Luck

The unreality of luck (aeon.co). Luck judgments are a matter of perspective…The more optimistic someone was, the more likely she was to judge people in the example vignettes as lucky. Likewise, the more pessimistic someone was, the more likely she was to judge the people in the vignettes as unlucky. One of the things this means is that the more optimistic you are, the more you think others are lucky. If you are more of a pessimist, you’re likelier to see others as suffering bad luck.

Our judgments about luck are inconsistent and changeable, the predictable result of framing effects and idiosyncratic personality traits. They raise the serious possibility that ‘luck’ is no more than a subjective point of view taken on certain events, not a genuine property in the world that we discover.

How to Be Lucky (nautil.us). One might ask, do you consider yourself lucky because good things happen to you, or do good things happen to you because you consider yourself lucky?

Psychology studies have found that whether you identify yourself as lucky or unlucky, regardless of your actual lot in life, says a lot about your worldview, well-being, and even brain functions. It turns out that believing you are lucky is a kind of magical thinking—not magical in the sense of Lady Luck or leprechauns. A belief in luck can lead to a virtuous cycle of thought and action. Belief in good luck goes hand in hand with feelings of control, optimism, and low anxiety. If you believe you’re lucky and show up for a date feeling confident, relaxed, and positive, you’ll be more attractive to your date.

Luck on demand by Seth Godin. Luck over time is inevitable.

How to Make Your Own Luck by Mark Manson. Lucky people have specific behaviors and mindsets which cause them to encounter far more opportunities and advantages than others on average. You can, in effect, train yourself to become a lucky person, if you so choose.

No, A Shamrock Won’t Bring You Luck (scientificamerican.com). Researchers hypothesized that the people with the lucky charms persisted at the problems longer because they felt more effective—like they had the assistance of something outside of themselves. People feel empowered when they think that someone, or something, is helping them so they actually do better at the task at hand.

Some people are born with advantages, some people are naturally outgoing or optimistic, and some events happen to us that are outside our control. But we can always do something to build on what we do have. It starts with having a “lucky” attitude toward life.

The thought father: Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman on luck (standard.co.uk). The bonuses that they received were, therefore, rewards for luck, even though they found ways of interpreting it as skill. “They were really quite angry when I told them that,” he laughs. “But the evidence is unequivocal — there is a great deal more luck than skill involved in the achievements of people getting very rich.”

Why brilliant people lose their touch (timharford.com). This is not to say that skill doesn’t matter — merely that in a competition in which all the leaders are highly skilled, randomness may explain the difference between triumph and failure. Good luck plus skill beats bad luck plus skill any time.

If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? Turns out it’s just chance. (MIT Technology Review). It is evident that the most successful individuals are also the luckiest ones,” they say. “And the less successful individuals are also the unluckiest ones.”

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