on luck, compound efforts & chasm events

5-min read: dot's biggest + latest milestone.

hi friends 👋🏾

i know what you’re thinking- “how nice of you dulra after going AWOL for some time”

thing is the past two quarters of the year have been nothing short of insane, fun, and thrilling.

i’ve never felt more alive yet more overwhelmed before.

my days have been scary yet highly fulfilling.

as she rightfully said, "the days are long but the years are short”

working on dot on some days has been like chewing glass and staring into the abyss and on some other days, like jumping off a cliff and assembling a plane on the way down.

the biggest update- we got the banking approval from a tier 1 bank to launch dot live!

if you don’t know what this means, it means we can now roll out our range of financial services against the backdrop of the bank’s infrastructure. i’ve been working on this milestone since high school lol.

so recently, i’ve been thinking a lot about three things- luck, compound efforts, and chasm events and i thought i’d share it with you guys.

luck

this word drives me nuts! mostly because it has become the mantra for incredibly successful people to downplay the hard work that led to their success.

it has also become the excuse for bystanders to downplay the hard work that led to the success of very successful people/companies.

the ones who are crazy enough to execute attribute their success to luck.

the ones who are on the sidelines use luck to dismiss the success that others put in.

don’t get me wrong- luck is real.

but those who are quick to attribute luck to everything assume luck is a constant.

but if luck is the constant, then it’s something you’re given at the start—fixed, out of your control, and shaping where you begin but not how far you go.

there’s nothing inherently wrong with thinking of luck as a constant, but it can oversimplify its role in success- which is what happens most times.

treating luck as constant implies it’s fixed and unchanging, like a baseline.

so what is it, dulra?

luck is more like a variable that fluctuates and occasionally shows up when least expected. luck can increase or decrease the overall outcome by shifting it up or down

also luck doesn’t increase or decrease over time- it simply varies over time.

if we go back to the equation of a line, luck is that variable that can shift or give a boost at certain points, but it’s your actions and decisions—the slope—that truly shape your path.

yesss, luck might nudge things in one direction, but the steady progress of your own efforts is what determines where you ultimately end up.

luck is a variable and compounding efforts is the slope

compounding efforts

many of us remember compound interests from high school math.

ironically, schools tend to operate on a linear trajectory.

the progress it measures tends to be more linear and segmented.

for instance, you move from one grade to the next based on meeting specific criteria, not necessarily through small, incremental gains that cumulatively build on each other.

outside school, however, compound efforts are magnified.

the teeny-tiny actions you take towards writing that book.

the 20 lines of code you write for the login/sign-up page.

the thank you notes you send after a networking session.

the intro you asked for and lots more.

compound effort is the antithesis of an overnight success story yet the primer for a 20-year overnight success story.

the fact that you don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

but once you cross the chasm, it becomes almost impossible to ignore the results of compound efforts.

it’s next to impossible to ignore Warren Buffet’s wealth today- much of which is attributed to compounding efforts.

another thing about compound efforts- patience. it requires an excruciating amount of patience up to the point where your motivation becomes a mystery to most people.

because no one in their right mind would do the things you’re committing yourself to.

compounding efforts is another phenomenon that defeats the law of diminishing marginal benefit- which says the more you consume something, the less benefit you get from it.

in fact, the more you do it, the more benefit you get from the cumulative compounding outcome.

it’s an exponential curve- increasing up and to the right.

no matter what, do something every day. work hard, make things, move fast.

Hard work compounds like interest, and the earlier you do it, the more time you have for the benefits to pay off. It’s also easier to work hard when you have fewer other responsibilities, which is frequently but not always the case when you’re young- Sam Altman.

chasm events

chasm events are the “go big or go home” moments that redefine what’s possible.

chasm events make the rest of your life look like a footnote.

when they happen, you’re scared as heck but more alive than ever.

they’re the leaps that make you question every choice you’ve ever made.

they’re also the things that make life worth living- they make the compounding efforts absolutely worth it.

whether it’s that decision to switch careers or launch your dream project, crossing the chasm is scary because it takes you from who you were to who you want to be.

chasm events are the rare, high-stakes opportunities that force you to choose between comfort and potential, between doubt and insane conviction. they make you go from normal to irrational in a moment.

when they happen, you’re faced with one big decision- to bet big on your vision, even if others think you’re crazy.

to respond to your chasm events, you need an irrational amount of self-belief mixed with a good amount of self-awareness.

to build something incredibly great, it’s almost impossible to do so without an insane amount of self-conviction.

no one will believe in what you’re preaching if you don’t believe in it.

so if luck is the variable that can shift or give a boost at certain points and compounding effort is the slope- the actions and decisions that truly shape your path, then what are chasm events?

chasm events are what’s on the other side of the equation- assuming i’ve been building an equation all these while.

luck(t) + compound efforts*choices = chasm events.

As we launch dot forward with this approval from the bank, i know we’re not just banking on luck, but on countless days of relentless compounding effort—and the irrational belief that more chasm events lie ahead.