Two weeks ago one of my posts went bacterial (nobody wants to talk about virality these days), eventually being seen by the equivalent of Wembley stadium at full capacity. People have volunteered several reasons why this post about buying coffee attracted so much interest:

It was relatable. It was well written. It resonated with how we all feel about technology. There was pragmatic advice. It questioned the status quo. These might be true — thanks by the way! — but they're not the reason.

There was nothing especially interesting about the post. It was stylistically identical to most others I’ve written. It wasn’t consciously trying to tap into a cultural talking point. Instead, its success was mostly random.

In reality, life is a numbers game. If you take enough swings — assuming a decent level of competence — eventually a hit will go out of the park. The best way to have good ideas is to have lots of ideas. Yet we are often so focused on efficiency that we forget to keep putting stuff in the top of the funnel.

Looking for silver bullets is vastly overrated. Often we just need to keep going until we get lucky.

The post did demonstrate one crucial point however: success on Linkedin is possible without being emotionally incontinent. Hooray!

See this post on LinkedIn