Publishing your work increases your luck

The page says luck is an unexpected good thing, and that publishing your work increases the odds of meeting it. It uses the idea of a “Luck Surface Area” to connect doing things with telling people, since both raise the chance that others notice your work.

Reading notes

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• Luck is defined as something unexpected and good that happens to you.
• Publishing your work increases the number of opportunities for good luck to find you.
• Working in public builds reputation, a track record, and a public body of work that can speak for you.
• The “Luck Surface Area” idea says serendipity grows with the amount of work you do and the number of people you tell.
• If you are already doing things, you may need to reframe work you think is unremarkable because others do not know it yet.
• If you want to start, begin with the smallest thing and get moving instead of waiting for a perfect idea.
• Curiosity can lead you to share projects outside work, and expertise can turn work problems into posts, talks, meetups, podcasts, or open source projects.
• If the exact details of work are not shareable, the concepts, lessons, and takeaways often are.
• Telling people about what you make is part of the process, and publishing can happen on GitHub, a newsletter, a podcast, forums, a blog, YouTube, or anywhere off your hard drive.
• Publishing is a skill that can be learned, and sharing wins, losses, and thought processes along the way helps bring people along.
• After publishing, people may start to recognize you, contact you about work, invite you to speak, ask for your services, or connect with you as peers.