Opportunity Does Not Exist in a Vacuum

Recently, I hit publish on a tweet:

Opportunity does not exist in a vacuum.

- @connorjrobbins

@TruthOfSigns was curious to hear more, so I decided to take down some thoughts.

First, what did I mean by this?

I think many people are attracted to the idea of solitary success. They want to lock themselves up in their Menlo Lab and come out with an invention that will change the world.

Perhaps they won’t tell anyone where they are or what they are working on due to a fear of failure or an ego-driven desire to shock and awe people once they’ve finished.

I’d argue this is the wrong approach. While solitary deep work is necessary, it is not sufficient. And, while there is nothing inherently wrong with leading a solitary existence, extraordinary things rarely happen to those who work this way.

So when I say opportunity does not exist in a vacuum, I mean a few things:

I. The myth of the solitary success

When we think of extraordinary achievements, we often attribute them to a single person.

The stories of CEOs, politicians, or athletes are often told as if through sheer determination, willpower, and discipline, they alone managed to achieve their goals. That they, and they alone put in the work required to achieve something truly extraordinary.

Of course, if you read a more complete biography, it becomes clear that this isn’t the case.

But when it comes to complex narratives, we tend to simplify. It creates a cleaner story and one that people can more easily identify with. And so we reduce or remove altogether the impact that luck and others had in their success.

If you’re not careful, it’s easy to buy into this myth. And once you’ve bought in and shut yourself away, your chances of achieving your dreams are significantly reduced.

Maybe the area this myth is most perpetuated is in writing.

There’s this idea of a writer as a solitary figure. Someone that shuts the door to the world to create their magnum opus.

But the truth for most writers is different.

Yes, there is a lot of time spent at the desk, alone, writing. But there is also time spent reading and learning from the greats, and discussing the craft with their peers. They research and interview, they draw on experiences from their life, the perspectives of their friends. Even in the process of writing others are often involved—stories pitched and discussed, editors making suggestions.

We like to imagine it otherwise, but very rarely is a novel the creation of a sole individual.

Even ignoring the impact of editors, publishers, marketers, typesetters, designers, etc. a far simpler truth showing the communal nature of the creation remains:

The writers that shut themselves away from experiences to have more time to write quickly finds they have nothing worth writing about.

I believe this truth applies far more generally as well.

II. The external nature of opportunity

Opportunity is simply a favorable circumstance—a chance occurrence, often something that provides us with progress or advancement of some kind.

When we talk about opportunity, we might be talking about:

In essence, some chance occurrence that seems to favor our goals for personal fulfillment.

Note that all those examples involve other people. And also, note that even in a case where we create an opportunity for ourselves, an opportunity cost exists.

So, opportunity does not exist in a vacuum. Either it involves other people (which is very common) or, you are doing something which excludes others (and thus indirectly impacts them).

We cannot escape the fact that we all live in communities of producers. And so, everything we do is relative to the rest.

With this understanding, we can make the most of it.

III. The nature of extraordinary things

If we want to experience something extraordinary in our lives, we must first understand that it’s unlikely. The rarer the experience, the higher proportion luck plays a role.

At the same time, realize that even the most outlandish things are still possible, and there are ways to improve your lifetime odds.

Imagine you have a coin to flip as many times as you like. Your goal is to get five tails in a row.

If you flip the coin only once, you certainly won’t achieve your goal.

If you flip the coin five times in a row, the chance that exactly those five attempts all show tails is only about 3%.

If you flip the coin one hundred times, the chance of achieving your goal of five tails in a row is about 81%.

Like a coin toss, opportunity can be thought of as the outcome of a probabilistic chemical reaction between at least two people.

Every meaningful engagement you have can be thought of as a flip of a coin. Sometimes something extraordinary happening requires a certain number of matching faces to come up at once.

Therefore, the more people we are in touch with, the closer we are with them, and the more frequently we engage with the external world, naturally the higher the probability for extraordinary experiences becomes.

As a more concrete example—if extraordinary things happen by being in the right place at the right time, then we must find a way to be in many places, all the time.

Then it’s a good thing you have friends in all sorts of places.

If you’re on the mind of other people, you’re essentially in many places always. You’re then more likely to be in the right place at the right time, even if someone else is acting as the conduit.

Likewise, you should have others on your mind at all times. A whole new sort of opportunity opens up when you can pass along something extraordinary to someone you care for.

We all want to experience incredible things, and we should help each other do just that. Regardless, one thing is certain: Very rarely does an extraordinary opportunity arise when you’re keeping everything to yourself.

III. Chaos and maximizing tail potential (aka. manufacturing serendipity)

Who do you think opportunity comes more readily to:

The moral of the story is short:

The more engaged you are with the external world, the more opportunity you will find.

Increase the potential for a brilliant chemical reaction in your life.

Think of your friends often, make a habit of reaching out to those you care about, and when an opportunity arises, think about who you might want to share it with.

It doesn’t take a lot of time, but this kind of generosity is rare and rewarded.

Spend time on your external world, and your internal world will thank you.

IV. Actionable advice

Make a habit of generosity.

We aren’t alone in this universe—our achievements aren’t solitary. Help others, and you will benefit greatly, not just from the personal fulfillment that serving brings, but because others will turn to help you in kind.

Take the time to understand what your friends seek, and do your best to help them find it.

At first, it may be a habit you need to focus on, some time to block off once a week to think creatively about these opportunities. But soon, whenever an opportunity arises, your friends will be top of mind.

2021-06-19