In 2015 I went to an event that changed my life.

At the time I was running my first start-up, StudySoup. It was an education business.

One of my close friends invited me to an event.

He said, "you're an entrepreneur, you like to ski, you should come to Summit Series with me".

I wasn't sure what he was talking about, but I went anyways.

That weekend changed my life.

It was an invite-only event for entrepreneurs and creators. I was at the bottom of the success totem pole. But for a weekend, I got to hangout with some incredible people.

I met my current business partner at this event. I also met many of my close friends and investors that weekend.

So why am I telling you this?

If you want to make leaps in your career, you need to get lucky. But luck is not random. Some luck is random, but we're going to focus on luck we can control here.

I'm sure you look at some people today and think to yourself "they are SO lucky".

But what if I told you that you can be lucky too? You can manufacture luck.

That's right.

It's called Serendipity.

And anyone can make it.

Here are some ways serendipity has helped me:

1. met my business partner at an event for entrepreneurs

2. made an incredible investment

3. met my fiancee (on a dating app)

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You need a big net if you're going to catch a lot of fish.

One day, you go fishing, and you catch a fish. The guy next to you says "Lucky catch!".

Bullcrap I say.

If I put in the work, and also I show up with a huge net. I'm going to catch fish. There's no doubt about it.

If I don't put in the work, and I show up with a tiny net. I won't catch any fish.

So your goal is to do activities that increase the size of your fish net.

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Twitter helped us find a great investment

Last year my business partner did a crazy thing. He posted his calendar link on Twitter and offered anyone to book a 15-min call with him. Over the next 4 days he talked to 60+ people. It was exhausting and time consuming.

After he completed his calls, he called me and said those calls led to two new investors and two interesting investing opportunities.

We ended up investing in one of those companies and it has become one of our best investments to date.

The following are strategies I've used to increase serendipity in my life (and you should too):

• going to events with interesting people
• building a Twitter and Linkedin audience
• joining a dating app
• cold emailing interesting people

You can't manufacture luck or serendipity by sitting at home and watching shows (sorry netflix). You need to be out in the world, connecting with people and learning things.

Everyone has their own way of creating luck. Try a bunch of things, and find what gives you energy.

For example, I used to dread going to networking events and conferences. I don't like standing around and waving down random people to introduce myself. Not my skill.

But I learned that you can often get an attendee list from the organizers for the event.

I'll email the attendees I want to meet in person at the event and offer to go for a walk or grab a coffee to meet.

People are relieved to have someone to hang out with, and I get to spend some quality one-on-one time with people I may have otherwise not met.

Building an audience on Twitter and Linkedin has had a similar effect for me.

It's like having a large megaphone that I use to share things I care and think about. This pushes away people that are not interested in what I'm saying. And it pulls in people who are interested in what I'm saying.

By the time I'm talking to someone on the phone, they know a lot about me. This allows me to skip the basic intros and dive into the important parts of a conversation.

🔑 What do David Goggins, Chris Voss and Nassim Taleb have in common?

I'll tell you in a moment.

But, speaking of increasing luck...I have a crazy story to share with you.

3-months ago I received a Twitter DM from a friend about a company called Scribe.

He's a very successful author who published his first book with Scribe and is now publishing his second book with them.

He said the company was incredible and working with Scribe on his book changed his life. However, the company hit hard times and all of a sudden laid off 100 people and was going through bankruptcy with its lender.

We dug in to see what was going on.

We found a huge mess left behind by the previous CEO. No financial governance which led to poor decisions. And a lawsuit from investors who claim the CEO had falsified financials and defrauded them.

We also found a world-class team of book writers and publishers working at Scribe. And learned Scribe is the #1 brand in high end self-publishing. There are no other competitors anywhere close to them in quality and brand name.

They've worked with over 1,000 authors to-date. Including some incredibly famous authors like David Goggins, Nassim Taleb and Chris Voss.

The beauty of Scribe is they can help anyone write a book.

I've thought about writing a book for years. But I don't know where to start. I'm not sure what topic to write about. And I don't have time to write and edit a 150 page book.

​​Scribe​ does everything for you.

They interview you, write the book in your voice, and their award winning editors will review it.

Then the team will design and layout a beautiful book and cover for you.

They will also publishing your book on Amazon, your website or a local retailer.

If you want to be a WSJ Bestseller or Amazon Bestseller, they offer a service that can help you reach that goal.

The best part of it is you own 100% of the IP and the royalties and you can get published under one of their publishing imprints, Lioncrest or Houndstooth.

David Goggins sold 5 million copies of his book "Can't Hurt Me". It's listed on Amazon for $23. At this price he would have collected over $100 Million in sales. I'm not sure how much he has collected, but even if the number is half of that, it's a huge number.

Under a normal agreement with a publisher he would have kept ~15% of those sales ($15 million in the example above).

Under his agreement with Scribe, he gets to keep 100% of the $100 Million. That's a big major add for anyone with an audience.

Most Scribe Authors fit into one of these categories: busy Fortune 1000 executives, investors, coaches, ex-Military, real estate agents, lawyers, Doctors and so on.

The purpose of writing a book is not to make money selling the book. Most books will not sell many copies.

The purpose of writing a book is to increase your surface area of luck by establishing credibility in a field.

It is the best business card you can give anyone.

I recently experienced this myself. I read a book this year about family planning and immediately called the lawyer who wrote the book and hired them for my family. I'm confident hundreds of other clients have done the same with him.

You can tell I'm excited about this business, which is why we bought it.

The world is moving away from brands and gatekeepers, and putting power in the hands of individuals and creators.

​Scribe is at the center of this movement.

Everyone has a story, and the purpose of Scribe is to help everyone tell their story.

If you're interested in learning more, you can sign-up for Scribe here. You'll speak with an author success manager who can help you understand the journey of writing your book. If you mention my name on the call, you can receive 5% off any of their services if you sign-up before the end of the year.

Writing a great book will take you 12-months. So if you're thinking about it, it's better to start sooner rather than later. I'm going to kickstart the process for my own book soon. :)

Have a great week!

Sieva

ps: I spend a lot of time writing these newsletters. Do me a small favor and forward this email to a few of your friends. Maybe they'll learn something that will help their life.