What is luck? Why are some people lucky and others unlucky?  How comes some people always seem to do well while others struggle?  Is there a way to improve your luck or is it just something you are born with?  It’s always been my firm belief that to be lucky, first you must be good.  Recently I have changed my mind a little and realized that there really isn’t any luck in the world, just cause and effect.  In some ways, to be lucky is to be good.  People who are naturally lucky at something aren’t really lucky, they’re naturally good at something.  Is David Beckham lucky because he’s got lots of money?  Not really, he’s got all that because he’s good at football and was smart enough to realize that he needed a good manager.  His manager was smart enough to see the potential of “Brand Beckham” (I assume, it could well have been David or Victoria’s idea for all I know) and savvy enough to make it a reality.  Luck has nothing to do with it.  The laws of the universe are the same for everyone living in it (at least as far as the best physicists are aware).  There is no room for luck in an objective world.

Luck Is In Your Mind

Luck doesn’t exist.  There is no such thing as luck.  There are no lucky people and there are no unlucky people.  Luck is a word that people use to shift responsibility from themselves when they don’t achieve something.  “I was unlucky”.  No you weren’t, you just weren’t good enough, or didn’t try hard enough or weren’t perceptive enough to spot something someone else did.  Quit kidding yourself and take responsibility for your self and your life.

OK, but I was playing poker with a friend the other day and 3 times he picked up strong hands on the last card and beat me.  Isn’t he lucky?  No! There are a few problems here.  Firstly, you aren’t seeing the whole picture.  Poker is a game of skill for a start.  Your friend is playing better than you.  He probably knows the odds or has a feel for the game.  This isn’t luck.  He’s outplaying you for whatever reason.  Secondly, you aren’t seeing the whole picture.  He’s not making massive hands on every deal.  He’s probably not even playing every hand he gets dealt.  The odds of a hand coming up are based on a probability.  The number of possible outcomes versus the number of favorable ones.  These rules apply to every game that’s ever been played.  There’s no reason, unless he’s cheating, for any one hand to be more likely to come up than any other.  Finally, you are remembering the bad beats but not the ones which went according to the numbers.  People are always scared by and remember outliers but they only occur around 4% of the time, assuming the outcomes are natural (or gaussian).  If your friend is making hands, it’s probably because he’s better than you.  Luck has nothing to do with it.  He’s putting himself in a better position to win based on his skill.

So, how is this useful?  I’ve written a post about how to be lucky and the first thing I say is that there is no luck?!  Am I serious?  Absolutely.  The most important thing about becoming luckier is to realize that there is no luck.  Once you do that, you accept responsibility for your actions.  Both your successes and your failures.

What Is Luck

Luck is often being in the right place at the right time.  Luck can also be being perceptive enough to see something someone else hasn’t spotted.  Lucky people know there is no good or bad luck.  They work on their skills to avoid failure.  These are all things that can be worked on.

I used to think that ice hockey goal tenders were more lucky than skilled.  A puck flying close to 100 miles per hour at them and they had to get something in the way of it to stop the team from scoring.  They have to be in the right place at the right time.  However, they can increase their chances of being in the right place at the right time by studying films, practicing on the ice and being in the best possible physical shape they can be.  They weren’t lucky when they stumbled into the gym.  They wanted to be there.  They didn’t guess that Alex Ovechkin was going to go high glove side, they studied his game tape and reacted accordingly.  They didn’t just fall onto the ice.  They decided to go to training.  All these things contribute to their ability to be in the right place to stop the puck from going in the net.  Luck has nothing to do with it.  Occasionally a keeper will make an awesome save and it’s put down to luck.  However, somewhere in the keeper’s mind, processes are happening.  Subconscious processes reinforced by all the training and practice.  They are more likely to make the save because of this.  Luck has nothing to do with it.

Bill Gates was lucky to invent DOS and Windows and run Microsoft.  Not really.  He made smart business decisions and was perceptive enough to spot a marketplace and savvy enough to build a company to take advantage of it.  Calling him lucky is an insult.  Luck had nothing to do with it.  He is successful based solely on his own merits and those that he was smart enough to employ to work for him.

How Can I Be More “Lucky” Then?

Hopefully you have taken the first step by realizing that there is no luck, but taken responsibility for your actions yourself.  Being perceptive is the cornerstone of what people call luck, so how can you be more perceptive?  This takes time and practice.  There are no quick fixes to problems like this. The way to improve yourself in this kind of area is to keep working on it.  The same way you work on muscles in the gym by constantly going back, the same you need to work on your perception, your ability to see opportunities or whatever it is you want to train.

Accepting failure as a result of you rather than bad luck is uncomfortable to a lot of people.  We are conditioned to believe that we are excellent human beings and can’t do wrong.  When something bad happens we put it down to bad luck.  Again, luck has nothing to do with it.  You’ve failed because of a shortcoming in yourself.  The good news is if you are able to accept that, you’re probably able to look at the situation and learn from it.  In the future you won’t make the same mistake.

An example:  Since I write a lot about finance on this blog, I’ll take it from that perspective.  How can I be more lucky in business?  How can I find that one beautiful idea that will make me millions?  The simple answer is conditioning your brain to look for opportunities.  If you want to be a businessman, every time you see a situation, ask yourself how can I make money out of that?  What opportunities does that situation give me?  The more you do it, the easier it will become.  Eventually you’ll spot money making opportunities all over the place and one day you may have an awesome idea that will revolutionize some aspect of someone else’s life.  People will call you lucky.  They’re wrong.  It’s a skill and like any skill it can be developed.

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