More Luck, More Often

There is no such thing as bad luck or good luck, but there are definite ways that people can seem to produce more luck, or suffer more often from back luck. Much of this has to do with who we are, who we interact with, and how often we put ourselves out there. In the book "The Luck Factor", Dr. Wiseman explains how luck can predicted and opportunies controlled. He uses four principles to explain how to acquire more luck in the future and influence your outcomes with more accuracy than just throwing the dice.

1. Maximizing Chance Opportunities – Lucky people create, notice and act upon the chance opportunities in life. They are more open to new ideas, food, restaurants, experiences, and are constantly introducing vareity and change into thier lives. These lucky people havea larger, stronger network of friends, spend more time talking to people at parties, in line at the grocery store, and have positive interactions with most people they meet. They have a more relaxed attitude towards life and are more aware of what is around them. They will notice coins on the sidewalk, adds in the paper, opportunities to be involved, and look at the world for expectations and opportunities.

2. Listen to Hunches – Lucky people make successful decisions by using their intuition and gut feelings, using intuition to guide thier approach to new opportunities. They take steps to boost their intuition through meditation, creating a quiet place to reflect on the days events, or stop thinking about a problem for a while and come back to it.

3. Expect Good Fortune – Lucky people expect in the future thier dreams and ambitions will be fulfilled and continue in the future. They expect to be healthy and happy, and know they will do well in their jobs. Lucky people expect to have positive influence on other people's lives and expect thier interactions to be positive and successful. As Oprah stated “Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity”. You have to get out and try – avoiding trying is the quickest way to decrease your chance of winning or success. Lucky people tend to try and get what they want from life, even if the chance of success seems slim.

4. Turn your Bad Luck into Good – Lucky people are able to transform their bad luck into good fortune and are more reslient that those unlucky people. Lucky people are convinced that any ill fortune in their life will, in the long run, work out for the best – believe that even negative events will work out well for me in the long run. Lucky people do not dwell on their ill fortune – they let go of the past and focus on the future. Lucky people look at where things went wrong, fix them and prepare better in the future. There is an air of expectation and through preparation (learning from our mistakes) and positive thinking change is possible.

While these four principles will NOT help you win the lottery, it is necessary to state that you can't win what you don't play.

The world that I grew up in has drastically changed. The availability of information, the access we have to everyone around the world, the speed at which the world is moving all have increased the pressure and anxiety in kids. Reading headlines that kids will have 10 – 14 jobs in their lifetime, and that many of these jobs do not exist today would cause stress in my life, let alone a teen that keeps being asked “What do you want to do when you grow up?” We just told them they can’t know, and then we ask them the same question. Divorce rates are climbing, as are the numbers of students coming from one parent, foster homes, or mixed families. As adults, we communicate relatively well with each other, but forget at times that children are often left out of those conversations and need to develop their communication skills. When adults get frustrated with the lack of communication with children they react impulsively rather than responding deliberately to the needs of the young person.
Adults also need to be empathetic to the younger generation. We often forget what it was like and as previously stated we grew up in a totally different world. We often drag our own baggage around with us, not fully resolving our own issues before we start in on solving our children’s issues. Until we have come to some peace and resolution with our own pain, we can not (or at least should not) attempt to heal anyone else. If we are still a wounded healer we will often punish bad choices rather than giving students the ability, time and power to make positive choices and solve their own problems. Archbishop Desmond Tutu echoed:
“We must look on children in need not as problems but as individuals with potential to share if they are given the opportunity. Even when they are really troublesome, there is some good in them, for; after all, they were created by God. I would hope we could find ways to draw out of our children the good that is in each of them.”