Chapter Content
Okay, so, like, what I wanted to talk about today is, um, intentionally unplanned careers. And, you know, it's about how sometimes *not* planning everything out can actually be, like, way more satisfying than just, you know, sticking to some, like, super rigid path to success.
So, there's this journalist, Charles Duhigg, and he went to his MBA class reunion, like, fifteen years after graduation, right? And he noticed something, like, really interesting. He saw that a lot of his classmates were, you know, like, super wealthy and successful, on paper, but they were also, like, totally miserable. He even said that there was this, like, "lingering sense of professional disappointment" among them.
But then he looked at the people who were actually happy, and they all had this, like, unexpected thing in common: they hadn't, like, knocked it out of the park right after business school. They didn't get those, you know, "plum" graduate jobs. Like, their big expectations were, like, dashed pretty early on. And that forced them to, like, deal with trade-offs and, like, really hustle for work. Duhigg realized they weren't working for these, like, super enlightened companies, and they hadn't learned, like, anything special at Harvard, but "they had learned from their own setbacks." And, you know, often, they ended up, like, richer, more powerful, and, like, more content than everybody else. So, like, the indirect route to success was actually *more* satisfying. Isn't that wild?
There was also this study about junior scientists, you know, the ones applying for research funding. So, they looked at scientists who, like, *just* missed out on getting their funding versus the ones who *just* succeeded. And, like, whether you were on one side of that line or the other made, like, a *huge* difference. Both groups, like, did better than average when it came to publishing research and getting citations. But in the first five years after the application, you know, like, the group that *just* missed out actually published, like, way more impactful papers. And, get this, over time, their advantage *increased*. Like, even though the near-miss group got fewer grants overall, they still produced, like, just as many papers and got *more* citations.
I mean, part of it was that some of those who narrowly missed out left science altogether and went to, like, other fields. But still, it really seems like, you know, an early setback can teach you something, like, really important about how to succeed. They, like, learned from their setbacks, just like Duhigg's classmates did.
And this, you know, unplanned career thing? It's kind of how Calvin Coolidge, like, *became* the thirtieth President of the United States! So, when he graduated from college, there was, like, a recession going on, and everyone was, like, super worried about finding jobs. But this one tutor told them not to stress, because, you know, "you don’t have to start successful to end that way." He said a career was, like, a body of water, and all you had to do was just, like, "stay with events and stay with the mainstream." And if you did that, a chance would eventually come your way. And, well, that's exactly what happened to Coolidge. He was Vice President when Warren Harding died, and he, like, automatically became President. No one really expected it. He hadn't, like, climbed the "greasy pole" or anything. But, like, being in the mix of things, keeping himself ready, it, you know, *worked*.
So, this kind of career path, it, like, really relies on chance. For Coolidge to become President, you know, fate had to intervene. And to make this approach work, you kind of need luck. Like, think about Ray Kroc, you know, the McDonald's guy, and Katharine Graham, the Washington Post publisher. Luck was, like, super essential to their success. But they also, like, *prepared* for that luck, even though they didn't know what they were, like, preparing for.
Richard Wiseman, a psychologist, he actually believes that, you know, "lucky people" aren't just, like, blessed with better fortune, they, like, *make* their own luck. They're more extroverted, they engage in more social interactions, they have body language that attracts people to them, they smile more, and, like, most importantly, they're really good at building, like, secure and lasting connections with people. On the other hand, unlucky people are, like, more neurotic and less open to, like, new experiences.
Paul Graham said something really cool too, he said, "You need to make yourself a big target for luck." And, you know, chance events, they happen to everyone, right? Ray Kroc didn't have any, like, special privileges, and he just, like, brought the skills he had been developing, like, *his whole life* to that opportunity. He took his luck because he was ready and able. And Coolidge made a point of, like, focusing on doing *every* job he had as well as he could, and not really worrying about what was coming next. You know, excellence, it prepared him for luck.
And, oh, have you ever heard of Maya Angelou, the writer? So, she only realized her dream of writing in her thirties. She was a dancer in California, and she heard that this writer, John Killens, was in town, so she sent him samples of her work. He told her to move to New York. There, she joined the Harlem Writers Guild, which gave her support and feedback. And, like, years later, her friend James Baldwin took her to dinner with Jules and Judy Feiffer, and Judy was a writer and editor. She persuaded Maya to turn her incredible life story into a book and introduced her to an editor at Random House. And, like, that's how Maya wrote "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," her first book, at age forty. If she hadn't gone to that dinner party, you know, who knows if that would've ever happened? But it wasn't just, like, random luck: she had spent years in the network, building relationships, and when she got to that dinner, she was able to, like, wow them with her story.
And, you know, you're more likely to get those invitations if you send your work out, you take advice, you join writers' groups, all that stuff. The best networking, it happens unintentionally. The lucky, they're relaxed, not anxious. They don't spend their life, like, searching for their magic moment. Instead, "Lucky people see what is there, rather than trying to find what they want to see. As a result, they are far more receptive to any opportunities that arise naturally." In an unplanned career, you've just got to be ready to, like, grab that opportunity as it goes by, instead of, like, constantly chasing them down.
Okay, so the word "serendipity," it originally meant "making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity." Like, it acknowledges that there's *skill* involved in being able to make accidental discoveries. The neurologist James Austin, he used this to illustrate his theory that "exploratory behavior" was, like, *crucial* to finding good luck. He said there were different kinds of luck.
First is just, like, pure chance. It happens to everyone.
Then there's luck that comes from "motion": you've got to keep looking if you want to find something. Like, "If the researcher did not move until he was certain of progress he would accomplish very little." You know, that restless, driving action can, like, really help you uncover opportunities.
Next is the kind of chance that needs the "special receptivity" of the lucky person. This is that thing that Louis Pasteur talked about – "chance favors the prepared mind." Like, Alexander Fleming, the guy who discovered penicillin, he was prepared to take advantage of his discovery because he had already discovered something similar years before.
Finally, there's the luck we create through what we do and who we are. Like, Benjamin Disraeli said, "we make our fortunes, and we call them fate." The way you act, it changes the kinds of opportunities you're likely to find.
All of these people we're talking about are, like, super busy. Or they are, like, specially prepared for opportunities. They are lucky because of who they are and what they do. You know, when Alexander Fleming chose to train at St. Mary's Hospital, it was because they had, like, a really great swimming pool and he liked to play water polo! Like, a stroke of unforeseen fortune hinged on that hobby.
So, it turns out this, like, unplanned career is actually way more normal than it looks. Even though it sounds unique, there's a good reason to think that most people's careers are affected by chance. Psychologists Robert Pryor and Jim Bright developed, like, the chaos theory of careers. So, chaos theory says that, you know, there's always uncertainty in all systems. Your family, the economy, your job, your community – they're all complex and dynamic, with so many parts. And that's why life is unpredictable. Your career is, like, one of these complex systems too. No matter how carefully you plan, there are so many factors involved that you can't really predict how it's going to go. All sorts of things that seem irrelevant can affect your career.
Pryor and Bright say that career counselors shouldn't just look at a narrow set of "relevant" factors when giving advice. They need to get to know their clients more broadly, to understand their families, their childhoods, their hobbies, and their key life events. Because career paths are so complex, you can't just draw a straight line from one set of circumstances to one set of outcomes.
Careers are also what chaos theorists call "nonlinear." So, in a linear system, things happen, like, in a predictable way. But in a nonlinear system, small changes can have a *huge* impact. Pryor and Bright give the example of, like, that final frustrating meeting that becomes a "breaking point" for an employee who quits. The end result can be the same magnitude as something like a workplace injury, even though one event was seemingly much more trivial. Careers are, like, super sensitive to small changes.
But importantly, chaos doesn't mean randomness. Nonlinear systems, they often create, like, beautiful patterns, such as in the repetitive complexity of lungs, clouds, and trees. The closer you look, the more you see the same or similar shapes recurring. These repeating patterns are called fractals. They are nonlinear because the starting point of the pattern makes a big difference in the ultimate shape. And that's why every snowflake is unique, every cloud slightly different.
The chaos theory of careers incorporates this idea of fractal patterns. Rather than thinking of careers as lines that go up and down, we can think of them as fractals, where similar patterns repeat themselves but with increasing complexity.
Okay, so taking the unplanned route means careers can go in lots of different directions depending on the changes people go through. It does *not* mean a career is random. The people at Duhigg's reunion were affected by nonlinear effects, too. Very often, careers are just too complicated to draw straight lines between two different points or to make confident predictions about the future. That's why people who seem like they're lacking direction can actually end up being successful, and it's why failure can lead to success.
Many late bloomers accept that careers are nonlinear, and they end up on a less-planned path that gives them the opportunity to prepare for chance. They get used to the fact that careers are nonlinear and chaotic. Even in a goal-oriented career, you'll have to constantly adapt. Chaos theory shows us that the Coolidge approach can become an active and useful career strategy. In a system with inherent chaos, it can be smart to take an unplanned route. The linear, corporate-ladder model of a career undervalues chance, and the fact that you can benefit from unplanned paths, which prepare you for your luck when it comes along.
Coolidge became president by *not* aiming to be president. Ray Kroc created McDonald's by *not* knowing what he was looking for. Maya Angelou found her publisher by *not* actively seeking out an editor. The benefit of indirect career paths and unplanned preparation is that they prepare you for chaos and teach you how to respond to it.
And you know what? What unites the chaos theory of careers and Austin's theory of luck is the role of the *individual*. Chance events happen to us all. Chaos is unavoidable. But both theories show that we play an active role in our luck, and that we can take advantage of the fact that life is chaotic and nonlinear.
Think about Chris Gardner, the stockbroker. His career path was, like, derailed and redirected by his upbringing, his qualifications, and his relationship and parenting challenges. The moment that had the single greatest impact on his change to a stockbroking career was walking past a Ferrari one day. That was pure accidental luck.
Gardner also had a "special receptivity" to that Ferrari, to that driver, and to that chance. He didn't have a plan for his career, but he did make his own luck by talking to the Ferrari driver, being prepared for that moment.
So, there are limits to what we can know and what we can control. The chaos theory of careers, and Austin's theory of luck, say that we ought to expect uncertainty and prepare for it. By doing so, we'll be more open to those transformational opportunities we encounter.
Now, one important element in this sort of unplanned preparation is, like, a period of retreat. We will see now the benefit of time spent alone.
The political strategist Dominic Cummings, he spent three years in Russia after graduating from Oxford. Then he went home to Durham and spent three years living in a purpose-built bunker on his parents' farm, reading history and physics, and trying to understand the world. And *then* he ran the Vote Leave campaign, which was revolutionary for its use of physicists to manage the advertising.
Sister Wendy Beckett became an international television star in her sixties after a lifetime as a nun. She spent the twenty-five years before her first broadcast living as a hermit in a trailer in the grounds of a Carmelite convent in Norfolk, England. She only started studying art in 1980, when she was fifty! This life of withdrawal, focused on contemplating God, was everything she wanted. This strange, restricted life suited her.
Blake Scholl had no experience in aviation, and no technical experience in aeronautics, when he launched a start-up to bring back supersonic travel. He spent the first year reading textbooks, experimenting, and talking to experts. Scholl's start-up, Boom, has now got contracts with two major airlines to supply them with supersonic jets for consumer flights.
So, Dominic Cummings, Sister Wendy, and Blake Scholl were outsiders who spent time in deep learning before they got to the practical implementation stage. It was in a period of retreat that they acquired the skills, knowledge, and perspective that would help them to achieve their goal, or discover what their goal was.
And again, in all three cases, this period of retreat had to be joined with a change of luck.
Blake Scholl is far from the only entrepreneur who came to his idea as an outsider, after a period of inefficient preparation, and with an unplanned career. Economists found that the average age of people whose business went on to hire at least one employee was, like, forty-one and a half. And the average age of founders of the *highest*-growth businesses was forty-five. This is still consistent with the idea that the youngest founders can produce the businesses with the biggest impact, people like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, for example. But on average, you are more likely to find high-growth businesses being started by the middle-aged than the young.
And it is possible that the experience of failing, and learning from failing, is what makes the difference to older founders. The skills they accumulate through experience contribute to the success of their later ventures.
Entrepreneurs are able to make their own luck through long preparation – like Ray Kroc's long apprenticeship – and being ready to spot and seize opportunities that come up. The more they accumulate skills, networks, and capital, the more opportunities they can take advantage of.
Politicians have to prepare for opportunities in similar ways. Women first became a significant presence in the US House of Representatives through a process called widow's succession.
So, being in the swim, preparing and working for a chance, without always trying to make careerist moves was how Andrew Bonar Law became the leader of the Conservative Party in Britain.
Senator Samuel Hayakawa of California had a similarly unexpected rise to prominence. He became the man for the moment. One simple action, climbing up on a sound truck and pulling out the wires, caught the public mood and changed his life.
This sort of chance happening is common in politics. It was the Second World War that made Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower late bloomers.
What Truman and Eisenhower had in their favor was earnestness. They were self-taught, hardworking, strong-willed men.
Coolidge had that sort of intensity. So did Sister Wendy and Blake Scholl. Many of the people we're talking about are earnest. It marks them out from the people around them.
Persistence alone is not the key characteristic. What you persist at matters. They might have a sense of some future success, however vague, and they're willing to let current opportunities pass them by in pursuit of the bigger goal. This is not just how late-life success is made. This is the cause of much failure and disappointment too. In short, late bloomers are often quite weird. And when fate intervenes, their weirdness pays off.
So many times in Margaret Thatcher's career, fate intervened. If it hadn't, she would not have become Mrs. Thatcher, the Iron Lady. To understand her success, we must look closely at what she persisted at, not just what persistently happened to her.