The idea of luck is controversial. Some people say it’s just dumb luck, like the flip of a coin or the Powerball, whereas others would call it serendipity and think people can influence their luck — if they think and operate the right way.
One thing that you can’t argue with is that every time you hear a successful person talk about their business, every time you read their book or see them on “Shark Tank,” they all consider themselves lucky.
Someone who hears that might think, “You’re just saying you’re lucky because you’re rich and successful. You call yourself lucky after the fact.” But they had to get there from somewhere.
They gave themselves the right opportunities; they had the right mindset — a successful person has to have a successful, positive mentality. A negative person is not going to get very far in life.
Another thing all successful people have in common is that they all feel they have made the right decisions. When something bad does happen, they just pick themselves up and stay positive.
The fact of the matter is, successful people aren’t lucky because they won the lottery, or had some other windfall of dumb luck; they created their own luck because they were positive and did the right things.
They kept telling themselves they were getting luckier and luckier every day and that they deserve good fortune and success — as a result, that’s what they got.
“Luck” is a funky word and concept. Because of things like coin tosses and rolling the dice, people think there is no reasoning behind it. But that’s not true. If one thing out of 100 goes well, you might call that one thing lucky. But what if that one thing is starting a successful company and the 99 companies before it were failures?
“The Luck Factor,” an e-book by Dr. Richard Wiseman, discusses this concept, and some of its bullet points are things like:
- Lucky people consistently encounter opportunities.
- Lucky people make good decisions.
- Lucky people’s dreams, ambitions and goals have an uncanny knack of coming true.
- Lucky people have the ability to turn their bad luck into good fortune.
Think about operating like that every day. As you go through your day, you see 15 great opportunities. It’s not hard to make good things happen when that’s how you view the world and see yourself and the people around you. When something bad happens, you just see it as a learning experience.
We believe that you can learn to be lucky. Start by reading “The Luck Factor,” take the points you like the most, make Post-it notes or signs and put them up where you will see them every day.
Also, hang out with successful people who consider themselves lucky. If you put yourself in that environment, it will rub off on you.
Chris Haddon is an entrepreneur based in Washington, D.C., a partner at Hard Money Bankers and a co-founder of REI360.net.