Book Review: Make Your Own Luck

This is a book review of Make Your Own Luck by Bob Miglani and Rehan Yar Khan.

This was an interesting read for the ideas it presents on tilting luck in your favour. Who doesn't need luck!
It's written from the perspective of two people; one a Corporate citizen and other entrepreneurs, both trying to make it big and succeeding in their endeavors.

Bob was a senior executive in Pfizer before he decided to take plug into the startup world. Rehan started as an entrepreneur; his bigger successes are as an angel investor in some startups like Ola Cabs and Dhruva.

Here are my key takeaways from the book and quotes from the book

Be Obsessively curious

Learn. Get deeply immersed in a specific area, even if it doesn't have a compelling reason for the short term return. Unique opportunities are only found when you are in search of knowledge and understanding

In your quest to learn, do not be afraid of calling successful people.

TIP (From Rehan): If there is a phenomenal founder, he/she will find a way to make the company successful.

Give. Create Value. Solve a problem for others.
When you give, you will receive
Figure out what problem can I solve? who can I serve? what value can I create for this specific person? (Talk to people to see if the problem needs to be solved)
Luck is accelerated when a value is created


Diverge. Take the road less traveled.
Biggest destroyer of startups: Marketing expense of customer acquisition. You have to spend a lot of money to acquire a customer in a crowded market.

Be unique. Find your niche. Be different. Niche attracts customers.

Find an unexplored area and go deep. Learn, understand, get a granular and laser-like focus on a specific field and become a master - at the smallest and narrowest part of your industry. Once you do that you will have people asking you advice, thoughts and ideas

Have a beginners mindset
A full cup can't be filled with more knowledge.

Recognize that what got you here won't take you there.


Do what is hard
Smooth seas never made a skilled sailor
The hard path creates a moat. To accelerate the chance of success/luck, always choose the hard path. You know it is hard when it scares you and makes you uncomfortable.
Force yourself to delay gratification

Practice Randomness
Proactively reach out to people you wouldn't normally meet
Don't allow the mind to tell you that it won't work. Try first. It's ok to fail.
Make a conscious effort to try a non-traditional approach.
Expand the diversity of the pool of people you deal with.
Say yes to speaking to people or going to places which seem unrelated to what you are working on
Overshare your thoughts with random people.

Have multiple Plan As
Always be experimenting
Key: Try 2- things with a limited budget at the same time.
Make small bets on multiple initiatives and implement them simultaneously


That is a good book! Highly recommended