Happy accidents

More and more I’m seeing this recurring pattern, not just for myself but for others:

The products that I least expect to succeed are the ones that actually do. Often they are happy accidents.

Big lessons in there:

• By definition, you can’t plan for happy accidents. Once you expect an accident it ceases to be one. Only thing I can do is to experiment a lot and launch small bets, all the while having low to zero expectations.
• Expectations more often than not, get in my way. Setting goals may be common wisdom. But with goals you get expectations. With expectations comes the associated stress, anxieties, frustrations when thing don’t turn out your way. With goals and the expectations of hitting it, you start to narrow down your world into things that you assume are helpful for your goals and things that are not, thereby missing out on real opportunities that emerge from you putting stuff out into the world. These opportunities can get you to financial freedom but just because it seems unrelated to your goals, you are blind to them.
• There are so many great inventions that came about because of chance accidents. Penicillin, for example. A more recent and relatable one – Post-It notes. And often the inventors weren’t even looking to invent that. They were often by-products of the main thing they were trying to invent. The sawdust from the woodwork ended up being more valuable than the woodwork itself. Selling your sawdust is underrated. I often look to the final output and outcome of any creative process as the product, but perhaps I should look more at the through-puts, process outputs and by-products as the product!
• Have fun staying curious. Happy accidents won’t happen if I’m not curious and having fun doing that. I remember I had so much fun creating mini apps as a way to learn coding, and that ended up being plugins for Carrd.

Tl;dr - more happy accidents, less serious plans.