👋 Hi Reader!
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This week, we'll explore:

• What Great Facilitators Juggle
• Making Our Own Luck
• Idea Printers

Let's Celebrate Facilitators

Just a few of the things great facilitators juggle — while making it look effortless.

And there are SO many more things, just outside the frame.

Let's Get Lucky

Creating Luck

"I don't believe in pure luck.
You have to create your own luck."
​- Bruce Lee​
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Among the reasons I love helping people and teams move faster is because that forward movement is one of the best ways to disproportionately tilt luck in our favor.
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In honor of St. Patrick's Day last week, here are a few things “lucky” people do more of.
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​1. Take imperfect action​
​Any time we hold back from taking action, we’re blocking opportunities.
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When we move forward, even when we aren’t ready (especially when we’re not ready), we cultivate prime conditions for good things to surprise us.
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Each imperfect step opens new opportunities. So stop overthinking and start moving. (Literally what this newsletter is all about. 😊)
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​2. Say yes more often​
​A lot of advice tells us to say “no” more often, to protect our time and focus.
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And yeah, that's important sometimes.
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But things go in seasons. And I highly recommend seasons of saying yes often, too.
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Because when we say no too much, we’re also saying no to luck. And luck can only take so much rejection before it moves on.
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Some of my best opportunities, both personally and professionally, came from saying yes to things that a more disciplined person probably would have passed on.
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​3. Increase your luck surface area ​
​Make things happen.
Then be sure to tell people you made them happen.
Repeat.
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This concept of "increasing your surface area" was coined by entrepreneur Jason Roberts, and it’s about finding the maximum balance of doing and telling.
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I look at it as the professional equivalent of “buying more lotto tickets.”
The more tickets we have, the better our chances of hitting the jackpot.
(And our odds are way better than the lotto, too.)
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​4. Deliberately accidental learning​
This phrase came from a TEDx talk I did many years ago.
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Sometimes we know what we want to learn, and we go learn it.
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Other times, we take action and learn something as a result — even though we had no idea in advance what that would be.
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I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve learned something valuable in this manner, which later became invaluable.
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​5. The Universe rewards us for making decisions​
This might sound a little woo-woo, but there's truth to it.
(And hey, luck is a woo-woo topic.)
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When we make decisions and finally start moving forward, good things tend to happen disproportionately.
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Interestingly, the rewards don't always come directly. The faster we run towards something, the more luck seems to come at us from an unexpected direction.
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Either way, the decision is a big part of what unlocks it.
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​6. Practice recognizing luck when it shows up​
​The Baader–Meinhof Phenomenon describes when, after encountering a new word, concept, or object, we suddenly start seeing it everywhere.
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Luck works the same way.
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When we pay attention and are grateful for all the luck we experience on the regular, we suddenly start seeing it everywhere.
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And when we see it more, we take advantage of it more.
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​7. Luck favors the prepared​
Edna Mode said this in The Incredibles.
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Wise woman and exceptional superhero-outfit-designer.
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When we prepare, practice, and learn, we’re ready to capitalize on opportunities when they come up.
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And, when we’re prepared, the universe has a way of making them come up more often.
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(By the way, doing any of the above things doesn’t mean ONLY good things will happen. But they do increase the likelihood of good things happening.)
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These “opportunities to create your own luck” were inspired by a conversation with Dan Phan, Amy Groome, Vikram Shetty, and Diana Frank during a recent session of “Jeffersonian Snacks” — the thought salon gathering that I host with a different group every week.
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Huge thanks to them.

Let's Metaphor

The Idea Printer

Likely, you either really love AI tools, or they really give you a headache and you're sick of hearing about them.
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Your mileage may vary, but if you've been struggling to understand what the big deal is (or you've been struggling to explain to others what the big deal is), I've found this metaphor useful.
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Most folks are using AI tools as a really powerful search engine.
The big opportunity is to use them as an "Idea Printer."
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Printers take something intangible and make it real. Early versions of the technology are just so-so quality and then they get a lot better. I had a dot matrix printer as a kid. It was slow and low-resolution and loud. The tech quickly got sharper, faster, and quieter. The same trajectory happened with 3D printers.
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It's in the early stages, but AI is like an "idea printer." For anyone with something cool swimming around in their head, AI can take that intangible thing and make it real.
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Until recently, the only way to make an ambitious idea real was to hire a bunch of other people to help make it a reality. That meant that only people or companies with significant resources could do it.
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Not anymore. Now anyone can "print" ideas that were impossible for a solo person to accomplish. Whether that's an app, a song, a business, a video, an image, or whatever.
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For nearly all of history, most of the population existed to help implement other people's ideas. We're going to see that flip. Most of the population will be regularly implementing their own ideas, and they will need very few other people to help.
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Some people will recognize this shift faster than others, and they are already jumping into "printing" their ideas. But in another ten years, I expect this will simply be the new normal.
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For anyone who has tried, and gotten frustrated — I get it. I was working on something yesterday with Claude Code, and Claude was being exceptionally idiotic over and over.
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Remember, we're in the early days of this. The technology is the worst it will ever be.
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Start playing with it anyway. You'll thank yourself.
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(If this metaphor resonated with you, let me know!)

Smiles,
-Tim-