Never Eat Alone, Expanded and Updated: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time

by Keith Ferrazzi

You may not be able to rearrange your office floor plan, but you can similarly design your own life to maximize serendipity, with a little awareness. You’ll have to leave time on your schedule for things that in the moment may seem so far removed from your immediate goals that they seem silly—a trip to the park, coffee with an old classmate, going left when you would normally go right. Say yes to new experiences when you would normally say no. The key is in adopting the attitude that this effort isn’t a distraction or even a diversion, but is, in fact, contingent on your success. In the book Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck, my old friend Tony Tjan and his coauthors studied people they called “Luck Dominant,” and found that 86 percent of them credited their success to “being open to new things and people.”