Strategies for increasing your odds of success

Anyone that tells you that there is a foolproof formula to find success usually has something to sell you. I can't guarantee you'll be successful, but these strategies will increase the odds of becoming successful.

If you follow these strategies you will become more resilient. You'll become more robust. Less fragile.

You won't become invincible! I've followed these strategies for years and I still got laid off (while on paternity leave, no less.)

But! By following these strategies I was able to immediately start a company with a friend, which we've been successfully operating for more than a year now.

Why do you want to be successful

It might seem obvious why we'd want to increase our odds of success. We all want more wins, more opportunity, more connections, more money, more freedom, whatever. But there's something deeper to consider.

Here's a rough timeline of your career. It's missing a few things, but let's go with it.

The further we get from the current moment, the more uncertain things become. And out there somewhere, lurking in the future, are challenges you can't predict. For me, it was losing my income as the sole breadwinner, with four kids under three years old at home.

You'd be well-served to lay the groundwork now for whatever uncertainty might come later.

The day you get laid off is a pretty bad time to start thinking about networking in your industry. Or building a second stream of income. Or writing those blog posts you've been meaning to get around to.

We don't know what's going to happen. That might seem obvious, but it's worth emphasizing.

And because we don't know exactly what's going to happen, we're not even really trying to optimize for one specific outcome. We're trying to optimize for any potential good outcome. We want to become resilient, not invincible. As we move forward in our careers, we want to preserve our options and generate new ones.

Because of the groundwork I'd laid before getting laid off, I was actually in a decent position. The week after I got laid off, I had about 30 interviews already lined up with great companies. After taking every single interview, I felt less panicked. I started thinking bigger. I realized that I'd actually been preparing for something entirely different than just getting another job.

I called my friend Steve and we decided to take the leap and start Try Hard Studios. That was only possible because of the foundation I'd built beforehand.

Let's talk about those strategies. First: become known for a thing.