See I switched to happier intro music. Too many people complain that the old stuff was too sad. Hopefully that one's a little bit better. But welcome back to the

podcast. This episode is about how fragile the world can be and how small

little flukes that nobody saw coming can completely can

and how small little flukes that nobody saw coming can completely transform your own life.

And heaven forbid this podcast ever turns into just me telling stories about myself.

I really don't think it ever will, but I'm going to break it for this episode.

And this is a story about a complete random fluke that happened in my life 16 years ago, that totally changed everything about my life.

I think it has a good takeaway for everybody and after you listen to this I think everyone

all of you will be able to say oh I have a similar related story about my own life

The takeaway from all these fluke stories is just how fragile the world is

Particularly why forecasting is hard. And everybody knows that forecasting

what's going to happen in the future, in the economy and the stock market, in politics,

whatever it be, the history of that is very bad.

And usually the reason why we are so bad at forecasting

is not because people aren't smart, or because they don't have the right information.

It's because trivial accidents can be influential in your life in ways that are impossible to foresee.

I did a talk with the high school class a few years ago, and one of the students asked me how I decided to become a writer.

And my response was, I didn't. I'd never decided. It was never planned. I never saw it coming.

It was never part of my strategy it just kind of happened and the path that led me here

to become a writer is an absurd story. One night in college I remember it was late, because maybe midnight. I was reading a blog post about a hedge fund manager named Eddie Lampert.

The blog was written by a guy named Shamgan, who I had never heard of.

And I can't remember where I found Sham. guy named Sham Gat, who I had never heard of.

...