- Joined
- Dec 30, 2003
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"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes
off
your goal."
- Henry Ford
> This is a good one...
>
>
> Why do some people get all the luck while others never get the
> breaks they deserve? A psychologist says he has
> discovered the answer.
>
> Ten years ago, I set out to examine luck. I wanted to know
> why some people are always in the right place at the right time,
> while others consistently experience ill fortune.
>
> I placed advertisements in national newspapers asking for
> people who felt consistently lucky or unlucky to contact me.
> Hundreds of extraordinary men and women volunteered for my research
> and, over the years, I have interviewed them, monitored their
> lives and had them take part in experiments.
>
> The results reveal that although these people have almost no
> insight into the causes of their luck, their thoughts and
> behaviour are responsible for much of their good and bad
> fortune.
>
> Take the case of seemingly chance opportunities. Lucky people
> consistently encounter such opportunities, whereas unlucky
> people do not. I carried out a simple experiment to discover
> whether this was due to differences in their ability to
> spot such opportunities. I gave both lucky and unlucky people a
> newspaper, and asked them to look through it and tell me how many
> photographs were inside. I had secretly placed a large message
> halfway through the newspaper saying: "Tell the experimenter
> you have seen this and win ?250." This message took up half of the
> page and was written in type that was more than two inches high. It
> was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people
> tended to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it.
>
> Unlucky people are generally more tense than lucky people, and this
> anxiety disrupts their ability to notice the unexpected. As a
> result, they miss opportunities because they are too focused on
> looking for something else.
>
> They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner and
> so miss opportunities to make good friends.
>
> They look through newspapers determined to find certain types
> of job advertisements and miss other types of jobs.
>
> Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is
> there rather than just what they are looking for.
>
> My research eventually revealed that lucky people generate good
> fortune via four principles.
>
> They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities,
> make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create
> self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt
> a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.
>
> Towards the end of the work, I wondered whether these principles
> could be used to create good luck. I asked a group of
> volunteers to spend a month carrying out exercises designed
> to help them think and behave like a lucky person.
>
> Dramatic results: These exercises helped them spot chance
> opportunities, listen to their intuition, expect to be lucky,
> and be more resilient to bad luck.
>
> One month later, the volunteers returned and described what had
> happened. The results were dramatic: 80% of people were now
> happier, more satisfied with their lives and, perhaps most
> important of all, luckier.
>
> The lucky people had become even luckier and the unlucky had
> become lucky.
>
> Finally, I had found the elusive "luck factor". Here are my four
> top tips for becoming lucky:
> Listen to your gut instincts - they are normally right
> Be open to new experiences and breaking your normal routine
> Spend a few moments each day remembering things that went well
> Visualise yourself being lucky before an important meeting or
> telephone call.
>
> Luck is very often a self-fulfilling prophecy..
off
your goal."
- Henry Ford
> This is a good one...
>
>
> Why do some people get all the luck while others never get the
> breaks they deserve? A psychologist says he has
> discovered the answer.
>
> Ten years ago, I set out to examine luck. I wanted to know
> why some people are always in the right place at the right time,
> while others consistently experience ill fortune.
>
> I placed advertisements in national newspapers asking for
> people who felt consistently lucky or unlucky to contact me.
> Hundreds of extraordinary men and women volunteered for my research
> and, over the years, I have interviewed them, monitored their
> lives and had them take part in experiments.
>
> The results reveal that although these people have almost no
> insight into the causes of their luck, their thoughts and
> behaviour are responsible for much of their good and bad
> fortune.
>
> Take the case of seemingly chance opportunities. Lucky people
> consistently encounter such opportunities, whereas unlucky
> people do not. I carried out a simple experiment to discover
> whether this was due to differences in their ability to
> spot such opportunities. I gave both lucky and unlucky people a
> newspaper, and asked them to look through it and tell me how many
> photographs were inside. I had secretly placed a large message
> halfway through the newspaper saying: "Tell the experimenter
> you have seen this and win ?250." This message took up half of the
> page and was written in type that was more than two inches high. It
> was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people
> tended to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it.
>
> Unlucky people are generally more tense than lucky people, and this
> anxiety disrupts their ability to notice the unexpected. As a
> result, they miss opportunities because they are too focused on
> looking for something else.
>
> They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner and
> so miss opportunities to make good friends.
>
> They look through newspapers determined to find certain types
> of job advertisements and miss other types of jobs.
>
> Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is
> there rather than just what they are looking for.
>
> My research eventually revealed that lucky people generate good
> fortune via four principles.
>
> They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities,
> make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create
> self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt
> a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.
>
> Towards the end of the work, I wondered whether these principles
> could be used to create good luck. I asked a group of
> volunteers to spend a month carrying out exercises designed
> to help them think and behave like a lucky person.
>
> Dramatic results: These exercises helped them spot chance
> opportunities, listen to their intuition, expect to be lucky,
> and be more resilient to bad luck.
>
> One month later, the volunteers returned and described what had
> happened. The results were dramatic: 80% of people were now
> happier, more satisfied with their lives and, perhaps most
> important of all, luckier.
>
> The lucky people had become even luckier and the unlucky had
> become lucky.
>
> Finally, I had found the elusive "luck factor". Here are my four
> top tips for becoming lucky:
> Listen to your gut instincts - they are normally right
> Be open to new experiences and breaking your normal routine
> Spend a few moments each day remembering things that went well
> Visualise yourself being lucky before an important meeting or
> telephone call.
>
> Luck is very often a self-fulfilling prophecy..
