Creating Non-Zero Probabilities

When I left my startup and started traveling the world, I became fascinated with a simple principle: creating non-zero probabilities.

Life is a cascade of decisions. Every action we take shifts the probability distribution of what happens next. Inaction is the default dead end; zero chance of anything exciting happening. Only through action can we create a non-zero odds for a future possibility to exist. A non-zero chance. A non-zero outcome. A non-zero future.

This initially seems trivial because duhh, but I think it's surprisingly interesting. Mainly because I think the most interesting lives have a higher standard deviation from normal ones. And that only happens through trying to create non-zero probability for a future state to exist, through betting on non-zero odds. Non-zero could mean 1% or 99%. You don't know until you act.

Piano to Paloma in Prague

When I was selling my furniture in Manhattan, I had a person come to pick up my 88-key electronic keyboard through Facebook Marketplace. Her friend Nicole joined to help her pick up the piano. She was also from the Bay Area, worked in tech, cared about fitness, had traveled to places I was headed. We talked a little. Smiled a lot. I thought she was cute but I was about to disappear for months, so I didn't say anything. The probability for anything happening was now zero.

Two months later, I'm having drinks with my friend Phil in Prague and somehow Nicole came up. He told me I should just text her ... because what's there to lose? Tipsy me was like "yeahhh" so I sent her friend a message and she replied, saying she'll pass it along to her. Boom! In that moment, I created a non-zero probability for that possibility to exist. Could I guarantee that Nicole would text me? No. But I had shifted the odds from impossible (zero) to probable (non-zero). She never texted back. And that's fine. When you're creating non-zero probability, you have to accept the odds might be 0.5%.

Possibility doesn't mean probability.
Possibility is can something exist? Probability is how likely is it to exist?

Seoul to London

In Seoul, I ran into another woman from London my first night. We hung out for a few hours. Good conversation. Easy chemistry. I had no plans to go to London on this trip. None. But then ... impulsively, I told her I'd be ending my trip there. I wanted to create non-zero odds to see her, so I changed my itinerary ... because of a vibe.

Am I hopeless romantic?
‍Yes. But a non-zero probability-creating hopeless romantic.

I landed in London more than a month later and we met up for cocktails. 7:30pm turned into 11:30pm in a blink of an eye. Time disappeared. We laughed until she had tears running down her face. We teased each other. Swapped stories about our messy dating lives in New York and London. Felt aligned on our lives. There should have been a 0% chance for this. I could've just ... done nothing in Seoul and stayed at zero. But acting on my impulse led to a non-zero chance for this future to exist.

Permission to be bold

Maybe something comes out of this. Maybe nothing. That's not the point. It's that we can opt into creating non-zero chances. Like stochastic sampling of interesting future states. Most of the time, that probability may be <50% but if we sample enough, we may end up living a life with very interesting outcomes.

So send that cold email. Slide into that DM. Say hi to that person. Fly to London for a girl. Opt into non-zero future states. Increase entropy a little. You have the permission to be bold. Because probabilities are zero anyway.

PS: If you enjoyed reading this, you may also like this framework I wrote about how I think reality unfolds.