The Luck Factor – Personal Development Book Recommendation
The Luck Factor: The Scientific Study of the Lucky Mind
Learn to be Lucky
The Luck Factor: The Scientific Study of the Lucky Mind is a smart little book that’ll show you how to increase the luck in all areas of your life, including your career, financial situation, health, personal life, family life, and your greatest lifelong ambitions.
Author Dr. Wiseman promises, “making the necessary changes will not be difficult or time-consuming. All you need is a genuine desire for transformation and a willingness to view your luck in a radically new way.”
“In short, this book presents the most elusive of holy grails: a scientifically proven way to understand, control, and increase your luck,” according to Dr. Wiseman.
A Lucky Find in the Bookstore
These are bold statements. And I’m a bit of a natural skeptic. But I’m also full of hope and deeply interested in living a good life. So when I saw The Luck Factor in a bookstore 15 years ago as a college student in 2003, I bought the newly-published book. All these years later, I still benefit from its wise words. Every time I want to add a little sunshine to my life, I’ll flip open a random page, bathe in it’s optimistic wisdom, and get a little bit luckier. I’ve also recently reread the book in its entirety for this blog. I’ll let you know how this book has personally affected my life later in this blog article.
As always, I suggest using your own good judgement to make your own decisions about how to use this information, if you choose to do so. Only you know what’s best for you. And I’m not an expert. I’m just blogging about an exciting and potentially life-changing topic.
It might sound too good to be true: a book that teaches you to be lucky. But the principles written by Dr. Richard Wiseman are all research-based, refreshingly down to earth, and effective.
Practical Tools to Increase the Luck in Your Life
Whether you consider yourself lucky or unlucky, or somewhere in between, this book gives you the practical tools you can use to improve your lot in terms of luck. Of course, there are unfavorable circumstances in the world, in our personal histories, and our current lives that are outside of our control. Also, sometimes the odds are fixed, so for example, this book won’t change a lottery player’s chances of winning. But this book focuses on the many parts of our lives we have influence over, and it gives us tools for successfully dealing with the vicissitudes of life, which is why it’s so empowering.
About the Researcher Dr. Richard Wiseman
Dr. Wiseman is a professor at the University of Hertfordshire in Great Britain, where he heads a research unit within the psychology department. His studies on the subject of luck spanned eight years and were inspired in part by his past work as a professional magician. Dr. Wiseman was described by one Scientific American columnist as ”‘the most interesting and innovative experimental psychologist in the world today.” Dr. Wiseman has written about a dozen books, selling over three million copies, and has had books translated into more than 30 languages. He has given keynote addresses for Google and Amazon. His book The Luck Factor was reviewed by 90 readers on Amazon, earning four stars. Publishers Weekly said, “Wiseman’s upbeat, charismatic tone might persuade even skeptical readers of the transformative effect luck can have on their personal and professional lives.”
Initial Research on the Principles of Luck
Dr. Wiseman explains his research, “involved interviews and experiments with hundreds of exceptionally lucky and unlucky people.” His most important conclusion about lucky people is that, “their success is not due to their working exceptionally hard, being amazingly talented, or being exceptionally intelligent… Instead, lucky people are, without realizing it, using four basic principles to create good fortune in their lives.” These research findings led Dr. Wiseman to create “The Four Principles and Twelve Subprinciples of Luck.”
I applaud Dr. Wiseman for tackling a research topic as unwieldy as luck.
Transforming Lives at Luck School
Dr. Wiseman expanded upon his research by putting participants through a month-long program he calls Luck School. He says of Luck School, “the first stage of the process involves you signing a special “luck declaration”: a simple statement of your intention to try to incorporate certain techniques into your life over the course of a month.” The statement reads: “I want to increase the luck in my life, and am prepared to try to make the necessary changes in the way I think and behave.”
Dr. Wiseman asked each Luck School participant keep a Luck Journal. He directed the participants to, “each day, spend a few moments noting down the lucky events that have happened to you.”
Measuring Luck with Questionnaires
Dr. Wiseman interviewed each participant to learn how luck played a role in each of their lives. He also had each participant complete a Luck Profile (based on their use of the Four Principles and Twelve Subprinciples of Luck), a Luck Questionnaire (identifying each person as lucky, unlucky, or neither, based on self-reporting), and a Life Satisfaction Questionnaire (which rates how satisfied a person is with life in general, family life, personal life, financial situation, health, and career). Dr. Wiseman found high scores on these three questionnaires tend to correlate, as lucky people tend to be satisfied with life and use the principles of luck.
A Month-Long Focus on Improving Luck
Dr. Wiseman then asked each of his research participants to incorporate the “The Four Principles and Twelve Subprinciples of Luck” into their lives for a month by learning about them, applying them, and completing exercises (which can be found in the book).
Dr. Wiseman’s principles are so effective that sometimes it appears as though lucky people are destined to lead charmed lives: “These techniques have the potential to enhance the good fortune that you encounter on a daily basis and enrich your life. They can make unlucky people lucky, and lucky people even luckier.”
These luck principles are, in my opinion, the best part of the book. Dr. Wiseman expands greatly upon these principles in the book, offering helpful insights, research findings, and suggestions. I’ll list each principle from the book below.
“The Four Principles and Twelve Subprinciples of Luck.”
Principle One
Maximize Your Chance Opportunities: Lucky people create, notice, and act upon the chance opportunities in their lives.
- Subprinciple 1: Lucky people build and maintain a strong “network of luck.”
- Subprinciple 2: Lucky people have a relaxed attitude toward life.
- Subprinciple 3: Lucky people are open to new experiences in their lives.
Principle Two
Listen to Your Lucky Hunches: Lucky people make successful decisions by using their intuition and gut feelings.
- Subprinciple 1: Lucky people listen to their “inner voice” and hunches.
- Subprinciple 2: Lucky people take steps to boost their intuition.
Principle Three
Expect Good Fortune: Lucky people’s expectations about the future help them fulfill their dreams and ambitions.
- Subprinciple 1: Lucky people expect their good luck to continue in the future.
- Subprinciple 2: Lucky people attempt to achieve their goals, even if their chances of success seem slim, and persevere in the face of failure.
- Subprinciple 3: Lucky people expect their interactions with others to be lucky and successful.
Principle Four
Turn Your Bad Luck into Good: Lucky people are able to transform their bad luck into good fortune.
- Subprinciple 1: Lucky people see the positive side of their bad luck.
- Subprinciple 2: Lucky people are convinced that any ill fortune in their lives will, in the long run, work out for the best.
- Subprinciple 3: Lucky people do not dwell on their ill fortune.
- Subprinciple 4: Lucky people take constructive steps to prevent more bad luck in the future.
Most Luck School Participants Became Luckier
When the month-long Luck School concluded, Dr. Wiseman interviewed each participant again, to learn how their luck had changed. He retested everyone using the Luck Profile, the Luck Questionnaire, and a Life Satisfaction Questionnaire.
Dr. Wiseman concluded, “in total, 80 percent of people who attended Luck School said that their luck had increased.”
“After Luck School, people’s luck scores revealed that unlucky people had become lucky, and lucky people had become even luckier,” Dr. Wiseman explained, and also many of “the participants had become far more satisfied with all aspects of their lives.” He elaborated, pointing out that “even over the course of just a month, the effects have been dramatic. People have created more chance opportunities, made more lucky decisions, taken important steps toward realizing their lifelong ambitions, and developed ways of transforming their bad luck into good.”
Dr. Wiseman sums up his research findings by pointing out people can “increase the good fortune in their lives by simply thinking and behaving like lucky people.” The way Dr. Wiseman looks at luck is somewhat subjective. If a person believes they are lucky, they tend to behave in lucky ways. And if a person behaves in lucky ways, they tend to be believe they are lucky. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophesy that results in greater life satisfaction.
It’s “all about being in the right state of mind,” he adds.
I’m Luckier Because of this Book about Luck
Personally, I’ve found The Luck Factor has make me luckier. The book has stood the test of time for me, as I still love flipping through it and putting its principles to work after 15 years. This book makes me happy. I’ll borrow a phrase from the movie Clueless: It gives me a sense of control in a world full of chaos. The principles in this book have been useful tools in making me work with what I have to become more optimistic, self-reliant, and achieve luckier results. My life is better because of this book.
Lucky Circumstances
I absolutely consider myself lucky. I’ll let you know a little about my life, just so you understand where I’m coming from. I was fortunate to be born into a relatively good situation as an American with loving parents, a peaceful community, and good health. I live a wonderful yet ordinary life: I’m a happily married 36-year-old woman with a delightful 1-year-old son, amazing family and friends, a Bachelor’s degree in journalism, a full-time job in medical sales, living in a modest house we own in a suburb of Portland. I regularly experience both good and bad luck. I live through all the inevitable highs and lows of life. My life is far from perfect, but overall, I feel luckier than ever. I enjoy actively taking steps to continue to improve my luck. It’s fun, fulfilling, and it feels great. I think it’s important to manage my own luck, whenever possible. When I think back on the key people and successes in my life, most of them came into my life because of luck, in one way or another.
I recently took Dr. Wiseman’s three luck questionnaires to see how I’d score. The Luck Questionnaire classified me as lucky. The Life Satisfaction Questionnaire gave my results on the high end of the medium range. On the Luck Profile, based on the use of the Four Principles and Twelve Subprinciples of Luck, I scored well on ten principles. But I got lower marks on two principles: “Lucky people have a relaxed attitude toward life” and “Lucky people do not dwell on their ill fortune.” I know I could benefit from being more content, peaceful, and relaxed. I’ve found it’s helpful to remind myself to “love and trust” life and also “enjoy” the moment. But I’m grateful I scored well overall. I’m motivated to improve my Life Satisfaction and those two areas of my Luck Profile, especially after putting in all my efforts to study this book, write this blog, and remind myself of the luckiness I’ve developed over the years.
The Positive Effect of the Four Luck Principles in My Own Life
The following describes how each of the four luck principles have improved the quality of my life.
Principle One: “Lucky people create, notice, and act upon the chance opportunities in their lives.”
For me, this luck principle is all about noticing the abundant opportunities all around me, acting upon them, and enjoying the process. I met my husband through a friend of a friend through a Rotary club, and immediately upon meeting him, I knew he was an exceptional person. I met many of my close friends through random chance opportunities. I’ve found I usually get my best results when I err on the side of “too friendly” in both personal and work situations. I identified and obtained several of my favorite jobs, like my current one, through chance opportunities and social connections. I like the idea of figuratively “rolling the dice” in life and seeing what good thing might result. I’ve also stumbled across some ideas that have dramatically changed my life for the better in the areas of personal development, nutrition, and finance. I have a wonderful network of family and friends who I love to spend quality time and celebrate life with. I find I’m luckier as I support and love these people, and graciously accept the support and love they give me. I seem to be luckier in these ways when I genuinely enjoy myself, trust life, and put myself out there.
Principle Two: “Lucky people make successful decisions by using their intuition and gut feelings.”
I’ve always been aware of the power of the “inner voice”, that I, and everyone else, has. I see it as a deep well of inner wisdom. I regularly take steps to boost my intuition by taking good care of myself, exercising, journaling, lighting a candle, connecting to my spiritual source, spending time in nature, practicing gratitude, and socializing. The world is full of mixed messages, which can sometimes be confusing. I try my best to recognize and minimize my own superstitions and unhelpful fears. Also, I’m constantly cultivating my ability to tap into my lucky hunches, listen to them, trust them, and design my life around them. Obviously facts, logic, and research are important, but intuition is also a useful tool; I prefer to use a combination of them all. Practicing this skill of trusting and acting upon my lucky hunches has increased my luck and happiness by helping me identify goals and achieve them, including big decisions like becoming a mother, as well as smaller decisions like what I intend to accomplish today.
Principle Three: “Lucky people’s expectations about the future help them fulfill their dreams and ambitions.”
First and foremost, I always try to imagine my future self as happy and grateful, no matter what, no matter the conditions or duration of my life. With that being said, ever since I was young, I’ve had a philosophy that one should “think big, because we are more powerful than we know.” I still feel the same way. I often think about the future and what I want to accomplish during my lifetime. Many of my visions for the future will take decades to accomplish, and some of them exceed my lifetime and involve a legacy that is beneficial to others. Many of my goals are more short-term. I’ve discussed some of my ambitions with people in my life, and listened to their dreams, so we could align our goals, support each other over the years, and be lucky together. I think it’s important to go after what I want; I think everyone should. After all, as Wayne Gretzky and Michael Scott from The Office say, “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” I think it’s key to imagine a beautiful future for myself, and for other people, because as the late motivational speaker Earl Nightingale said in The Strangest Secret, “you become what you think about.” Also, because I know the general direction of where I’m headed, I’m more likely to develop realistic plans, mutually beneficial relationships, and the flexibility to accomplish my goals for my future self, even when there are challenges to overcome. In general, I get the luckiest results when I live as if the universe is inherently friendly.
Principle Four: “Lucky people are able transform their bad luck into good fortune.”
Overall, I was born into favorable circumstances, with a lot of things working in my favor. And that luck has continued throughout my life. I’ve been fortunate overall. But I have had some bad luck too. Occasionally I’ve experienced truly unlucky circumstances, embarrassing failures, and deep disappointment in myself. Some of my unlucky experiences have been heartbreaking. Some obstacles I’ve been able to work through, while some I truly have no control over. Not easy stuff to deal with. But I think big juicy problems are at the heart of the human experience. It has been helpful for me to embrace any all of my bad luck and failures, learn from them, love life and love myself anyway, and move into the future with hope and optimism. My less-than-lucky experiences have taught me a lot, kept me humble, made me resilient, and oftentimes things have unexpectedly worked out for the best. I try to do my best with the figurative cards I’ve been dealt, because like the Roman philosopher Seneca said, “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” I’m most effective at turning bad luck into good when I persist, take responsibility, work hard, forgive, look for the bright side, sneak in some fun, and focus on the outcomes I want to achieve. I think the struggles in my life have made me a better, and yes luckier, person.
Where to Get Your Copy of The Luck Factor
The Luck Factor can be found at bookstores, online booksellers, and libraries. You can get a hardback copy on Amazon for about $10. I love having a printed copy of this book as a reference. Amazon also sells an audiobook version for about $15. There are a few books called The Luck Factor; this is the one by Dr. Richard Wiseman. I don’t get paid anything for blogging about this book. However, it would be nice if my blog, or my writing in general, brought an income someday. I did obtain permission from the author, Dr. Richard Wiseman, to post this blog article and use his quotes from his book.
You Can Improve Your Luck Too
I think it’s wise to think of yourself as a lucky person. Based on this book and my personal experience, luck seems in many ways, to be a self-fulfilling prophesy. However you decide to proceed with this information, I wish you all the luck in the world. May fortune smile upon you.
There’s so much more that I could say about how this book has enhanced my life. But I’ll let Dr. Wiseman have the final word: “Your future isn’t set in stone. You are not always destined to experience a certain amount of good fortune. You can change. You can create far more lucky breaks and greatly increase how often you are in the right place at the right time. When it comes to luck, the future is in your hands. And it starts right now.”
