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Today at Get Rich Slowly JD posted a fascinating article called “How to Make Your Own Luck“.  In it, he highlights a Newsweek article by Richard Wiseman titled “What it Takes to Survive“.

The Newsweek article talks about the characteristics of people who survive life threatening situations and why it is not simply random luck.  JD’s article takes this a step further and discusses the topic of luck itself.  Here is the highlight of the article:

    1. Lucky people frequently happen upon chance opportunities. But this is more than just being in the right place at the right time. “Lucky” people also have to be aware or the opportunity, and have the courage to seize it.
    2. Lucky people listen to their hunches. In other words, they listen to their gut instinct. This reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, which argues that often our first instincts are correct.
    3. Lucky people persevere in the face of failure. You’ve all seen that Nike commercial from Michael Jordan, right? “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
    4. Lucky people have the ability to turn bad luck into good fortune. The past couple of weeks have been pretty shitty for me. They’ve sucked. It would be easy to surrender and just give up. Instead, I’ve tried to find the positive, and to build something constructive out of my experience. Instead of focusing on the loss of a close friend, I think, “What can I take from this?” As I wrote and delivered my eulogy, for example, I tried to learn more about speaking in public. (My second eulogy at tonight’s memorial service should be even better.)

    The area of “lucky” and more specifically how our thoughts can impact our lives is something that is vastly interesting to me.  And it is something I plan to write much more about in the future. 

    Creating and seizing opportunities is something I’m trying especially hard to do right now, as the company I work for is currently falling under extremely difficult times due to the economy and is laying off thousands of people.  I don’t know how secure my job is or if I will still have it next years, next month or even next week.  But what I do know is that I will not sit around and wait for “fate” to decide my future.  I’m doing everything I can to show my value at my current job and exploring outside possibilities as well.  If the day should come where I am next in line for the layoffs, I will be ready with plan B.

    My favorite quote is “life is 10 percent what happens to us and 90 percent how we deal with it.  I’m comforted by the idea that I am largely in control of my life and that it is not simply left to pure chance.  If luck is something we create, we all have the opportunity to be as “lucky” as we want to be.

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