A few days ago, the below article in the newspaper caught my eye.

To give you a context: in the state of Tamil Nadu, for decades there were just two parties ruling it – DMK and AIADMK. And then there were a whole bunch of other parties that formed the long tail (statistically speaking, of course). This year, a new political party – TVK, came from nowhere and won the election. DMK came in second and AIADMK at third followed by the long tail. The article above says that MLAs, especially from the AIADMK now feel that the party’s days are over and hence are migrating to the new party.

So, what’s so special about this news item?

I’ll tell you in about 3 parts.

Part 1: Getting lucky

I want to share a couple of ideas from the book: How to get lucky.

The first idea is: lucky people go where the action is. And the second idea is: lucky people rarely follow a set pattern and instead zig-zag through life.

Take Ray Kroc of McDonald’s. He tried many things, failed at many things. He kept going where there was action. Until he hit on McDonald’s. If you watched the movie, there is a scene where he drives thousands of miles just to catch a glimpse of the restaurant that needs so many mixers. If a restaurant needs so many mixers, they probably are doing something right, he tells himself.

…take Ray Kroc. He, too, bounced around. A high school dropout, he started out with his eyes on the goal of a career in music. He played the piano in some traveling bands. Then he switched goals and made some money selling Florida real estate. Then music distracted him again, and he worked for a while as musical director of a radio station. A new selling opportunity distracted him next: He went on the road, selling paper cups. Another goal then loomed up to attract his roving gaze: the goal of having his own business. He set up as a manufacturer’s representative, selling Multimixers-machines that mixed milk shakes. And finally, after all that zigzagging, Ray Kroc hit the jackpot … McDonald’s.

Max, Gunther. How to Get Lucky

Similarly, you may have started your IT Consulting career as an Oracle Consultant. Then when the world pivoted to SAAS, what should you do? Pivot along with the world and switch to consulting Salesforce.com. A few years go by and the world again pivots to AI; don’t wait and pivot again to AI. That is how you get lucky. Stay in one place for too long and you will likely become redundant.

Part 2: Avoiding heavy ideologies

In the book Nexus, Yuval Harari says how people, especially the orthodox kind, interpret writings literally. What may have been said a thousand years ago in a different context are applied exactly as said today. For example, he goes onto say that some people may read the old testament, like the verse below and interpret that the Bible says it’s okay to have slaves (because only if slaves are allowed, you would have an opportunity to not envy your neighbor’s slave).

Exodus 20:17 – “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Another example, he states is of modern day orthodox Jews living in New York that have sabbath elevators in their apartments. Because they are forbidden to work on sabbath day, they don’t want to press buttons in the elevators which is equivalent to using electricity and working. And therefore the elevator keeps going up and down continuously, stopping on every floor. That way, no one needs to press any buttons. See this short video.

I have an uncle who is extremely orthodox. He believes in Rahukaalam which is an inauspicious 90 minutes of the day. And people that believe in Rahukaalam avoiding starting any new task or leaving for work at that time. But if you are already working, then you can continue to do so. A body in motion can continue to be in motion during Rahukaalam.

But like the Sabbath elevator, people like my uncle have workarounds. Suppose, starting from home was unavoidable during Rahukaalam, they would place their footwear outside the house a few minutes before; that way, technically they have left home before Rahukaalam. I don’t know whether to cry about the staunch belief or to laugh at the ingenuity.

Another thing to avoid is extremely intense ideology because it cabbages up one’s mind. You see a lot of it in the worst of the TV preachers. They have different, intense, inconsistent ideas about technical theology, and a lot of them have minds reduced to cabbage. (Audience laughs) And that can happen with political ideology. And if you’re young, it’s particularly easy to drift into intense and foolish political ideology and never get out. When you announce that you’re a loyal member of some cult-like group and you start shouting out the orthodox ideology, what you’re doing is pounding it in, pounding it in, pounding it in. You’re ruining your mind, sometimes with startling speed. So you want to be very careful with intense ideology. It presents a big danger for the only mind you’re ever going to have. 

-Charlie Munger

Part 3: Part 1 + Part 2

Heavy ideologies in investing, in religion and in life tend to box us in. Sure, a box feels safe but there is no wriggle room in the box to zig and zag. And if you can’t zig and zag, how will you place yourself to get lucky, again and again?

Imagine a hypothetical scenario where I belong to a religion that prevents me from working after sun down because ancient scriptures forbade it. They forbade it because there was no electricity then and people mostly lived in jungles where it was unsafe. If I apply that law verbatim to the 21st century, it would mean loss of uncountable hours. But then, you are not allowed to question. Hence, no wriggle room. Therefore, I could never come up with a 24X7 quick commerce idea because my religion forbids it.

I prefer to be a light believer. I take what I like and leave the rest. I follow vegetarianism because I am against killing animals but I will leave out things like Rahukaalam. I believe in god but I don’t believe in 7 births.

I also believe that life doesn’t follow a set pattern and that we need to freely zig and zag. I want to have the freeness and the lightness to go where the opportunities are. This is the kind of lightness that allows you to see Alternating Current as better even though your genius boss is backing Direct Current; it is what allows a Buffett to switch investing styles different from his genius mentor; it is what allows a Buffett and Munger to switch from their existing investment in a Savings and Loan company to a structurally superior Freddie Mac.

We humans are settlers. But when it comes to the world of ideas, you have to be a nomad. There is no settling down; there is no I will make do with the limited ideas I have; there is no I will be happy with what I know. You can’t box yourself in.

As an investor, this kind of lightness free of ideologies is what allows you and me to switch from an opportunity to a better opportunity. Sometimes, you may even need to kill a good idea for a better idea.

Every December, some friends and I gather to discuss what ideas we unlearnt in the year gone by. The ideas themselves don’t matter. However, what matters is our ability to freely discard once-cherished ideas. This brings in that lightness and freeness; it’s like Yoga for the mind. And of course, if time goes by and you realize it was a mistake to discard those ideas, re-embrace them. Ideas don’t have feelings.

On the other hand, heavy ideologies don’t like coming in and going out, or picking what you like. They say: to be one of us, embrace everything. This won’t work for zig-zaggers who wants to get lucky.

I’d rather have unanswered questions than have answers that can’t be questioned

Richard Feynman

People who are right a lot of the time are people who often changed their minds

-Jeff Bezos

In one of my previous blogs, I asked: what kind of an investor are you? And the correct answer is: the one that makes money. Style, method, which guru you follow, don’t matter.

So – be a light believer and in the world of ideas be a nomad not a settler. Feel free to pick and choose what appeals to you. That way you will be unshackled and can embrace what works for you. You will spot opportunities without filters and you will position yourself to get lucky.

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So let’s come back to the politicians switching parties.

People in the media will use phrases like jumping ship, switching loyalties, strange bedfellows etc. That is a superficial and BS kind of assessment. A better way to think is that politicians are being extremely to loyal, to themselves that is. They are not married to a party or an ideology. If anything, they have shown a Ray Kroc kind of lightness.

I’ll leave you with this thought:

The lucky, alert to the luck/planning distinction, are aware that life is always going to be a turbulent sea of opportunities drifting randomly past in all directions. If you put blinders on yourself so that you can see only straight ahead, you will miss nearly everything.

Max, Gunther. How to Get Lucky

Cheers!