I've spent two decades observing what makes people lucky and trying to help people increase their luck. I teach entrepreneurship (创业学). I know many new enterprises fail, and entrepreneurs need luck.
I spend much time encouraging my students to get out of their comfort zone and take risks. I do this myself all the time. About a dozen years ago, during a flight, I decided to take a little risk. I started a conversation with the man sitting next to me. I introduced myself, and I learned that he was a publisher. I learned all about the future of the publishing industry and we exchanged contact information. So about three quarters through the flight, I decided to take another risk. I showed him a book plan I was doing in my class. Although he was very polite, he said it wasn't right for them.
A couple of months later, I told him I was doing a project on changing the book and invited him to come to my class. So he gladly came to my class. We had a great experience. A few months later, I wrote to him again, sending a bunch of video clips (片段)from another project my students had made. He was so impressed by one of them that he thought there was a book in it. I was a little bit hurt, but it was all right. So I invited him and his colleagues to have lunch together. Later, one of his editors asked me if I had considered writing a book. And I pulled out the exact same plan I had showed his boss a year earlier. Within two years, my book had sold over a million copies.