If You Want to Hit Your Target, Take More Shots

Make your luck

The single most life-altering realization I've ever had is buried under a heap of probability theory.

It's not a secret; every mathematician is intimately familiar with the idea. They call it “trivial”, move on to study virtuoso mathematical feats, and spend no time pondering the staggering consequences of such a short computation. It's hidden in plain sight, obscured by simplicity. Here it is:

If you want to hit your target, take more shots.

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Thinking back on my life, a disproportionate amount of my most significant “level up” moments are underpinned by a single mathematical formula:

As Goethe said,

“Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different.”

This time, we’ll do the opposite: translate a simple mathematical result into a profound life lesson.

I don’t want to be the stereotypical mathematician, so instead of bamboozling you with definitions, theorems, and proofs, let me invite you to an experiment: pick up a six-sided dice, and roll it until you get a 6. (You can use this online dice roll simulator if there are no dice at hand.)

It took me nine attempts, but I got it. You might have gotten lucky in your first attempt, or you had to sit around for fifteen minutes to get one, perhaps cursing the author who convinced you to undertake such a pointless task.

Sorry for that. The lesson is worth the price: it might take a lot of throws, but eventually, you’ll succeed.

I learned this on my skin, not by rolling dice, but by playing Texas Hold ‘em during my spring break, motivated by completing the “Introduction to Probability Theory” course for junior mathematicians, like me at the time. Soon, I saw this idea everywhere.

The more poker hands I played, the more times I was dealt pocket aces.

The more research problems I attempted (and quickly failed), the more I eventually solved.

The more business ideas I tried (and again, quickly failed), the more financial success I had.

The more I posted, the more I went viral.

The more women I swiped right on Tinder, the more matches I got. More matches led to more conversations, which led to more dates, which led to more sex. (I hate to break it to you, but online dating for men works more like e-commerce, instead of a chain of genuine human interactions. Thanks, Tinder.)

The more shots I took, the more I hit the target.

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It took me a while to notice the pattern, but it finally clicked. It's what the formula

has been telling me all along.

But what do all of these mean?