Undergraduate Blog / Career Development

MaxiMaxing your life: Optimizing luck

Welcome back friends!

Time seems to fly horrendously fast – just under a month more till we’re all back on the BBC (Babson’s Bubble Campus). Unintentional double entendres aside, I hope everyone is excited as I am to start school; there is something about being back on campus that is infinitely desirable for me. I think it’s not having to live in what is, for all intents and purposes, a trap house in Boston – actually scratch that, I’m just looking forward to hanging with my boy/girl/actual beaver Biz E.

As I near the end of my internship (and these blogs!), I wanted to give everyone a hack/tip/mental model/perspective that I have found useful in many aspects of my life. I humbly present to you, for your kind consideration, probability theory. Before you inwardly groan (30% chance) or roll your eyes (75.4% chance), hear me out (103% chance): life can be abstracted into a series of pseudo-random events with varying probabilities. Assuming we are all working towards the nebulous notion of something/nothing (if you have no idea what I’m talking about, click here), then life becomes a simple game of MaxiMax. That’s right, QTMII is actually relevant and useful. What!? Your expensive private college education is worth something???

What a delightful surprise.

So now all you need to do is optimize luck by MaxiMaxing your probabilities of desirable events in life. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t drink take so do yourself a favor and be the dealer for once. Two simple principles:

  1. Always be learning. Read, podcast, put a book under your pillow for osmosis – it doesn’t matter! The more you learn and the more you know, the easier it will be for you to recognise/capitalise on opportunity.
  2. Be responsibly spontaneous and open-minded. This isn’t the banal carpe diem you see on tumblr posts but the practical courage to seize opportunities and take calculated risks when they present themselves. Send that follow-up email. Make an ask. Shia LaBeouf, the famous philosopher, wisely proclaimed “Just do it! Don’t let your dreams be dreams!”.  Absolute fire.

Before I close, my blogs wouldn’t be my blogs if I didn’t provide some sort of tangible takeaway. Stack the deck in your favor with my curated list of business/startup articles I have found ridiculously useful (serious note: it can be overwhelming so reach out if you have a specific question and I’ll find something for you).

POWER! UNLIMITED POWER!

I bet your sermons and therapy sessions don’t provide as much value.

As ever, feel free to reach out with any thoughts, questions or suggestions! Also, don’t be a stranger on campus – please say hi and compliment my writing skills because as a broke and single college student I need all the emotional support I can get.

Best,

Kit