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01:37:50
Sometimes people then feel underappreciated when people say, "Well,
you were just lucky." No, no, no, no, no. I worked really hard to be lucky.
And so I think it's those kind of things where trying to understand and parsing
out what is really luck versus what is the hard work that went into that luck.
And that's why I find serendipity so interesting as like the muscle for the
unexpected that you're building that makes it more likely also in the future
that you will be lucky. And then hopefully you attribute some of that
also to the hard work that uh that made it more lucky.
[Music] Hi friends, today we're honored and
happy to be graced by a professor by the name of Christian Bush who teaches which
is at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California
and Christian also happens to be the writer of Serendipity Mindsets.
Christian, thank you so much for gracing our show.
>> Thank you so much for having me. Great to be here.
>> Christian, tell us about you know your upbringing and how you came uh to the
point of uh starting to think so much about serendipity and also to the point
of writing this great book which I've just you know completely read. Please.
>> Well, you I mean, you know, I used to be that kid. I was thrown out of high
school and had to repeat a year and, you know, transferred this into my driving
style. Um, probably helped the inofficial world record of how many dust
bins you can knock over on your way to school when you're driving. And then one
day wasn't so lucky anymore. And, you know, crashed into four parked cars. All
cars completely destroyed, including my own. And I won't forget the policeman.
You know, he came to the scene and he was like, "Oh my god, he's still alive."
And you know that idea that I was supposed to be dead that stuck with me
and I asked myself all these weird questions. You know if I would have
died, who would have come to my funeral, who would have actually cared, was it
all worth it? And at that point I had mostly depressing answers. And so it
took me on this intense search for meaning, trying to figure out, you know,
what is life all about? And you know, we talked about this earlier in our
wonderful conversation about how Victor Frankl, his book, Man's Search for
Meaning, helped me a lot to figure out what is my own meaning in life. what
what do I enjoy? What gives me meaning? And I realized a lot of that meaning
comes from connecting people, connecting ideas and the sparks that come from, you
know, putting two people together, two ideas together that somehow match. And
so it took me on a journey first as a community builder, as a social
entrepreneur, and then later into academia. And I just found it
fascinating how in the right circles, the right communities, uh you know, the
right interesting people, you would have serendipity everywhere. this kind of
unexpected good luck where people would be like, "Oh my god, such a coincidence.
Such a coincidence. Such a coincidence." But then when you step back, you realize
there's a pattern behind why these people have more of this active luck.
And that kind of got me fascinated. And that's what I've committed my life to to
try to figure out, you know, what is the science behind that active luck, that
serendipity. >> A little bit more about, you know, your
growing up. uh what what role did your parents play in in bringing about this
way of thinking about serendipity? >> Well, I was very fortunate in the sense
that they gave me always this feeling of you're worthy. You're worthy. Uh you're
enough. So, whatever you do when you fail, that is not you as a person who's
failing, but it was a project that didn't work out. And then there's the
next project and you continue. And so, I think that sense of okay, life goes on.
I think that kind of gave that resilience to say you know what life
will continue. I mean you know we talked about I so far had three near-death
experiences in life. Uh you know the car crash then uh at the early outset of
COVID almost killed me and then recently um right with the wildfires here in LA
where our house burned down and and so on. And you know those kind of things
where I always go back to those two things. First this idea that hey look
life will go on and life has always gone on but also second this kind of Victor
Frankl idea that I think my parents without knowing it even kind of
instilled very early on this idea of don't try to derive your meaning from
always succeeding don't try to always think you have to always win you're
trying your best you put your best effort in and you're always worthy and I
think that kind of like then in a way derisks it a little bit to say you know
what sometimes things don't work out um but that's okay too did your parents go
through the same well I mean similar episodes of serendipity the way you have
done so far >> you know it's interesting I think they
had a very different life um you know they grew up in a more kind of rural
environment um my father you know he had different identities over time you know
he grew up on a farm um and then somehow he you know went more and more into
industry and then afterwards he went into academia and so he lived three
different lives and I think one of the conversations I've had with him a lot is
what kind of values are most important to him because you know when you grow up
on a farm hard work means using your hands and building something and then in
academia it's all about thinking and ideas and so whenever he would be in
academia he would say those people they don't really always know what it means
to work hard with your hands and then when he would be you know in industry he
would be like well but those people they need more ideas from academia and so I
think he was always between those different areas trying to figure out
where can I anchor myself and I think that is something I took for myself also
this idea that you know I've I've never been really anchored in either business
or academia or other worlds but I've tried to be that boundary spanninner of
saying how do we try to figure out what we have in common which is we all want
to somehow provide a good life for our families for our communities so how can
we do that best and so I think that fluidity um with still you know having
some sort of anchor and I think the anchor with my parents came um similar
to me in that idea of hey look we try to be people who somehow have that sort of
you know kindness in us that you propel in the world.
The reason why I keep u you know coming back to your parents um you you talked
about this uh guy by the name of King Guyier Geer u who is the ruler of
Serendip and I I didn't know that the Persian word for for Sri Lanka was
serendip and and how he was you know telling the story about the the three
sons or princes you know having gone through this episode of serendipity talk
a little bit about that Yeah. Well, that's a beautiful example, I think,
right? That in a way when you think about Sri Lanka back in the days, right?
That that you know, this beautiful beautiful um you know, think about
almost paradisic, right, setting where um um um and and
you have those three princes and and they were those three princes who would
walk around and they would take cues. They would see unexpected things and
they would be like, "Oh, interesting. I see that there's something here. There's
something here. there must have been a camel that walked by here, right? Those
kind of things where they connected the dots and it helps them later to identify
a camel that was lost and where that camel probably walked by because they
had seen those cues and so it kind of helps resolve that riddle that that came
up there. But what I've always found fascinating about that story is exactly
that, you know, their father essentially said, you know what, you got to go out
there in the world to figure out what life is about because if you just stay
here, you will be too sheltered and you will be too in your own ways. And so
they were sent on those adventures to have those kind of to find those cues.
And I think, you know, it's interesting that you connected that with my parents
because I feel that's exactly what they've intuitively always done. They
have always said, you know what, go out there, Christian. Don't don't stay only
in your own community because if you do that it's wonderful because you feel
friendship and you feel the closeness of people but also you don't get access to
those new ideas and the things that actually could feel meaningful um later
on in life and so I think um that kind of going out there in the world that is
definitely in the idea of serendipity right this idea that you you try to
figure out what is out there and then somehow connect the dots with that um I
credit a lot of that to my parents and and I think in those stories that that
comes out a explain the difference between smart
luck and blind luck. >> So blind luck is the kind of luck that
just happens to us, right? So it's the kind of luck, good or bad, that creates
a lot of societal inequality, right? So some people win the birth lottery,
right? Or they unexpectedly get this and this beneficial thing. That's kind of
something we can't really control and you know it's out of our range of or our
locus of control. But then serendipity is active luck. is the smart luck that
we can create through our own actions. How we engage with the unexpected. So
you know take the example uh you know in a coffee shop uh if you have erratic
hand movements like I do and you unexpectedly you know accidentally spill
coffee over the person next to you that person looks at you slightly annoyedly
but you sense there might be something there. You don't know what it is. You
just have a sense for it right and now you have a couple of options right one
option is you just say I am so very sorry here's a napkin. You walk outside
and you think, "Ah, what could have happened had I spoken with that person."
Option two, you start that conversation and that person becomes the love of your
life or your co-founder or the person who rents you your next apartment. The
point is that our interaction with the unexpected shapes a lot of what comes
next. And I think that's the beauty of serendipity that we might sometimes
perceive it as something that's almost, you know, godly or almost something that
kind of like came to us through some way. And then when you distill it, you
will see that yes, there was this unexpected random thing that came and
then also at the same time you did something in that moment. I think that's
what I find fascinating. Can you build that muscle for the unexpected and then
can you train people in it so that we all have more serendipity in our lives?
>> How how do you train somebody to be a bit more proactive? Right? I mean, smart
love just kind of seems like you you've got to be a lot more proactive than just
being reactive or passive. How do you train somebody to be like that?
>> Well, I see it on three levels. One level is the level of kind of the deeper
psychological undercurrens. What is holding me back from having more
serendipity in my life? Again, the societal constraints we can't often
change, right? So, there's a certain idea of we are in a certain environment.
And we talked earlier about the certain base level and we can talk about this
more that creates a lot of you know inequality because some people start out
differently than others within that structure then that we're in how can I
work on myself to somehow see what's holding me back from having more
serendipity. So for example if you you know look at your CV or your life you
know at hindsight and you think about what were all these moments in life
where serendipity could have happened but it didn't right so maybe you were in
a meeting you had this unexpected idea but you didn't bring it in because you
didn't feel ready worthy you name it and then you walked outside and you thought
ah what could have happened had I spoken about that idea or you know you were
walking maybe to an event somewhere in the in the city and you bumped into like
this interesting person um but you didn't speak with them because you
didn't feel ready, worthy, you name it. Um it's, you know, or you know, you're
in the local village bus and you you bump into that interesting person, but
you don't have uh make that conversation. Then you think, ah, I wish
I had spoken to that person. Um, so it's all those moments of missed serendipity.
And when you connect those dots, it's not about regret, right? It's it's not
about saying, "Oh my god, I regret that moment." It's about saying, "What is the
pattern here?" If the pattern for example is each of these times I didn't
feel worthy to speak with a person or each of those times I didn't feel um you
know I was afraid of rejection because you know someone could shoot shoot down
my idea or could say no I don't want to talk with you now we can work on this
deeper pattern in my case for example you know sense of rejection I I have I
have a fear of that right I don't want to be the person who who kind of like
that gets gets gets pushed away um in that regard and so what I found useful
is to work on that rejection muscle to really say okay how can I put myself
into lowrisk situations where I get rejected so that rejection becomes
normal the amount of grant proposals the amount of university applications things
like that that I had to send out where you get rejected all the time right and
and and as you do that you realize oh rejection isn't that bad and then in the
future in those moments you act more on the kind of moments that that present
themselves so that's kind of like in a way the first one I think that's more
about the psychological undercurrens second one is more about what are some
practices in the day-to-day today that can help us cultivate certain debris.
Um, you know, it's practices like the hook strategy where if you ask me, so
what do you do? I'm telling you, well, I'm teaching here, but you know what's
really on my mind at the moment is my two year my three-year-old because she's
not sleeping at night because, you know, she now just learned to negotiate and
she was thinking about the next kind of how she can watch more TV and and help
me uh uh give her what she wants. things like that where now I'm giving you more
options here where you could be like oh my god I you know also my uh my
grandchild now uh you know has something similar whatever it is so we find those
kind of overlaps of unexpected uh connection and then third is really more
the social networks the communities we're part of um that can help us with
serendipity right it can be um going to events at the public library to expose
ourselves to new people new networks things like that but I'm sure we can
talk more about but those kind of three levels I would say would be the the
primary ones >> on on on the communities. I mean, you've
you've made the point very aptly in the book that it's not important to know
everybody, but it's far more important to know the multipliers, right? And and
that that resonates to me and and explain that.
>> Yeah. So, if you think about the world as a as a network and in that network,
you have super nodes, right? So um maybe even um you know depending on what
platform you're on if it's LinkedIn or um you know other platforms where you
will see that some people are okay connected but other people are those
people that have a lot of uh you know connections to people that you might
also find interesting and so you know for example if I'm interested in
spreading an idea at the you know Stanford or at LSE or or somewhere else
I don't have to go to everyone at that university I try to go to the president
of the local society for XY Z that has relevance. So those people are the
multipliers that then can multiply to other people within their community much
more credibly than I could ever do it. Um and so that's with ideas that's with
other movement related things. Um so the real idea is to say who are those kind
of super noos those those big dots within a network that if we can work
with them they can bring in a lot of other people into the fold and I think
you know we see that in politics right that people focus on people who are the
local community leaders we see that in business that we try to figure out who
are these informal champions within an organization and a lot of times it's not
necessarily the people who have the greatest title right in a company it
might not be the vice president of marketing who has the overview, but it
might be the one person that just people always go to for advice. And so one
thing I do when I go into a new setting is I ask people who's the person people
go to for advice because that gives me an indicator that person seems to be the
multipplayer, the person who gets in touch with a lot of people and so if I
understand them, I have a better understanding of the community, but also
if I have an idea for them, they could bring it to more people in the local
community. Um you you also mentioned in the book uh
about serendipit serendipity being the interaction or intersection
amongst three things right coincidence ambition and imagination
right it it's it's very powerful I think uh and and I want to try to put this in
the context of my region Southeast Asia right uh where most of the people there
are not as educated as perhaps the ones in Europe or in the US or whatever. If
you take a look at the households in many countries in Southeast Asia, about
80 to 90% of the households are not headed up by somebody with a tertiary
education, right? Then you start thinking intuitively that there's likely
to be a lack of imagination. There's a lack of a political culture that
encourages the kids, the children to be proactive in asking the right questions
because of that absence or lack of quality education within the heads of
the households. Then you take a look at the electorate those that are voting
right for the political leaderships at the regional levels and also at the
national level. um same level 80 to 90% of the populace or
electric don't have university of education university education. So how
do you how do you create this great intersection between coincidence
imagination and ambition? Right? You might have one called coincidence but
you may lack in the other two or one of the other two.
>> Talk about that. It's it's really interesting in terms of um one of the
kind of organizations I've been working with in South Africa uh reconstructed
living labs. What they do is they work with people who had tough periods,
right? So former drug addicts, other people who you know there's it's a
context of high crime rate, context of low education, like essentially the kind
of extreme context of of what you described. Like if if you had a
continuum and you would say what you just described is here, it would be even
a little more extreme um than than that. And and and kind of what they've been
doing is um fascinating. They essentially say, you know what, we do a
lowcost education approach here where you know it's 10 steps to use social
media to build your business. Very simple steps. But what they're doing is
now when you're the former drug dealer or former drug user who thought my life
amounts to nothing. I will never be anywhere. They see that their neighbor
just built a business based on 10 steps of building a business in social media.
So now they have a local role model that achieved something like this. And then
they say around this now we build a community where that person who just
built his business will become a teacher. So that person now will teach a
class on uh how to build your business in 10 steps. And so you have a train the
trainer type approach where it multiplies in this case to hundreds of
thousands of people locally bottom up. And the reason I find that approach so
fascinating is I will never forget the first time I went around 10ish years
ago. uh you know you have to imagine in in the in you know it's a primarily
black community uh in the Cape Flats in Cape Town like very impoverished and
then you see on the table mountain or on the mountain you see the kind of
University of Cape Town which is kind of mostly white right mostly uh you know
the kind of more privileged and uh ones and so now what happened is that I went
into this community and a boy would tell would say well you know what a few a few
years ago we would have never thought we would ever be up there on the on the
mountain like at that university. But now they come to us because they we
teach them how to use social media. And so the fascinating thing is they not
only created a community that now locally teaches those things, but they
made it so interesting that now actually those people who seem to be so far away
are actually learning from them. And I think that kind of like turnaround in
terms of saying what do we locally really well and I think that's the
similar with with Indonesia. I've been so inspired where you know I think when
I look at the amazing social entrepreneurial ventures you have right
waste for ventures for example is a venture that has collaborated with with
some of of our um ventures that that don't on on my radar where we're
extremely inspired by the local ingenuity and the local resourcefulness
that comes out of the country and so I think that kind of idea that now
actually there's a lot for us to learn of you know waste for wrenches like how
do you do that at scale like how do you actually recycle at scale in in local
communities things like that and What I always find inspiring is it's not about
coming in centrally and saying let's create a network here. Let's create a
community and everything will be good. It's about saying who are the local
champions. A couple of people who could become those local role models who then
start locally and that starts to scale uh and and then I think the magic
happens. And so long story short, I think that comes into the idea of if I'm
the government, I'm going into a local community and I say, "What can I learn
from you?" versus I'm just trying to teach you because what they do is they
make the best out of what is at hand. They see a former director, they see
you're a great teacher because you can teach us about life. You can teach us
about creativity. You can teach us about how to develop networks. And I think
that kind of shift away from these are liabilities. these are people who cannot
really figure something out to no no these are the most resourceful people
but they didn't have an outlet and here's an outlet now and this is the
outlet that the government and others can help with and so to me that's kind
of like how big scale change happened that you understand that local people
when they don't have a lot of education they might still be the most resourceful
creative people it's just about building a platform around them that they can
unleash that kind of potential >> I'm I'm with you I think uh that this
this resonates I And number one, there are exceptions.
People that have gotten so serendipitously lucky,
successful, prosperous, whatever superlatives you can assign to them,
right? But but I'm much more interested in institutionalizing serendipity at a
much larger scale. Right? So in in the absence of a university education for
most of the households for most of the electorate in places not just Indonesia
but many other parts of Southeast Asia. How do you create that necessary
political culture within the household within the office within the schools,
within the social institutions, within the places of worship? So that that
necessary conversation not just amongst the leaders within each one of those
institutions but between the leaders and the members that it you know that that
necessary culture of pushing forth smart luck you know takes the society to a
different level that that is I think the magic that we're going to need in in
many developing economies. I completely agree and I think the
fascinating thing is is that big shift right away from you know how a lot of
development efforts in the past were so unsuccessful because they were just
about pushing resources in right they were like here's this and this
foundation here's this and this grant now just do this and this effort but
then you didn't have to your point the motivation or the imagination to say
this is actually what I want to do what gives me meaning locally it just was
essentially saying here's something and and it developed a certain mentality
that that wasn't necessarily helpful but but you know what I find much more
interesting um to exactly what you just mentioned is really this idea of how do
we build on what people locally are good at right so so if I if I if I look at
our labs for example right what I found fascinating is that our labs essentially
they started with baby steps to your point they didn't come in and tell
everyone you just have to learn everything and do everything and and
have this grand vision but nobody would believe it right that's that's the kind
of thing where you a local community doesn't take you seriously because they
think you just want their votes or you just want like you know you just want to
look good by just engaging with them. But what our labs did was they went in
and they said, "You know what? Baby steps. You come into our office and we
don't have a lot of resources, but you will get a freshly brewed coffee because
here you get respect not from your gun. The gun you leave outside. Here you get
respect from just being a human who wants to learn." And I think that kind
of like those small steps where they ingrain their values into how they treat
people, how people then feel, oh, the one time a week I go to this office, I
feel like I matter. I feel like I I can do something. And that kind of agency
that comes from that, right? That kind of feeling of I am worthy. I can do
something. They have then taken into saying okay now that you're here and you
know again you're maybe a former drug dealer so we will now cater a session
around how you had a tough you know time and now you became a teacher now it
becomes cool to be a teacher because that person who was the drug dealer who
was the cool kid now is the teacher and so I think in in in my belief it's it's
a lot about this kind of local role modeling a lot about saying who are the
people locally who can then turn around a whole community in baby steps it's not
about saying we you know, modernize everything here. It's about saying no,
no, no, no, no. We need to derisk it for everyone by saying, here's a couple of
small examples of success. Here's a couple of small examples where it
worked. And then now we can scale it up because that model of saying I can
locally go to someone that is very scalable because you can go into every
local community and do the same thing with local people rather than with
people from the outside. And so I'm a huge believer in this getting away from
the old development thinking which is about pushing something in, pushing
people in, pushing resources in to say no no no no instead of looking at people
at liabilities we look at them as as something beautiful here where there is
resourcefulness so can we build on that and then we build on it locally and it
becomes their narrative not our narrative and I think that kind of then
be gives that agency where people say I can create my own luck because someone
outside is not trying to create the luck for me and I think that's kind of the
big shift that old school thinking is I have to create luck for people and I
have to make them better and this is like no no I want to create a platform
for them to create their own luck and I think that's where it gets interesting.
>> I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm I'm in a camp that's been advocating for
recruiting great teachers at any level elementary secondary high school all the
way to tertiary education without which there is likely to be lack of
imagination. Great teachers are ones who can actually provoke their students to
be much more imaginative. And I go back to those three criteria, right?
Coincidence, ambition, and imagination. And and going back to the drug dealers
or drug uh you know, addict story. I mean, I think the the the ambition has
to be triggered also by some sort of a role model, right? So how do we actually
institutionalize serendipity within a society you know at large so
that there's that required imagination there's that required ambition that's
within most of the people and and I think it's you know in in many societies
that are just lacking in terms of the teachers that have great quality and
lacking in terms of enough role models in enough multiplier notes
there's likely to be more incrementalism in achieving achieving retaining
serendipity. Don't you think? >> Yeah. I mean, I couldn't agree more than
I feel when you know when you think about teachers, the the level of
imprinting, the level of power they have over young minds is incredible. And and
and when you think about I mean when I think about my own upbringing where in a
way you get educated out of creativity, right? I think Ken Robinson highly
recommended. He did a wonderful TED talk on this idea that schools a lot of times
educate you out of creativity because you want to they want to put you in a
box and then you stay in that box. But you will see that a lot of the most
interesting entrepreneurs they at some point try to break out of that box. And
so they actually were quite rebellious in their childhoods. And I think one of
the reasons is because we think about school as this kind of thing of here's
content and you need to take that content. That's not the world we live in
anymore. And that's what I liked about what you said that at the end of the day
a teacher is there to make you unleash your own potential and to figure out
what could that be and then you know give you that imagination and give you
that motivation. And so I think that's kind of like why that that that example
we just talked about is so interesting because it's about saying instead of
sending this person in who's so far away, right? If you send a Richard
Branson type person into a local impoverished setting and say this is
Richard Branson, be like him, it's too far away, right? It's kind of like I
can't picture myself being that. It's just it's it's it's too many steps. But
if I have the local person who grew up next to me who I always thought, oh my
god, uh this person drifted away, but he now became that teacher and he now is
teaching the people who come from the city here because they want to learn
about social media. Now essentially you created that kind of ambition and that
idea of I can do that also. If that person can do it, I can do it. And so I
think it's it's it's that kind of role model on the teacher level that is that
is that you look up to but it's also the peer where you can track their progress
towards that and say you know what you're actually growing towards that and
if you can do it I can do it too. And so I think there's kind of something around
this idea of having role models not to be too far away from uh the person so
that they can actually picture themselves in them. And I think you know
you have a I mean I've always been fascinated by Indonesia because I think
you know you have such a beautiful melting pot of you know different uh uh
groups where you know the you know this idea of like finding some sort of unity
in that diversity right I think there's a lot in that idea of despite us being
slightly different here we still have a lot of things in common and one of those
is that we want to make a better life for our families we want to make a
better life for the people around us and we just need to see the pathways towards
that and and get some sort of like um um you know opportunity space for for doing
that. And I think that's kind of like what what what those kind of models try
to help provide. Well, you you hit it on the nail. I mean, unity and diversity
is a characteristic not just for Indonesia, I think for Southeast Asia,
broadly speaking with 700 million people, a large $4 trillion economy. I
think one of the most serendipitous attributes of Southeast Asia is that
we've been so peaceful and stable for the last 2,000 years. Right? So we need
to attain the other kind of serendipity which means that you know we need to
make sure that that educational attainment is at a level that it needs
to be for all across uh not just one or two countries within Southeast Asia and
and that I think is the necessary second or next serendipity that Southeast Asia
needs to get. I want to go back to, you know, what you alluded
to in the book, uh, in in a context of how a tightlyknit
community might run risks of not being serendipitous.
Talk about that. I mean, I it kind of goes back to that need to be diverse,
right? To have diversity as opposed to, you know, call it homogeneity or, you
know, uniformity. uh which I think runs the risk of somewhat being less
serendipitous than being more diverse. Please.
>> Well, it you know it comes back to that idea of you know strong ties versus weak
ties in the sense of strong ties is the kind of you know people around you who
uh you know your friends like people close to you. There's great you know
emotional support. It's people who have your backs. Like it's the kind of thing
but but also it might keep you in whatever setting you're in, right? is
the kind of thing where it's hard to break out of of that in terms of ideas
or in terms of new people and then weak ties being more the kind of you know the
person you know a little bit like maybe you know living three villages down or
like the the person who lives somewhere in the city and and and that kind of
person that might be the person then you get the most interesting ideas from
because it's out of your usual context it's out of your usual group and I think
the most interesting thing comes when we think about how do I for myself create
communities that both have those strong ties that you know I are my anchor
especially also when it comes to you know it might be religious it might be
other types of communities where you just feel this is my anchor so whatever
happens in life I am anchored here but then on the other hand also this idea of
let me be proactive in terms of how I have a little bit more of those weak
ties that can then potentially bring opportunities and new ideas and so on
and so I'm a big fan of you know um if one lives in a village somewhere or even
in a city and thinking about what are the public places where I can plug in to
get access to those different people, different ideas, right? So, if there's a
public university, like maybe there's a public event where one goes to that
event and I'm a huge fan of then somehow trying to put myself out there a little
bit. So for example, you know, imagine you go to an event in Jakarta at at the
university and and there's a public event and uh you know, great speaker in
front of 200 people and that speaker talks about um hey you know trade
Indonesia and we want to help kind of uplift our people and now what you want
to be is you want to be the person who asks the first question in the end right
and so the way you do that is you you get up energetically so that they can't
ignore you when they say oh time for questions now um and then you you kind
of um um say well you know thank you so much for this very inspiring speech. Uh
so you make it all about the speaker and all about this this was so so uh so
interesting as someone who you know grew up in this and this village and wanted
to explore this and this what would you advise someone like me to do or
something like this where you built that hook and you built that idea in that
there's an information point here and it is amazing. It is amazing how there's
always four, five, six people out of the audience afterwards coming to the person
saying, "Oh my god, like I also grew up in that village and now I'm here in the
city. I want to help you out. I do this and this now I want to help you out." So
the point here is and the reason I'm telling you this and of course depending
on different settings, right? there might not be the opportunity to ask a
question, but I'm I'm telling this because I think developing that
potentiality space, that space for potential opportunity where other people
can see the overlaps that is up to us a lot of times to put ourselves out there
in some sort of way. It can be an event like this. It can be LinkedIn like just
from time to time putting a couple of information points, but it's just the
idea of let's make it more likely that there are these weak uh ties that can
emerge from people saying, "Oh my god, you're interested in this. I don't live
in your village at the moment. I'm not in your strong network, but we have that
in common, but also I'm somewhere else now. And so that's kind of the weak tie.
Then that becomes really interesting in life where you are, you know, in a way
united in that you have something in common here, but also you're
sufficiently different um that that person also could now have good ideas
that are different from from what you have at the moment.
>> Interesting. How does how does failure affect serendipity or how does a series
of failures affect serendipity? How do you make somebody not give up
after slipping once or twice so that he or she you know attains the necessary
serendipity in life? I think there's there's three things to
it and and it you know builds on what you said earlier around education that
I couldn't agree with you more that at the core of everything we talk about is
education in the sense that education not in the sense of content again you
don't need a mathematical formula uh in order to live a happy life right like
you you maybe your life will be happier if you if you know a lot of formulas but
or actually maybe not it depends but point is the content itself will not
make a difference but the mindset piece will the mindset piece in terms of how
do I cope with different situations have I done something in the past that has
worked um and how can I build on that and so I think to your question there's
there's three pieces one is the question of can I meaning make a situation so
when I am in a tough situation and that's the Victor Frankl idea can I
still see some sort of meaning in the situation so to give an example my
mother-in-law she is the kind of person who creates serendipity wherever she
goes and you know she had a a small accident right so kind of small car
accident, the kind of situation where usually would go, "Oh my god, like this
is a bad situation. This was not lucky. This was unlucky, right? This was a
failure of driving in a way." Um, she's the kind of person who then talks with
the other person, makes friends with that person, that person then invites
her husband on her on on the podcast of that person. It's it's a big podcast in
in in in the US. And and that person kind of much more visibility. Long story
short, she meaning make that situation. She said, "You know what? I will not let
that situation define now as this is a bad situation and we're both now
depressed about it. But she said, can I still find something in there? And
again, I you know that's very different from toxic positivity of saying
everything will always be good. Not at all. Like you know we talked about the
wildfires recently here where our house burned down. Those things they are
painful. They they are disastrous. They feel really bad. And then the question
is what can I still control? Can I meaning make it and say what is the next
step now? now and so in her case it would be can I still talk with that
person maybe it's an interesting person in our case it's you know can we still
like now write a paper about this event and now somehow maybe that that kind of
like we learn something from it so really that kind of meaning making um I
think is the first one the second one I think comes more to resilience in the
sense of um you know Adam Grant has done some fantastic work around this idea of
um how do you develop the the the tenacity to really be able to cope with
especially hard situations right? Failure but also loss. Um and so one
thing is is really about this idea of when you look back in 10 15 years from
now will it still matter? Uh and if not you know should you should you be too
concerned about it? But also more importantly when you are in a tough
situation thinking about have I been in something similar like this before? Have
I gone through it? And then kind of seeing oh actually you know I can do
this again. I can I can go through this again. All right. I had a bad exam.
Okay. I had a bad exam back then but you know what I still I'm still alive right
and so kind of building on this again and so I think there's this kind of
aspect of building a muscle for resilience and and so on and then the
third aspect I think which is um you know one of the most important aspects
is the kind of people we surround ourselves with if if you are in a
culture in an organization in a local setting where people frame failure as
the worst thing in the world that will always be the framing and it's it's it's
quite tough to break out of But if you kind of try to build a couple of
contacts also that maybe see it more as learning opportunities and and things
like that, then you will see that those people also will be the people who will
go with you on your growth journey because a lot of times those strong ties
are also the ones who might not be that used to you actually growing out of
whatever setting you're in versus the weak ties are the ones who are actually
then like okay great like you can grow this way and you can you can uh get out
here. So long story short, I think there's something in there around this
idea of how do we think more proactively about what kind of setting we want to
put ourselves into and what kind of framing people use in that setting. Um
and you know you will see that in good corporate cultures also that uh you know
failure is being reinterpreted into this was an experiment or this was a learning
opportunity rather than a failure and then people will look back and say those
failures were the most interesting inflection points. we went almost
bankrupt, right? In my case, we went almost bankrupt with one company, but
there was a final wakeup call to say, you know what, we can finally change our
business model and and make something more interesting out of it. And so what
was almost a failure then became an opportunity again. And I think that kind
of like reframing is extremely powerful. >> I I see so many people falling into this
I call it pessimism aversion trap, right? they don't they don't want to try
something that that's new, right? And and I I tend to think within intuition
that you know these people well sometimes I fall into that trap too in
that the the lack of ability to think long term I think puts you in that spot
right and the lack of being able to think long term puts you in a spot of
not being able to be proactive in search of you know that positivity. You know,
if you hit a car and you get into an accident, there there might be wisdom in
actually talking to the other guy. And who knows that that guy might be, you
know, the son or the daughter of whatever whatever that may be of virtue
to whatever you're trying to achieve, midterm or long term. And and I think
that lack of proactivity uh is, you know, manifested in so many people that
very easily fall into this, you know, pessimism pessimism aversion trap. Uh I
I want to take Yeah, sorry. Go ahead. And and sorry and I think that's such a
like interesting point because you know when you think about exactly that also
in the context of when people say I'm an unlucky person right I I or I'm someone
who tends to have bad you know things happen in life
>> the fascinating thing I think is to then work with baby steps and say because you
can never like if someone is not a proactive person it's very like hard
right to go to them and say be more active be more proactive like that will
usually get like a a push back and say no no no you I don't understand my life
like I have all these difficult things here like who are you to to tell me like
all these different things and and and XY Z and and then what I found extremely
interesting is when you have baby steps where you tell the person for example
okay let's make a deal the next 10 times you are in a difficult situation I want
you to think about one thing one thing that in this situation now could somehow
change your life to the better whatever it could be so in a car accident right
to exactly your point okay this could be the son of the of the prime minister and
you know maybe XYO that kind of interesting thing can happen or you know
the family car uh on the way to the holidays breaks down everyone is stuck
in the car everyone's like annoyed but maybe it's the first time you can
finally have the conversation you always had to have as a family like those kind
of things where I want you to think of one thing that is meaningful not
necessarily positive or optimistic or anything but just meaningful is there is
there one meaningful thing I can do and as you do that a couple of times you
will see that your brain reframes itself. That's the kind of beautiful
thing of neuroplasticity, right? That we can train our brain to rewire itself.
And so I think there's all these baby steps we can do where I'm completely
with you that the the the most amazing thing comes when someone sees, oh wow,
my life will be better and I have control over it. Because I think a lot
of people, you know, have said, "No, no, I I can't like I this is not under my
control." But once you see that more things than you think are under your
control, you see it happening. And I I told you I think in our pre-talk this
this example of my colleague right who >> you know he he was this eminent
professor and he's kind of the opposite example also in terms of he wouldn't
need anything because he already has everything but he's the kind of person
who you know eminent professor and he would be like Christian I love you I
love your research but why would I need those kind of things like you know
what's the point and so we made a deal and we said you know what the next
couple of week just weeks just go out there and ask slightly different
questions instead of asking so what do you do at a at an event or so ask what
do you enjoy doing right so very simple twist but it you know allows people to
get out of their autopilot of oh I am this and this like the robotic thing to
oh I enjoy this and this and then you find all these unexpected overlaps and a
couple of hooks so essentially hey I am XY Z but what I'm really interested in
is this and this and so kind of you know give that opportunity space of people
getting to know you on a meaningful level he does that for a couple of weeks
he comes back and he's he says Christian, I didn't know life can be so
joyful. And you know, to me, that was really the thing that I could like, you
know, I I think I'm a relatively um you know, I I'm a relatively um interactive
person, so I think I can usually get people excited about something. But even
with him, like it was never possible to just tell him, David, like this is all
the possibilities. He had to experience it for himself. And as he started
experiencing it, he was like, wow, this actually works and I can do it myself.
And so I think I'm a big fan in this kind of like just putting people into
low-risk small situations where they can train these things a little and then
actually they fill their glass without having to think about oh I'm a glass
half full guy or girl like they are like no no no I'm just doing it and then
actually it starts to happen and so I think the kind of experiential piece is
the piece that I've I've seen work um very well there. You know, it kind of
sounds that it's important to or more important to to be able to think
longitudinally as opposed to latitudinally,
right? And and in the absence of somebody that could provoke someone else
to think more longitudinally, what do you do?
>> Do you just rely on coincidence or you rely on luck? you rely on, you know,
godly intervention. I mean, there's there's got to wait
there's there's got to be a way to institutionalize, right, the ability for
everybody to think more longitudinally as opposed to latitudinally. Try out
this different dimension that's within the horizon. Widen yourself, diverge
yourself. I mean, that that's kind of like what I'm getting implicitly from
what what you're trying to, you know, say here. How how do you do that
Christian? >> 100%. And you know one thing that I do a
lot with my students is to say you're coming in here and you might think I
want to apply to the big four consultancies or I want to be XY Z
banker or you know there there's this certain idea of like this is the one you
know undimensional thing that I think is supposed to happen with my life and like
this is what I'm going for. And so then we're talking about you know what how
how do you even know how can you know what you might might enjoy the most? How
can you know what is most meaningful to you without actually trying it? And so
you know what I tell them is like look like yes of course let's send
applications to the big four consultancies or whatever kind of
consultancy or bank or whatever you're interested in but then also send an
application over here send an application over here just like you know
talk with a couple of people here. put yourself into situations and get a feel
for what kind of person do you want to be surrounded with and as they do that
right it's fascinating how quite a few of them would be like oh my god like I
always assumed that this is my trajectory because that's how I grew up
or you know this is how it's supposed to be but then I realized my people
actually you know those people who are like the entrepreneurs or the artists or
whatever it is and so I think it's it's the interesting thing of the more
exposure one has to different types of settings the more they can practice is
what you just mentioned in terms of really understanding I could be
different people, I could be different personas. I could be, you know, going
different ways and and the only way to really know it is not to think about it
or to watch, you know, a video about it or so, but to actually put ourselves
into those situations. That's why I'm such a big fan of going to public events
and things like that just to test out a little who are the kind of people I
enjoy actually being around with and then can I somehow, you know, develop
connections with them so that I I spend more time with them and less time with
the people that I thought I would spend time with but actually maybe are not
really my tribe. And you know, I've always find that idea of tribe so
interesting because you know, you you you know, in the context of Indonesia,
of course, you know, you you also you know, you have the idea of tribes, but
also then there's the intellectual tribe, right? So there's a a tribe by
birth and then there's a tribe by by kind of like what you're really excited
about. And I think what you mentioned earlier about motivation and ambition, I
think that a lot of times comes from finding our intellectual tribe or
finding our our tribe that somehow, you know, relates more to the ideas that
we're really interested in versus just our background.
>> You know, I could make a case economically that
specialization is somewhat correlated with inequality,
right? And at the rate that more and more
people become specialized while others don't,
the others become less serendipitous. The specialist become more
serendipitous. Right? So how do you how do you bring
about serendipity for people as a whole if only some choose to
be a specialist and others choose not to be specialists? on the basis of the
argument that specialization leads to economic inequality
>> when you think about it in a way that so expertise right if you think about
specialization expertise yes it can help us with serendipity right because I
don't know Fleming only was able to discover penicellin because he has a he
has a a pre-nowledge of what that could look like or or or what something could
look like and then he connects the dots and makes sense or you know
understanding gravity when an Apple falls down comes from understanding the
bigger idea behind what it means when an apple falls down, right? So, so there is
a lot to be said about expertise helping with things. I do think though, you
know, when I work in in different types of settings, a lot of times those people
who are more generalistic, those people who um are maybe not that that that deep
in, they actually connect a lot of dots because they are not functionally fixed.
They're not too deep in whatever they are in. And so I think there's a lot to
be said in terms of saying, you know what, in almost every setting we can
cultivate serendipity. we can cultivate opportunity spaces. But I think you're
raising a really important point which is the kind of societal inequality that
comes just from you know how people have access to different types of skill sets,
different types of education, different types of you know monetary resources and
so on. And so in fact a lot of our work is around this idea of you know if if
you would if you picture the world as kind of like the the the social
structure so everything that that is the environment right so monetary
educational everything else and then the kind of agency right so what can you do
on yourself you want to you want to come up here like you want to have a lot of
social structure that's supportive and you want to have like your own mindset
that kind of like does the most with whatever is in your environment and what
I'm fascinated by is as a government we can work on both we can bring the social
structure up by saying we can if we think about for example education we're
not only thinking about giving someone a scholarship and then again prejudice
them later because you know while their other friends get a job because they're
also well connected they again might then be slower in the race because they
got to the university but still don't have the connections that their friends
have things like that right so if you put someone into university also think
about their opportunity space in terms of give them three mentors who are like
high leverage mentors or just something that in a way really builds that social
structure. But at the same time, don't stop there because the mindset
component, getting to the mindset piece, that's actually what will help them to
make the best out of this. And so that's why I'm so focused on saying every
school, every university I believe in the world should have a course that is
the foundations of developing a serendipity mindset or developing an
opportunity mindset because at the end of the day, look, everything else you
can train like most things you can train yourself in, right? You can train
yourself in in a lot of things in the world, but the idea that you are able to
identify an opportunity that you're able to see the adverse as a potential
opportunity that is something that is a superpower. And so I think whatever like
situation someone is in or wherever school is located, I think that has to
be the core to say how can we now get that kind of like opportunity that
entrepreneurial thinking into into into uh into the minds. And so I'm a big fan
of of thinking about it both and and I agree with you that if there's over uh
you know if if there's over specialization with some people it might
take away and at the same time I think we can create that opportunity space um
that makes it possible. I think that starts again with education.
>> Well I'll pick up on that and and let me use the internet. Mhm.
>> The the internet, you know, decades ago was designed to help democratize
information and it's done a great job democratizing information. But what I've
discovered would have been that the internet has not done a commensurate
democratization of ideas, right? Uh it has democratized
information, but it hasn't democratized ideas. It has actually polarized ideas.
So when you polarize ideas at both ends of the spectrum,
those in between the extremes of the spectrum are those that are
unfortunately exposed to less serendipity.
If if if I can use your your your thinking, right? And and I I have
basically been thinking that this lack of democratization of ideas is also
somewhat correlated with the lack of democratization of economic capital,
right? I mean capital has been abundant at the rate that you know the modern
economic you know uh countries uh have been you know very robustly growing very
robustly you know doing quantitative easing. So I would make the argument
that you know economic capital has been very
abundant but that abundance has not been manifested in a proper distribution or
redistribution into as many people as need be. So I would argue that some have
been more serendipitous than others in the context of being a beneficiary of
that economic capital. Right. So how do you how do you deal with that?
What comes to mind when when you were speaking was around this idea of at the
end of the day who who is encouraging something or who who sets the incentive
right what are the incentives like in a you know so so when you think about
development right or when you think about the kind of broader scope of I
mean I I know it a lot in the context of subsaran Africa for example right where
>> you would have certain situations who have certain kind of funds and then
those funds get distributed but everyone has their own incentives Right? Someone
wants to distribute funds just to be able to say we gave XY Z country these
and these funds or we gave XY Z ventures these and these funds and that's where
their impact stops right that like they essentially just distributed money and
so you can imagine that then the distribution just becomes completely
perverted in the sense of that it lands everywhere where it shouldn't land but
what I've been fascinated is how do you shift away from just looking at like
what's the inputs here what are we what are we putting somewhere to what are the
actual outcomes over the long run like what is actually happening and then
who's who's being held accountable for it and you know I will I will not forget
you know when I I worked with education institutions in in subsouthern Africa
where you would have some that would educate you know for example one class
of boys and then the funders would all be like oh great great everything went
well they went back to DC or wherever they came from and then you would see
that those kids would have a problem to reintegrate for example because now they
were the the kids who were so smart that like nobody would understand the big
words they're using and so now they get ostra exercise, right? And so you have
all these unintended consequences. And so I guess there's two points to to
this. A is that I think the inequality of how financial things are being
dispersed based on different incentive structures and so on creates so much
inequality in itself. But then also I think the focus on inputs and like what
you put somewhere and and simple outputs versus you know, hey great we educated
50 boys versus what are the actual outcomes? these 50 boys now being
ostracized by the local community is net net actually probably negative for them
in the in the long in in the short run at least. And so I think what I've been
advocating a lot for is is really a shift towards understanding the true
outcomes of what what money does and what money tries to do but also then
people being accountable for it because I think the way a lot of governments
work and a lot of especially NOS's work is they are it's it's more about simple
inputs simple outputs um but then essentially nobody being held
accountable about the actual outcomes because you know they are harder to
measure they are more long-term and so on and so um it's hard to hold someone
accountable who's kind of like in But I think there's so many reasonable
correlations now where you can say okay if you have this and this output. So if
you have 50 students who are being educated in this and this area in
similar context we know that they usually get ostracized or they usually
get this like then you have reasonable correlations to an outcome. And I just
hope that we will have more and more evidence-based kind of um interventions
there that are actually more about truly caring about the outcome versus just
caring about being able to say I helped 50 people here um which makes you feel
good but actually you know doesn't really help a local community. And um so
the long story short of I' I've seen a lot of financial capital actually
destroy local communities because you give money in you create more societal
inequality in the local community and actually didn't really understand the
local dynamics. >> Well I I I would make the argument that
there have been very obviously rising inequalities of wealth, income
and opportunities. In addition to these three economic phenomena, there's also
this rising centropatalism of economic development. There's there's a greater
acceleration or velocity of growth within the primary cities as opposed to
the secondary much less regional cities or towns.
These economic phenomena just tell me that there has been a proper
distribution or redistribution of serendipity. Right? So I mean
serendipity I think is a public good that needs to be distributed and and I'm
in a camp that believes that democracy should not just be manifested in the
distribution of power but it needs to be manifested in the distribution of public
goods. Call that intellect, welfare, healthcare, social value, moral value
and the last bit out of that serendipity. It needs to be properly
distributed as part of a thriving democracy. Uh I I I don't know. I'm just
thinking out loud here, Christian. You know, as as we're talking, I'm I'm
beginning to, you know, just, you know, start thinking something new. But what's
what's your view on this? >> Well, you know, I'm completely with you,
especially also, you know, what you had mentioned in our pre-con conversation
around when we think about the idea of compound serendipity or the idea of of
of of the baseline you have predetermines a
lot of what comes next, right? So it's like that's the kind of unfairness in
general, right? About the like financial system, right? You like I've always
tried to to explain to you know when I speak with my students about micro
finance that at the end of the day the weird thing about banks was that you
need money in order to get money like you you can only and so so so those
people really actually need money don't get money because they don't have
collateral. So you know the initial idea of micro finance then being you know
what like maybe we can distribute actually um uh maybe we can have a
social collateral where people socially somehow say you know what we will as a
as as a couple of people in the village be held accountable for paying back the
loan and so we don't need to give you a house as a collateral we give our
reputations as a collateral right those kind of things where then you start to
more and more see okay we can actually have other people get access to these
financial opportunities and I think it's similar to uh serendipity that at the
end of the day if the baseline is too low in whatever context you're in by
definition you will most likely not have enough serendipity and by definition
then have not enough opportunity and and enough kind of like in a way
meaningfulness in life to to to uh to experience and so I think I'm you know
completely with you I think uh when you think about how do you create those
opportunity spaces of serendipity that in the end of the day create the joy
create the meaning but also create the financial success how do we create those
opportunity spaces and so um I think that's where in a way the lack of
imagination also on a more macro level that people tend to think mostly about
money distribution rather about opportunity distribution right thinking
about hey okay if I have a local village how do I now create that local school
and at the same time when I have the local school I need to think about how's
the local employer now employing those people from the school or how is so
building that ecosystem right and I'm I'm a big fan of of of ecosystem systems
for that reason that in a way they try to understand like in nature that if you
only have one aspect of it like the rest will die because you you you need some
sort of like cycle here and so um you know I've worked a lot with with
governments um who who wanted to try to copy Silicon Valley for example right
and I've always found that fascinating because my core point to them was you're
trying to copy a couple of institutions you're trying to say we want a Stanford
here and we want a Google here and then you got to also like understand that
there's an underlying culture and if you don't have that culture of collaboration
that culture of actually you know sharing your ideas with each other
whatever it is then this ecosystem will not work and so the long story short I
think to your point is that I think a true serendipity mindset that allows for
true prosperity means thinking more holistically means thinking in systems
means thinking that if you replicate one institution you need to think about how
that institution fits into the rest but also what is the foundation of it and
that foundation is mindset and culture and if you don't also shift mindset and
culture, all these institutions won't work at the level that you want them to
work. >> You you talked about this in the book.
Don't don't bother copycatting the extremes. Just copycat the patterns,
right? Ju talk a little bit more about, you know, the importance of basically
emulating the patterns as opposed to the personalities because I I I find this
quite quite a lot with, you know, the young generation members. they they try
to copy you verbatim as opposed to trying to copy the patterns with which
you know some of the successful personalities you know go by.
>> Yeah. I mean if if you take successful people right um uh take the the software
billionaire who like if you would just follow their track of how they became
the CEO of one of the biggest software companies in the world and stuff like
that. you might miss that they also had the help of their parents who connected
them in the first place to venture capitalists and to to kind of key people
who then actually helped them out do that. And so the point here is that a
those hero stories a lot of times are either flawed or they're incomp like
they they don't tell the whole story and so just copying it sets you up for
failure because there's necessarily always other aspects that we're not
aware of and if you don't exactly do exactly those things it won't work. more
importantly also the context is most likely very different from from one's
own context so it will not likely work and so I'm a big fan um of exactly that
to think about what is it what are the patterns that I see in that person when
I compare them with 20 other inspiring people and then try to distill what they
actually did versus what their context did for them right and and so once you
see that pattern you might be like okay great that was all about perseverance
okay I can do something about perseverance this was all about uh they
all somehow reached out to one particular venture capitalist. Okay,
great. Like I can try that now. But but this idea of like once I understand the
pattern behind something, I can do something about it that might be more
replicable than the one story of a person. And there's an an wonderful
researcher Changu um he does a lot of work around luck and his one of his key
points is that if you overfocus on the most successful person that person most
likely is not so easy to be copied because they also took over proportional
risk a lot of times. And so that might not be the kind of person you can learn
so so much from, right? Because if you have, you know, for example, a current
world leader, right, who either becomes president or like like has a really
tough other outcome, like those kind of things like it's a lot of risk-taking
versus if you look at the consistent second best. So the people who are
consistently doing really good work, those are better to be copied because
they are more reliable in that their journey actually followed a certain
pattern than just kind of like random luck by the draw or like some outside
benefit that they got at some point. And so there's a lot in that idea that don't
trust too much in those absolute rock stars because again there was usually
something in their life that kind of gave them the the way up or there was
some sort of like like like freak accident or something like that. But but
but um but the s like the ones who are like consistently doing good work they
are the ones to learn most from. >> People have no idea how many sacrifices
would have been made by people that would have gone to the top. I mean you
know people just look at the you know the the good side of the story but the
bad side of the story is typically not revealed.
But uh I want to you you mentioned very amply the importance of
multi-dimensionality as opposed to uni-dimensionality and I want to put
this in the context of AI. I talked to quite a number of people out here who
venture uh and are stewards of AI. What what I get the sense of is that
they don't like to multi-dimensionalize the narrative. you know, especially the
technologist, right? They seem to think with a bit of hubris that they know
everything that needs to be known about all the other dimensions, whether it
relates to the environment, spirituality, philosophy, economics,
sociology, and all that good stuff, right? And and that's a that's a common
feature of what I find with uh the the technologists who've been so good at
pushing forth this AI narrative. How does that impact serendipity for society
going forward at the rate that it seems at the moment to be somewhat more
uni-dimensionalized as opposed to adequately multi-dimensionalized?
>> That's fascinating because so we've we've done a paper recently about
artificial intelligence and AI and and trying to figure out
in in what way does AI actually help us create serendipity? So, you know, um AI
is really good at connecting dots, right? is really good at saying, hey,
you know, especially if you have the right prompts, right? If you if you make
it open-ended enough, you can uh in a way have a lot of what we would call
kind of more traditional innovation happen through through AI and and
sometimes kind of even unexpected things if we interact with it. But at the other
uh end also there's so much pattern dependence, right? And there's so much
kind of like idea in there that um AI can't experience surprise, right? it
can't really experience the idea of oh this is something um that that kind of
like is truly surprising and joyful in in that surprise. Um, and so, you know,
one of the things is that I'm quite fascinated by is this kind of how do you
augment machine and person in the sense that the the machine kind of helps with
connecting a lot of dots but still leave space for the human to experience
surprise in there and and I think um that that to me is is where hopefully
we're going that um we're building organizations that are able to say on
one hand here is a pre-programmed thing search for something but also tell me
the anomalies tell me the things that um I might not have expected um or uh or or
that could point to it. Um and we talked about this I think in the pre-talk that
you know I'm one of my favorite questions uh in the in in the company
setting is what surprised you last week? >> Uh if you ask in a in a in a corporate
setting your team what surprised you last week? It's amazing because they
will say, "Oh, it was really surprising that our customers uh you know used our
washing machine to wash their potatoes." Like, "Oh, that was surprising. Great.
Let's make it a potato washing machine." And that actually, right? So, so then
kind of like interesting new things happen. And so once you prime people
towards that, they look out for those anomalies. And I think, you know,
hopefully we can prime AI enough to also still look out for anomalies because I
think that's where a lot of joy and meaning comes from, kind of the
anomalies in life. And I mean I' I've also you know in your life like I feel
like because you've created so much serendipity in your life right if you if
you would connect the the dots at hindsight I'm sure there's there's you
know it's almost like for AI then to meaning make your life and to somehow
kind of like predict for you what you will find surprising. Now there's a lot
in there in your multi-dimensionality um that will take AI quite some time right
to to figure out. And so I think um in in your case um um I that was actually a
question I had for you also how you for yourself um think about um you know the
pieces we talked about serendipity on the bigger level right now with
technological change like AI um with how the world is changing with with
everything else like where do you feel the biggest impact of serendipity could
could come if if that makes sense like >> I'm I'm actually a little concerned I
mean I I kind of you know talked about this earlier with you with respect to
the lack of democratization of economic capital.
>> Mhm. >> On the back of abundance, right?
>> So despite abundance, it's not fairly distributed. And we're seeing
empirically, you know, economic inequalities by way of wealth,
opportunity, and income. And then also centrialism of economic development.
Right? the primary cities uh seem to be moving at a faster rate than the
secondary and and regional cities. Uh we are sort of like the at the advent of
this massive commoditization of intelligence and labor on the back of AI
and on the back of robotics. So, at the rate that the price of labor
becomes zero or near zero at the at the rate that the price of intelligence
nears zero, we're likely to see abundance of intelligence and labor,
right? So, I'm I'm concerned as to whether or not this type of abundance is
going to end up the way economic capital abundance ended up. Right? So, we've got
to fight it off with institutionalizing serendipity.
>> Mhm. >> You know, at a broader and greater and
deeper level. I mean, you know, just just thinking out loud, that's my
knee-jerk reaction to to to all this. And, you know, there are so many
developing economies out there that are exposed to manual labor that's going to
be dislocated by robotics. They're, you know, exposed to so much manual labor
that's susceptible to dislocation, uh, you know, by AI. What's going to happen
to these people at the rate that they're not going to be able to be easily
reskilled or upskilled? Uh they're going to be less serendipitous
than those that have the necessary specialist capabilities to push forth,
you know, robotics, AI, and the way we've seen with the capitalists that
have been, you know, so great at moving capital forth with this kind of
abundance which unfortunately hasn't been distributed to many parts of the
world. >> Yeah. Yeah, that's fascinating because
it's, you know, it makes me think of that if you think about where people
draw meaning from. A lot of times it might be right from intelligence, it
might be from doing work. It might be from doing good work and as that is now
shifted more and more, right? That kind of like what is that that void that
could potentially be there and and what fills it? I remember in our pre-con
conversation we talked about right spirituality and and and those kind of
themes and I I think to me that that is actually a really fascinating point also
in terms of what is the kind of voids that you're filling by having some sort
of connectivity if it's not only to your job anymore now in that kind of way or
or whatever what is it is it nature is it religion is it other types of ways
and so I feel it's a fascinating time also to think about what are the anchors
for people that are there if work either becomes an even stronger anchor for
those who are kind of you know deep diving and then less so for people who
might uh you know go into uh where there might be a shift and so I feel there's
there's a lot of uh probably macro thinking to be done around what are the
actual anchors that mean that help meaning make life going forward like
well the the ideal is to top down it right uh on on the hope or with the hope
that the guy at the top has the necessary wisdom but in the absence of
that wisdom you've got to bottom up it >> mhm Mhm.
>> But you know, as much as you want to bottom up it, if the bottom don't have
the necessary, you know, intellectual wherewithal,
uh, then you've got to rely on sort of like the middle segment. The middle
segment also has limitations when it comes to, you know, achievement of
tertiary education. So as much as you want to just rely on this bottoming up
of the necessary political culture to create more serendipity so that people
or the kids become more proactive and seeking you know opportunities and you
know talking to multipliers within communities and all that but the the the
heads of the households the heads of the communities don't have that kind of
thinking for the most part some do have. Uh, so I think I think we've got to
figure out a way to pipe this, you know, knowledge, you know, in a in a broader
way, in a deeper way, in a whatever way that's going to translate into better
wisdom within the middle and the bottom. >> Yeah. And that comes back to Yeah. That
that comes back to the systems, right? In terms of like I think traditionally
when you think about, for example, educational interventions, you would
think about here's a 10-year-old girl or boy, let's educate them. But actually
the more enlightened approach might be well let's think about the whole family
right let's think about yes if I educate the 10-year-old boy what else does the
family need now to go with that education and maybe there could be
reeducation of the of the whole family or at least you know I've seen
unintended consequences where when kids out of less privileged environments uh
get sent to school now you know they did some work at home and so now there's a
financial kind of uh problem here and so really thinking about cross
subsidization then or things that in in a way truly enable it and I think that's
what what I feel has been lacking in general kind of like a more holistic
idea of what are the actual outcomes for a community for family when there is an
educational intervention a and then b I'm a huge fan of social franchising so
to what you just said right this idea of top down versus bottom up how do we find
a middle way and and you know when you think about something like McDonald's
right for for good or bad like McDonald's right here's the brand here's
the quality here's like a stamp Um, I'm not eating with McDonald's
anymore, but but in general, right, like it's the kind of thing where it's just
fascinating how as a as a as a as a company, they were able to say, "Here's
here's here's here's what we're good at, and then here's how we locally uh adjust
it how how a local franchisee, so a local person can make it their own
business. And if you're in a particular context where people can't eat pork,
then there's a hamburger without pork or there's like no hamburger and and things
like that, right? And so social franchising really being this idea then
that you say if I'm an organization and I go into a local context here is local
teachers that can help me. They build it as a local business or a local school
but still like we have a branding that helps them across uh different areas
things like that where you combine the top down and the bottom up. I'm a huge
fan of of trying to figure out those approaches because it's in a way you
give the locals a little bit of um risk and responsibility at the same time. And
um you know I I I've always found it fascinating with this Arlabs that I
mentioned earlier how they've been doing it. They go into local community and
they by celebrating the local leaders and celebrating uh the local
achievements. You have a lot of community cohesion because everyone now
is is part of like owns it, right? And and that local ownership to me is makes
makes all the difference to not say here's a transaction, here's a monetary
flow or a content flow coming in, but this is a community effort here and
we're doing this together. and and that to me is is where a lot of that cohesion
will come from to say at the end of the day we need to do it together and and
and that's I think the early micro finance is an interesting example of
like this idea of have a community come together to together get access to
something and then work together to pay it back and then there's unintended
consequences sometimes that that we have to mitigate but long story short is I
think it's exactly what you say the combining the top down and the bottom up
in in smart ways um and not leaving it to a couple of people in the middle
>> what are the unintended consequences is really not being able to innovate,
right? And I'm I'm in a camp that believes that innovation will will
require open-mindedness. And only with open-mindedness can you actually combine
the force of preservation and the force of innovation. And and we've seen this
in nations, civilizations that have failed
because they've they've basically failed to show open-mindedness as to combine a
force of preservation and a force of innovation. They got less serendipitous,
right? And and that's that's the argument I would make. uh you you talked
about open-mindedness but you also talked about
which something that that I think is very interesting the attribution bias I
mean you know serendipity is really about the degree of difficulty of
something the effort that you put into it and also the skill sets that you have
and and to the extent that you know you have very little of those you tend to
blame it on bad luck you know for not being too you know able
to achieve go ahead Christian, talk about that.
>> Yeah. Well, and and you know, building on that, it's also fascinating how
people can make exactly the same decision and depending on if it goes
well or not so well, people will say they were either skilled or not skilled,
right? We see that a lot with CEOs where they make similar decisions and then
when it works out, they're like, "Oh my god, this was the best co ever." Uh the
other one made exactly the same decision but in another context and gets fired
because they messed it all up. And so it's fascinating I think to to see uh
how we attribute uh success and failure in different ways and depending on
settings. But to your point, I think um you know when you think about the the
attributing something, right? Do I attribute my success to luck or to hard
work? Things like that, right? Um when people think about those kind of
questions, I think the level of um how people talk about it versus what's
actually what they believe, right? So you will you will find a lot of
high-powered leaders saying, "Oh, I was lucky that this and this happened." But
actually, you know that they actually believe they worked really hard for it.
They just wanted to sound modest, right? Right. And so it's it's the kind of
thing where what they're saying versus what they think is actually no no I
actually worked really hard for this. Um and at the same time right if you look
at Obama for example he would talk a lot about hey look like I had a lot of
serendipity in my life and I want to sprinkle that to other people right
because it's the kind of thing that really enables people uh to to make a
lot of good things happen. So I think attribution like like becomes dangerous
and difficult if we attribute artwork to people who had a lot of privilege first
and then somehow you know we think oh my god yes like they really did something
great here but they didn't really work for it a lot but I think for our case
it's much more interesting to think about who were the people who had a lot
of certity happen where they might say oh I was just lucky but actually they
worked really hard for it and I think that comes back from you know either
work or luck. No, no, no. It's not either hard work or luck, but it's it's
working really hard to be luckier. And I think that's why, you know, I mentioned
earlier with your life, I think, is a great example, right? Where people don't
see what behind the scenes like you're, you know, like it's it's the kind of,
you know, when you see like a a lake and you have a duck on the lake and like you
see the chilled duck on the top, but then like the the the legs, right? Like,
go, right, because you're constantly working and working. And I think that's
the kind of thing where sometimes people then feel underappreciated when people
say, "Well, you were just lucky." No, no, no, no, no. I worked really hard to
be lucky. And so I think it's those kind of things where um um trying to
understand and parsing out what is really luck versus what is the hard work
that went into that luck. And that's why I find serendipity so interesting as
like the muscle for the unexpected that you're building that makes it more
likely also in the future that you will be lucky. And then hopefully you
attribute some of that also to the hard work that uh that made it more lucky.
>> Yeah. I want to take this to the to the geopolitical level, right? We're we're
seeing a new kind of multipolarity
where the pre-existing superpowers, you know, call it the US and now China
and then there's a set of developing economies that are much larger than they
ever used to be, you know, decades ago. They they want to exert this kind of
revisionism, right? and and with this new kind of multipolarity, how do you
see serendipity falling into the picture?
>> You know, I see it mostly when you think about the story of big
ideas but also of big collaborations, partnerships, how you know it was always
somehow people that did it. And so when I think about serendipity in the context
of global affairs, I think a lot about the kind of serendipitous things that
you know that's why I found things like Davos are so always interesting to to
look at in terms of how people think it's the kind of content part that is
important. That's not the important thing, right? It's not the like in this
conference hall the content like it's they put a bit of content there
>> but yeah the networking but and more importantly the the serendipitous thing
that everyone is in one in one village, right? So all the like all the key
people in the world or a lot of the key people in the world for one week are in
one small little village and they walk around and they bump into each other and
then there's like oh my god hey you know this conflict oh we didn't even know
you're interested in this like we can help you solve this oh let's do this and
so the amount of serendipity that happens when you bring diverse people
together in a in a small space like this and so to me a lot of times when I think
about global affairs I think about serendipity in terms of the official
story people will tell us is um XY X was country and X was country for 10 years
have been working on this big thing and now we did it and make it happen and so
it's a linear story. Nah, they met over a glass of red wine in Davos. They
randomly came up with this idea. They then told their press secretary come up
with a story of how we can make this uh you know a public thing and and then go
forward right and so my point is I think I'm fascinated by how many stories in
the world will start serendipitous but people brush it out of the stories
because it it might feel a bit more random than the kind of yeah we planned
it for a long time but a lot of the big things a lot of the um you know changing
trade relationships and things are because one leader um met this other
leader and then they picked this up or they had a phone call right at the
moment with tariffs and like someone had a phone call with this person but then
another person was in the room who said this and then this happened. So it's
fascinating how serendipity happens especially in a world that is so in flux
and I think you see that especially in the US I think as well that when you
have a um a system in flux where uh everything is being questioned right
every rule is being questioned uh every every uh everything is is is rather how
an entrepreneur usually would be in a in a startup context that then actually
serendipity and zlenity both happen more right so serendipity happens more
because there's someone in the room they say oh my god we could also to do this
and it just gets done because it's the kind of setting where people just do it
then versus simplenity can also happen right the kind of like bad luck by
design where then there might be unintended consequences by doing
something and then something kind of working out differently and so I think
there's a lot of these kind of fascinating dynamics around how in those
in a multipolar world where there's there's everything is shifting and
changing when so many variables are in flux it's very likely that something
unlikely happens that can be either good or bad. And so that's what I find
fascinating about systems that the improbable becomes very probable because
you have so many improbable events now that could happen that one of them will
happen at some point and then we're all surprised. Oh my god, how could this
happen? But it was very likely that something unexpected would happen. And
so that's how I think about global relations now in terms of I'm mostly
cautious and and a little scared of all the unintended consequence that can
happen when things are so in flux. And at the same time I'm also um always
looking at the world and thinking you know what um the world has always been
pushing towards some sort of progress. And so hopefully um you know at the end
of the day systems self-regulate to a point again um that that that feels
okay. But um I I just think at the moment there's so many unintended
consequences that we can't understand. And I think to your point of AI um that
we are now at a point where we literally can't understand some of the things by
definition. Even the people who who program the the AI don't fully
understand it. And and so it's the kind of thing where I think the unintended
consequences might be bigger and more severe. Um and that is something that
you know with two daughters now that I'm more and more um concerned about that uh
where that is going. I I I think global leaders just need to meet with each
other more often to get rid of that wrong presupposition, that wrong
presumption, right? And and that's one way to do it. Another way would be to
rope in some potential interlocutor who could actually bridge the communication
at at the rate that we're witnessing so much more, you know, I call it political
neurosis, you know, in many parts of the world. uh and I think the convening of
as many you know leaders as possible in one place with the existence of some
interlocutor or just the breaking of the ice between the two leaders I think
would help in bringing about more peace and stability and that I think would
entail you know a higher degree of serendipity you never know they might
have gone to the same high school together you know they might have you
know played hockey where you know and they didn't know that they played hockey
in high and whatever. There's always that
commonality that strikes in a good way, right, for serendipity purposes.
>> And and I found that in conversations and and you know, I tell people, man,
you know, I'll show you the bruises. I've I've failed many more times than
I've succeeded. And people just don't see that. M uh but but when when you
talk to somebody you you break you break the ice and you you get rid of all that
wrong presupposition wrong presumption of each other
>> and and I think that that's a necessary tool
>> you know >> yeah that's the thing right once you
look at a country not as a this is this and this country but once you meet a
person you're like oh actually I understand now there's a human like the
humanizing of it right and humanizing and understanding and then seeing those
unexpected and expected overlaps. Um, I I I'm with you there. But I think also
with the failure piece, that's, you know, I have a colleague of mine, she
did a failure CV. So, she just listed literally the all the things that didn't
go and showed it to her students and they were like, "Wow, like this is a
long CV. >> It's longer.
>> It's a longer CV." Exactly. Exactly. And I think that's also what needs to be
communicated that we can't take for granted that things always work out that
every relationship works out or that every by definition a lot of things will
fail and and that's also okay right and and and that's kind of I think um that
mindset shift that we talked about earlier to not see failure as an end
point end point as this is now who I am I am defined as this kind of thing that
didn't work out but more as no this is now the inflection point this is a
starting point for another door that opens like this door is closing there's
another door that opens and that becomes an inflection point and you know the
amount of people where um something that failed became the inflection point for
something great. uh you know the quintessential example being imagine
someone breaks up with you and and uh uh you know you think oh my god the world
is going that's the the the worst thing that can happen and then six months
later you meet the true love of your life you thank your person 5 months ago
that you broke up with me right and so I think that's a lot of times in life that
something that failed at some point might actually make room for something
even better and I think that's the framing piece in terms of do does the
situation define me or do I define the situation
>> Christian we've we've spent uh almost an hour and a half. Uh for for somebody out
there that doesn't understand the concept of serendipity and somebody that
wants to be more serendipitous, what would be the two to three things
that you would encourage him or her to do at the at the most simple level?
>> Yeah. >> Flash this book.
>> Well, three things um for cultivating serendipity. First one is really to
think about what are three or four things that are truly meaningful to me
at the moment that I want to throw into different conversations that I'm having
soon right so um for me you know it's meaningful at the moment serendipity um
it's meaningful that I have my daughters and so when I bump into someone in the
elevator here in at the university and they ask hey how are you doing I'm like
oh you know my daughter this and this or um oh you know serendipity this and this
like I always I I have something that I can throw in that especially helps me as
an introvert to just have two or three kind of meaningful things I can throw in
because the other person then picks one or two of them uh and and goes into that
direction and so it becomes a more meaningful conversation but also a lot
of oh my god such a coincidence moment. So that's the hook strategy. Uh another
one is is really about uh the way of we asking questions. Do we ask questions?
Uh what do you do? Put yourself uh and the other person in a box or do you ask
what do you enjoy doing and then really kind of allow the person to say hey you
know um what I'm really excited about actually is uh the metaverse or whatever
it is and you might be like oh my god such a coincidence. Um and then the
third is really the deeper undercurrents like what is holding us back from having
more serendipity in our lives and how can we work on it? And I think really
thinking about situations in life where serendipity could have happened but it
didn't and then kind of trying to understand the pattern working on that
pattern but then also at the same time thinking about when did serendipity
happen in my life and how can I do more of this oh serendipity always tends to
happen if I do this and this great can I do more of this um and then a bonus one
um just came just came to mind because we talked so much about um meaning
making is when you are in a conversation thinking about is there one idea one
thing I can contribute ute to the other person. So when you're speaking I'm
thinking oh okay I can introduce you to my wife who's working on expert that
thing or hey here's a link I can send you from listen this article that might
be interesting for your next podcast guest whatever it is but just something
where training the brain to see connections to see overlaps and then
neuroplasticity means the brain more and more shifts towards seeing those dots
and connecting more of them and then um you know serendipity will happen more
and more >> for for somebody of spirituality
How what would you convey to him or her for purposes of optimally combining
spirituality with serendipity as to find that better intersection between call it
ambition, call it imagination, call it coincidence
and all the rest for a better life going forward.
Well, a lot of serendipity is about that idea of experiencing some sort of flow,
some sort of connection, sense of connection, right? So, when I think
about spirituality, I think about sense of connection. It's it's about, you
know, connecting with something bigger than myself. Um, you know, I'm not
really religious, but I connect with, you know, I when I meditate, when I
connect with nature, when I connect in different ways. So, we all somehow want
to connect with something, right? It can be a god, it can be um some something
else. And so I think there's there's beauty in this idea of allowing
ourselves to connect and then taking that kind of uh you know groundedness
and that connectedness and then you know sharing that with the world. And so we
talked about this in our pre-talk that if you think about a lot of religions
around the world the idea of being kind to others being generous uh you know the
idea of karma that things good things come back to you and that is you know
when you look at serendipity a lot of the patterns are about good things will
come back to you if I make three introductions for a person uh at some
point I get an introduction from them and it it will be wonderful that's not
why I'm doing it because you know I do it it feels good and it's a wonderful
thing to do but also is almost kamayic that good things tend to then lead to
good things. And so I think there's a lot in there where, you know, religions
for a very long time have told us, hey, look, if you're good to other people,
it's more likely that they're good to you. And that's what serendipity is a
lot of times about. It's about connecting dots with each other and
assuming that the other person, you know, is a good person. And I think, you
know, to me, at the end of the day, um, if if there's a kind of macro, uh, theme
that we've been discussing behind what we've discussing, serendipity can help
us make our own lives better. But serendipity is also the kind of thing
that in a world that's so disconnected, that's so, you know, partisan and and so
on. It's a way that helps us again identify the joy between especially
those unexpected connections, you know, seeing the kind of leftwing with the
right-wing person finding out that they have the same passion for black holes in
the metaverse, right? And thinking, "Oh my god, I have more in person with that
common than I thought in common than I thought." And so, you know, as someone
who works a lot in tribal contexts, I'm always fascinated by once people use
hooks or things like that and identify things they have in common, it becomes
much more meaningful and they become humanized and you see, wow, we have more
in common uh than than others. And so, I think that's kind of the spiritual piece
around we are all somehow connected, but we have to find that connection and we
need to make it more likely to find that connection with uh some of those
strategies. Any final messages Christian for our audience?
>> You know, full circle is probably with the Victor Frankl that Victor Frankl, he
was in one of the toughest situations you can imagine. He was in a
concentration camp. He survived the Holocaust and he always wondered, you
know, when he was in a very tough situation, how can I create some meaning
in a situation where there is objectively no meaning? Can I create
some meaning? And so he did things like, can I speak with other prisoners in the
camp? And by doing this, I have a reason now tomorrow morning to wake up because
I still have to speak with people to make them feel better. And by doing
this, I feel better. But also, he still wanted to write his book. He wanted to
get out there and and you know um be there in the world. And so he had a big
meaning as well. So he had he had this kind of duality of meaning in a way. And
I found that very useful. You know when I uh was in New York, we we briefly
talked about it. I you know had just arrived in New York and COVID happened.
Everything got shut down and we had students from around the world, right?
Indonesia, Singapore, Germany, India, you name it. And from one day to the
other, they were all isolated alone in their apartments in a new city and
nobody knew when they would ever get out. And it was just a completely
depressing situation. And I had students ask me, well, what's the point? Like,
why would I continue if we don't even know if the world will still go on the
way we we we want it? and and and so um we tried to think about what are ways
that we can learn from Victor Frankle and imbue meaning and so one of the
things I did with a couple of students was to say can you think about a
neighbor for example who's elderly who cannot get on the app to order food and
who can't go to the supermarket because they will infect themselves every
morning you will order them food so that they have order uh that they have food
on the on the table now you have reason to wake up tomorrow morning now there's
something meaningful to you and so I think this idea creating meaning in
whatever situation is extremely powerful. They made connections with
their neighbors. They had some some wonderful friendships coming out of this
but also they felt much more meaningful. And so the reason I'm saying this is
there's this beautiful clip that I recommend everyone to watch on on
YouTube where Victor Frankl talks about uh the flight instructor and the flight
instructor told Victor Victor if you want to fly like this you have to start
like this because the wind will pull you down. So if you start as a you know
rationalist you end up as a depressionist but if you start as an
optimist you end up as the real realist. And that's really what this is about.
It's about saying you know what the world is hard like believe me like you
know our house is burned down like it's life is really hard and at the same time
is there still something that we can find meaning in because we've been given
this beautiful gift that life is can we now control whatever we can control
focus on that and the rest we accept. I think that's where spirituality comes in
also to to say I I accept the things that I can't change and then I focus on
the things I can change. And so if there's one thing I I would love people
to take from our conversation is let's focus on the things that feel
meaningful. Let's impact them. Let's do something with it. And I think ether the
reason I've been so excited to catch up with you is I feel you've been one of
those people right who has always pushed meaningful initiatives across different
fields and say you know what how can I still do something here and you've lived
different lives right you've now also made that shift towards different
different lives politics business academia right that's that's kind of
those kind of shifts where it's always saying what can I do next is there
something I can still do at this point in time with what has been given to me
and I think that is kind of to me the key thing is yes there's a lot of tough
things in the world and at the same time what has been given to me what can I do
with this what is under the locus of my control
>> great stuff with that on that note we'll we'll have to end this conversation
while I hold this book up Christian thank you so much for gracing our show
>> thank you so much >> friends that was Christian Bush at the
Marshall School of Business at USC and the author of Serendipity Mindset it.
Thank you.