doors. 

Big, heavy doors. 250 pounds each. And you know what? W. Clement Stone was right. Big doors do swing on little hinges. 

Sometimes, it's the little things that lead to big success. 

Random Stuff

"If a machine can think, it might think more intelligently than we do, and then where should we be?" – Alan Turing

I had a nice visit with a business owner this week. Among the topics was talk about the excitement and dread of disruptive technologies and times. Living in these times is exciting because the change it creates may bring new luck for us "to be ready for." On the other hand, we dread it because it may hurt business. Reasonable stuff.

It reminded me of a fascinating radio episode I listened to earlier in the week. It was about how a number of new technologies are being put to use by criminals. The crimes they are committing amount to an estimated $500BN in crimes a year worldwide. 

For comparison, to crack into the Fortune 100 you need to generate $7BN in revenue.

But Greg, you say, the criminals are not one company. True, but listen to the episode (Techtonic: Sue-Lin Wong on online scams) because they sure operate like a company. Maybe a company heavily reliant on freelancers, but big, big operations nonetheless. Operations with strategies and real resources.

The story that brought it home for me? A bitcoin trading app one of the victims, a Silicon Valley executive, thought she was using, turned out to be fake. But not one of those weird eBay website fakes. This app looked and worked just like the real crypto trading platform. Crazy! These criminals have the money and the tools to do everything a big company does. No more badly misspelled emails or texts. These people are using real actors, plus savvy people who are imprisoned and forced to scam…it’s dystopian. Our laws and law enforcement aren't built for this kind, this size, of criminal enterprise.

My takeaway is that it's time to invest more in face-to-face interactions. Online experiences are deteriorating to the point where trusting online interactions is a bad idea. It's probably been that way for a while, but bigger money is allowing bad people to aggressively weaponize new tech. 

Time to put in the extra effort to get our face-to-face visits on! 

I'll start this weekend by sitting knee-to-knee my parents. Sure, we already had this planned since it's Easter weekend and all, but I need to ease back into things.