Are You Feeling Lucky?

When things don’t go as we like, it’s easy to blame bad luck—it spares us from blaming ourselves! But a Wall Street Journal article* calls that idea into question. The writers, Janice Kaplan, and Barnaby Marsh, assert that luck is a combination of random chance, talent, and hard work. They suggest that attributing success to random chance is misleading, and if we think luck is somehow going to fall from the sky, we’re probably not going to get lucky or recognize it if we do.

Improve Your Odds of Success

Although there isn’t much we can do about random chance, there are things we can do to influence the other factors that contribute to “luck”:

• Pay attention: Be more observant of your environment and increase the probability that you will notice opportunities.
• Get off the standard path: Stop following the herd. Get off the beaten path and look for a less crowded space to occupy. The outliers tend to find what others have missed.
• Change the odds: One of the best ways to improve your luck is to stop worrying about failure and take more chances. Keep trying and accept that failure will happen—it’s part of the process. The more times you swing the bat, the better your odds of hitting a home run.
• Think yourself lucky: Psychologist Martin Seligman, author of Learned Optimism, says that if he were looking for a lucky person, the number one ingredient that he would select would be optimism. Believing that you have some control over what happens to you and your life causes you to try more often.

The writers conclude that many of us act on only a fraction of the opportunities around us. We can increase our odds of success by paying better attention, getting off the beaten path, and thinking of ourselves with a positive mindset.

Grant Cardone’s book; The 10X Rule says luck is a byproduct for those individuals who take the most action—in other words, those who completely commit themselves to success seem to get lucky in life. It takes hard work and effort to generate luck.

Are you feeling lucky in your business? Do you want to put talent, knowledge, experience, and hard work together to increase your odds? Contact us at 503-312-3145 to put our 40-plus years of C-level business experience to work for you and increase your odds of getting lucky.

garyfurr@garyfurrconsulting.com

* “Make Your Own Luck,” Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2018.