Success: what's luck got to do with it?
We attended the IBM SmartCamp finals in London last Thursday, where Level 39 CEO Eric Van der Kleij gave a keynote speech on success. He ended by saying: “be successful and be lucky.” These words got us thinking: What does it mean to ‘be lucky’? How much does luck actually contribute to one’s success? And is luck self-created?
Richard Wiseman conducted a decade-long study of 400 people. He found that ‘unlucky’ people are more anxious and more focused on specific situations and outcomes, they miss opportunities because they’re too busy looking for something else. By extension, he posits luck is largely self-created.
Chance and luck ‘are created’ by being very observant and analytical, by creating positive situations for yourself. How is this done? Wiseman says that lucky people are more open-minded, have a skill of creating and noticing chance opportunities, make decisions by listening to their intuition and create self-fulfilling prophecies through positive expectations and resilient attitude that transforms bad or just decent luck into good.
So luck is more than just a golden horseshoe or a rabbit's foot; it is a combination of hard work and risk-taking, resilience and optimism, blind faith and the belief that everything will work out. By changing your perspective for creating positive circumstances you actually can become more lucky.
What have you done to create your own luck?
Let us know by tweeting @somewhere with hashtag #luckyme or email us at [email protected].
Our favourite Sparks from last week:
Anu launches a new blog for Digital Science https://www.somewhere.com/anu/sparks/22909
How Felipe landed his social media job by asking questions https://www.somewhere.com/fepacheco/sparks/22845
Tina getting her work done in her home office https://www.somewhere.com/tmariehilton/sparks/22830
Aaron wraps up another composition https://www.somewhere.com/AaronHNahum/sparks/22818
AND We loved seeing all your business cards https://www.somewhere.com/provocations/189
