The Luck List

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past few years, it’s that starting and scaling a business isn’t easy: full of setbacks and lessons. There is a particular type of setback, one involving sheer bad luck, that feels like more of a gut punch than others: the type where you seemingly did everything “right” but something goes wrong that was out of your control. It’s during times like these where it feels like the universe is conspiring against you. 

Here’s the thing though… I really believe good luck outweighs the bad in the long run, even if we may have a hard time seeing it at the time.

There is a cognitive bias called the “Negativity Bias”, which is our tendency to register negative events and stimuli more readily than we do positive events. We also tend to dwell on these negative events more than positive events. For example, if you had a great day at work, but then someone cuts you off in traffic on the drive home, you’re more likely to remember the negative experience on your commute vs. your good day. You’re also more likely to recount the bad experience when someone asks you how your day was. The research behind the negativity bias also shows that we tend to make decisions based on negative information vs. positive.  

So when something unlucky happens, we’re more likely to think “why me?”, “not again!”, “I just can’t catch a break”, etc. and dwell on it. However, when something lucky happens, you’re probably likely to simply acknowledge it, briefly rejoice, and then proceed to forget about it.

Why is this important or relevant? Well, when you’re in the thick of it, a string of bad luck and setbacks (especially early in the entrepreneurship journey) might just make you think “that’s it, this is a sign I should quit”. I definitely felt this countless times during my first year starting Threads. I remember getting so down when faced with setbacks and not feeling prepared for it. It’s no secret that starting a business is difficult, but the reality of it was much tougher than I had imagined. And while I can happily say that I’ve gotten much better at handling setbacks over the years, and bouncing back from them quite quickly now, I would be lying if I said they don’t phase me at all. Humans are hardwired to pay attention to the bad more than the good, so much that sometimes it feels like the bad is outweighing the good.

Enter: The Luck List. 

A few years ago I started The Luck List: a note on my phone where I’ve jotted down the times that we’ve been on the “right” side of luck. I review this when I feel like we’ve recently been a magnet for bad luck or when we’re going through a time where it feels like things are just not going our way. I always come away from reading the list with a more positive outlook and heightened awareness that we actually have experienced more good luck than bad, more miracles than not, even if it may not feel that way at the moment. It’s a helpful reminder that most of the time, luck is on our side.