How to Be Lucky

Luck takes a lot more than clovers, but they can't hurt either. Learning to embrace opportunities and create your own luck can be the difference between a successful, fruitful, and happy life, and passively waiting around for something good to happen. e best spaghetti bolognese you've ever made last night for dinner, or maybe you're feeling proud for getting out and going for a run when you didn't really feel like it. Celebrate!

Don't compare your success to the success of others. It's easy to get down on yourself by minimizing your successes, saying, "Yeah, so I got a bonus at work. My friend Bill invented the most popular iPhone app of all time." So what's that got to do with you?

Step 5 Avoid behavior loops.

5

Avoid behavior loops. Over time, we've learned to make automatic decisions and reactions that keep us locked in feedback loops of behavior. We're often not conscious of the decisions we make, and certain status-quo elements of our life that may seem unchangeable are really easy fixes, once you recognize your behavior patterns.

Maybe you always turn down after work drinks. Give it a shot next week. entify your patterns and shake them up.

Step 6 Be positive and generous with your time.

6

Be positive and generous with your time. Lucky people are people we all like to be around, because the wealth seems to benefit everyone. Become the kind of person people want to get a piece of by being more positive and generous withenough" job will never ensure lasting success and luck. Going above and beyond, following through your work efforts and seeing things through to completion will.

Spend less of your time worrying whether or not you made a good impre and connect their thoughts and experiences.6

Be proactive. Make the first efforts at making things happen. If everyone sits around complaining about the lack of hot dog carts in your town, you could all wait for someone to have the idea you've already had, or you could get cooking.

Do it now. Don't set plans for some shadowy, maybe-ish date at some point in the future. Do it now. Five minutes ago. Today.

Step 7 Be assertive...

7

Be assertive. If you want something, don't be afraid of it. You're letting yourself off the hook of youve you space to manage your focus, interests and creative energies. Treat this time like a business meeting with yourself. Block it out in your calendar and use it to create, write or envelope yourself in an area that excites you.

Employ daily serendipity practices. There are simple tools that can further help you notice, maximise and exploit serendipity in your daily life. For example, there’s the ‘serendipity hook strategy’ (whenever you meet someone new, cast a few hooks – concrete examples of your current interests, hobbies and vocation, thus maximising the chance you and the other person will latch on to common ground and shared passions, triggering serendipity). Similarly,

ssion on a first date, or if your boss is pissed at you because of some difficult-to-interpret email. Talk to them. Open channels of communication and be open about your confusion and your emotions. Thenng on a piece of space debris. Think how boring that would be. Learn to be enthusiastic about what's going on in your life and the opportunities you have. If you're dissatisfied with the way things are going, use that dissatisfaction as an opportunity to do what you want. Start a band. Learn to play pool. Climb mountains. Stop making excuses and start mf good luck and fortune.

Finding acorns was an old Norse tradition, because oak trees attracted lightning, the sign of Thor. Holding acorns, then, was a way of keeping yourself safe from Thor's rage.

Some cultures value bamboo as an aid to

for example, coming across an old book in a bookshop that triggers the idea for a new podcast). These ‘calm sources’ often lead to serendipity. What’s more, different personalities complement one another. If you’re the strongest introvert on your team, know that you c

If you always feel the need to head out with your coworkers as soon as 5 o'clock rolls around, consider heading to the gym instead and lifting weights for an hour or two. Idould be key to unlocking serendipity for your more garrulous colleagues, helping them to reflect upon

you could practise asking questions differently (eg, ‘What are you most interested in at the moment?’ instead of ‘What do you do?’), which will again maximise the opportunity for serendipitous connection.

Finally, try ‘reframing’ mistakes, challenges and setbacks as opportunities. For instance, I used to beat myself up over a misjudged investment decision, yet I came to realise that the experience had taught me a lot and helped guide many of my future decisions.

Stop waiting. Make your own success. Grab luck by the collar by learning to set firm goals for yourself and meet them by working smarter, not by working harder. See Step 1 for more information.

Part

1

Making Your Own Luck

Step 1 Define luck for yourself.

1

Define luck for yourself. We usually think of luck as

-described ‘unlucky’ person, on the other hand, failed to notice the money or talk to the businessman. Later, the researchers asked both participants how their day had been. The ‘lucky’ person reported having had a great day – he’d found money in the street, and made a new friend (who might lead him to additional opportunities). Meanwhile, the ‘unlucky’ person described her day as uneventful. So, although both participants had the same chances, only one was able to ‘see’ them.

Such an experiment – while lighthearted – shows that your mindset, and how you think about possibility in your life, can affect your ability to be alert when opportunity occurs. In fact, the terms ‘unexpected’, ‘extraordinary’ and ‘unlikely’ are misleading because accidents or coincidences happen all the time. But we must be able to see the opportunity in the moment.

Although being alert to the unexpected is vital for creating smart luck, there is another key factor: preparation. This is partly about removing the barriers to serendipity, both mental (your mindset) and physical (the spaces you live and interact in), such as: overloaded resentment, forcing you to see other people's good fortune as the result of good luck rather than good choices.

Think of luck as an emotion, more than a certificate or a ticket that gains you access to some exclusive club. Just as you decide to be happy, you can decide to be lucky and become willing to change your behaviors and create opportunities for success yourself, rather than waiting for changes to happen.

Step 2 Take advantage of opportunities.

2



Take advantage of opportunities. If you're busy waiting for things to be perfect, you're going to wait a long time. Learn to recognize opportunities when they arise and improve your chances by embracing the opportunities you do have.

If you get a big project at work you feel unprepared to tackleschedules; senseless meetings; and the inefficiencies throughout your day that rob you of time, curiosity and a sense of joy. You can prepare by strengthening your mental readiness to connect with opportunity, and creating an environment that enables the use of your skills and available resources to act on the moment. An unprepared mind often discards unusual encounters, thereby missing the opportunities for smart luck. But this is a learned behaviour. Preparation is about developing the capacity to accelerate and harness the positive coincidences that show up in life. In this Guide, I will show you the basics of how to do this.

Recognise and challenge your biases

Our habits of thought and preconceptions about the world can make it difficult to spot or harness serendipity. They shape our behaviour and how we interact with the world. There are three major biases that will require the most attention to overcome if we’re to effectively cultivate serendipity: underestimating the unexpected; hindsight bias; and functional fixedness.

Underestimating the unexpected. It’s natural to underestimate the unexpected, but when you do, you tune out opportunities to create smart luck. Yes, it’s unlikely that, on the day of your big presentation, Zoom crashes. It’s unlikely that the person who

the success you do have.

Make a point of congratulating others when they do a job well, or when something good comes their way. A little note of congrats can go a long way.

Volunteer your skills, even with small things. If you're wondering why nobody is clamoring at your door to help you move, try to remember all the moves you've flaked out on over the years. Next time, volunteer your afternoon and your truck and see if your luck doesn't change.

Part

2

Setting Goals & Working Hard

Step 1 Make your own deadlines.

1

Make your own deadlines. Whether it be work or social goals, learning to set hard deadlines for yourself can make all the difference in the world. Even if nobody is looking over your shoulder, learning to make yourself follow through and finish a project will keep you productive and fortunate. You'll feel like you're on top of things instead of struggling to catch up all the time.[1]

Give yourself a list of littl

related to fertility.

Early Christians thought of the dolphin as a protective animal, and sailors often used the presence of dolphins to portend good news or a quick and safe trip home.

Frogs have been considered lucky animals in many cultures, including ancient Rome and Egypt. The Mojave believed that the frog gifted man fire. Frogs symbolize inspiration, wealth, friendship and prosperity.

Tigers and Red Bats are commonly thought of as being lucky an

something that's out of our control, expecting something or someone to descend on us from the clouds and improve life for us. But fortune and fame don't come to the passive. Waiting around for luck instead of creating it for yourself can create negativity and , you could either consider that a stroke of bad luck, gripe to your coworkers, and make excuses for yourself, or you could consider it an opportunity to shine in a big way. Think of it less as having to do with luck and more as an opportunity to succeed.

Step 3 Be open to change.

3

Be open to change. As you get older, it becomes easier to become stuck in your ways. Repetition and habit is comfortable, but learning to accept the possibility of making change, even small change, will keep you receptive to opportunities

let it go.

Step 4 Raise your expectations.

4

Raise your expectations. Pump yourself up. Be the best you can be. What's good enough for you? Could your answer be more? Making yourself strive toward the things you really want, you'll create fortune in place of excuses.

Step 5 Work smarter...

5

Work smarter, don't work harder. Learning to be efficient in your efforts will help you stay enthusiastic and energetic regarding your goals. You'll be in the mood to do more if the work you do is as easy as it could possibly be.

Get partners. Learning to delegate tasks and ask for help when you need it makes jobs easier.

Step 6 Be proactive...

Need to know

Human beings find comfort in certainty. We form governments, make calendars, and create organisations; and we structure our activities, strategies and plans around these constructs. These routines give us the satisfaction of knowing that, by having a plan, there’s a means of it coming to fruition.

But there’s another force, constantly at play in life, that often makes the greatest difference to our futures: the ‘unexpected’ or the ‘unforeseen’. If you think about it, you already look out for the unexpected every day, but perhaps only as a defence en. Maybe something bad. Some Native Americans once thought crickets brought luck, and crickets often appear on jewelry and other amulets in the Middle East and Europe. The sound of crickets is widely considered lucky.

Step 2 Look for lucky plants and signs in nature.

2

Look for lucky plants and signs in nature. Across many cultures, finding certain plants has been considered a lucky omen. Keep an eye out for lucky plants.

Four-leaf clovers are commonly collected by schoolchildren as signs oit does need to go hand in hand with tackling the structural inequality related to factors such as race, gender and income.)You might think of serendipity as passive luck that just happens to you, when actually it’s an active process of spotting and connecting the dots. It is about seeing bridges where others see gaps, and then taking ie steps toward the completion of some goal. If you want to gemechanism. For example, whenever you use a pedestrian crossing on a busy road, you look out for the unexpected driver who might race through the red light. That ‘alertness’ to, or awareness of, the unexpected is at the centre of understanding the science of (smart) luck and exploiting it to your benefit.

In my research into what makes individuals and organisations fit for the future, one insight has come up again and again: many of the world’s leading minds have developed a capacity, often unconscious, to turn the unexpected into positive outcomes. Developing this ‘serendipity mindset’, as I call it, is both a philosophy of life and a capability that you can shape and nurture in yourself. (Note, while this approach has been successful across many settings,

aking luck.

Step 9 Surround yourself with supportive people.

9

Surround yourself with supportive people. Needy people who require emotional support from you or who dominate your time with their own issues will sap your emotional energy and strength. Learn to be giving and supportive of your close friends and hold each other up. Involve yourself in mutually-beneficial relationships and stay happy, healthy, and lucky.

Part

3

Using Symbols and Talismans

Step 1 Look for lucky bugs.

1

Look for lucky bugs. In many cultures, insects and other bugs are thought of as being lucky signs that bring fortune. Sometimes killing these insects can be considered bad luck, so it's a good idea to be aware of them and let them be.

Having a ladybug land on you is often considered a sign of good fortune, sometimes thought to have healing properties for the sick. Try wearing a ladybug amulet or charm to channel the luck of the ladybug.[2]

Dragonflies are often related to water and the subconscious. Some people think being landed on by a dragonfly means that something important is about to change in your life.

When crickets stop chirping, something is about to happt the house cleaned up, or lose weight before your high school reunion, decide what process you want done by the end of the week. It's not going to happen all at once, so let yourself create opportunities for little victories and keep seeking that victory until the larger goal is completed.

Step 2 Believe in your goals.

2

Believe in your goals. In order to complete things, you need to learn to value the importance of the goal, to think it's the most important thing on your plate at any given time. Treat that backyard project you've been meaning to do as your own personal p a conversation with him. The selfimals in China.

Turtles and tortoises are common parts of origin myths in many different cultures, and make for popular lucky animals.

Step 4 Decorate your house with lucky tokens.

4

accidents meaningful!

Many of the world’s most successful and joyful people use a ‘serendipity mindset’ to create their own luck and live meaningful lives.

Cultivate your own serendipity mindset by

lightbulb, catch up with doctors’ visits and teeth cleanings

spiritual growth.

Growing and cultivating basil for consumption is sometimes thought to awaken passions. It's also got antibacterial properties and other nutritional benefits.

Honeysuckle, jasmine, sage, rosemary, and lavender are commonly scavenged plants and herbs that have a variety of nutritional and therapeutic affects. They all smell wonderful and can be used in a variety of dishes, soaps, and teas as well, so they're useful as well as lucky.

Step 3 Carry a lucky animal's totem.

3

Carry a lucky animal's totem. If you have a spirit animal or an animal that you feel a particular kinship with, carry a small toy or other item that channels their energy and luck. A lucky rabbit's foot is a common luck charm,

nitiative and action(s) to create smart luck. Serendipity is a guiding force in great scientific discoveries but it’s also present in our everyday lives, in the smallest of moments as well as the greatest life-changing events. It’s how we often ‘unexpectedly’ find love, a co-founder, a new job, or a business partner – and it’s how inventions such as Post-it Notes, X-rays, penicillin, microwaves and many other innovations came about.My research suggests that serendipity has three core characteristics. It starts with a serendipity trigger – the moment when you encounter something unusual or unexpected. Next, you need to connect the dots – that is, observe the trigger and linkfor you, embrace it. Keep yourself humble, but learn to enjoy little wins and little successes to keep yourself positive, motivated, and happy.

"Wins" don't even have to be a big deal. Maybe you made th

Similarly, a company I co-founded got off to an inauspicious start when funding dried up in the wake of the 2008 financial crash, but the team managed to turn this to our advantage – we dropped our initial plans to create a huge global conference and instead launched a hub-based model involving small community meet-ups. What appeared to be ‘bad luck’ in the moment turned into ‘good luck’ by reframing the situation, leading to a close-knit global community.

Key points – How to be lucky

We tend to think of serendipity as something that just happens to us, when actually it’s a process of spotting and connecting the dots, to see bridges where others see gaps. ‘Smart luck’ or serendipity is about creating meaningful accidents – and makingsomeone posing as a successful businessman sat at the table by the counter. The ‘lucky person’ approached, spotted the money and picked it up. Inside, he ordered a coffee, sat next to the businessman and struck u

replace the burned-outr you, and the ones that were inefficient, stressful or unfulfilling. You might begin to notice some patterns that stand out, for good or bad. Journalling and reflection is a way to begin decluttering your life, to explore the areas that take you out of being present, and keep you from recognising serendipity. Sometimes, it’s the seemingly small and insignificant nuisances that can deplete your energy and alertness the most.overt? First off, personality isn’t set in stone: it’s possible to act more extraverted if you want to, when the situation calls for it. Whether you’re a natural extravert or an introvert, you can cultivate your willingness to take risks, experiment and engage with others. Wiseman found that people who self-identified as lucky used more open body language (such as fully facing the other person in conversation), made more eye contact and smiled twice as often as ‘unlucky’ people, all of which made others trust them and feel more ‘attracted’ to them. These are conversational skills that you can learn, thus boosting your chances for serendipity. So, start by looking for small ways that you can engage with strangers. It might feel uncomfortable at first, but that’s often where the magic happens.It’s also important to recognise that there’s a major role for introl anomalies. However, if you continually airbrush the many unexpected events out of your (hi)stories, you’ll miss the importance of the unpredictable parts and therefore fail to recognise – let alone legitimise – the critical role that serendipity will play in your future.

Functional fixedness. Wh

this way?’ and ‘What would influence me to decide or act differently? What could I do instead?’ For some people, it’s as simple as getting up 10 minutes earlier.We lead unique aenever we use a tool in everyday life, we’re so accustomed to its usual specific function that we’re often unable to see its usefulness in other contexts – a bias known as ‘functional fixedness’. Similarly, research has shown that individuals who are familiar with specific problem-solving strategies are unlikely to devise simpler ones, even if and when it could be appropriate. In other words, we tend to do many things out of habit – we’ll often persist with ‘the hard way’ simply because it’s the way we already know. Having the mental agility to improvise, to see how a tool could be used in a new way, is essential to building your serendipity mindset. Think of fictional characters, such as 

it to something seemingly unrelated, thus realising the potential value within the chance event (sometimes referred to as a Eureka moment). Finally, sagacity and tenacity are required to follow through and create an unexpected positive outcome. While a particular chance encounter is an event, serendipity is a multifaceted process, as the figure below shows (note that the trigger and connecting the dots often happen at the same time).

Figure supplied by the author.

To be lucky, it’s often essential to be open and alert to the unexpected. Consider an entertaining experiment that the British psychologist Richard Wiseman carried out for a BBC TV show some time ago, which involved just two people: one who saw himself as ‘lucky’, and one who identified herself as ‘unlucky’. The researchers asked both participants to take separate trips to a coffee shop outside which they’d placed a £5 note on the pavement. Inside,

Decorate your house with lucky tokens. Surrounding yourself with lucky totems in your home is a common way of keeping yourself feeling prosperous and comfortable in your dwelling place.

Dreamcatchers, Kachinas, and feathers are often thought of as being lucky symbols and objects in different Native American cultures. In the Americas, these are common household items used to bring luck.Declutter your life. Once you discover one of these patterns, start detailing the decisions and related information for why it doesn’t work well. Ask yourself: ‘Based on which assumption or belief did I make this decision or choose to do things

nd complex lives. If you clean up the minutiae, they’ll no longer take up space in your daily life, and you’ll have more cognitive, emotional and physical attention to dedicate to the more important stuff. So, wipe out your ‘to do’ lists. Pay the bills if you can,

Super Bowl. Start the YouTube review channel you've always wanted to start this afternoon, not "sometime."

Step 3 Follow through.

3

Follow through. Doing a "goodwas supposed to evaluate your presentation gets sick. It’s unlikely that you spill coffee over your laptop right before the presentation. But add up all these unlikely events, and it becomes relatively likely that something unexpected might happen. Experienced presenters will often have a joke forr own success if you lower your expectations and avoid the scary possibility of opportunities. Go get it.

Ask for a raise, break up, and make the changes you need to make rather than waiting for someone else to make them for you. Don't wait for your superiors to notice the good work you're doing, demand it for yourself. If your job isn't making you happy, learn to recognize your dissatisfaction and seek sunnier vistas.

Step 8 Be enthusiastic...

8

Be enthusiastic. You're alive on planet Earth. You could be a weird unthinking slug floati

and luck that presents itself.

Learn to take criticism and to use it as an opportunity for improvement. If your boss criticizes something you worked hard on, consider yourself lucky. You know how to do better next time.

If you bomb on a date that goes horribly, use the experience as a dress rehearsal for your next date. What seemed to go wrong? What can you do differently next time?

Step 4 Embrace "small wins."

4

Embrace "small wins." When something goes right

Lara Croft or James Bond, and how – thanks to their quick-wittedness – they manage to turn any ordinary object into a deadly weapon. While this is a Hollywood cliché, we’re nonetheless impressed by these characters because we recognise their talent and resourcefulness … and perhaps how unlikely we might have been to think of that solution when faced with their predicament. Your own creativity will thrive when you abandon the physical and mental tools with which you’re most familiar, and find new ways to work or think.

Cultivate your serendipity mindset

As well as challenging your innate biases and making a conscious effort to think beyond your usual models or fixed ways of thinking, there are many more practical steps you can take to help develop or strengthen your serendipity muscle. Here are four. Together, they’ll help you identify the clutter in your life, clean it up and create space for serendipity; forge more connections; and see opportunity in crisis.

Get in the habit of journalling. If you are new to journalling, don’t overthink it. Set a timer for two minutes, then list out in two columns the parts of your day that led to positive outcomes and the parts of the day that did not. As you break down your day into these segments, examine the parts that worked really well fo

challenging the biases in how you see and relate to the world, including by recognising the role of the unexpected and improvising rather than falling prey to functional fixedness (ie, not seeing past established ways of doing things).

Adopt simple techniques and tools to further cultivate a serendipity mindset, such as streamlining your routines, setting aside ‘me time’, engaging with people more meaningfully, and reframing challenges and mistakes as opportunities.

Whether you’re an extravert or introvert, there are conversational skills you can learn to connect with others. There are also ‘calm sources’ of serendipity that play more to introverts’ strengths.



The willingness and motivation to engage in activities that nurture serendipity is driven by traits such as curiosity and proactivity. In particular, taking initiative and practising forethought can help put us into situations where serendipity can happen.

Maximising your chances for serendipity is partly a numbers game. If you’re in touch with 100 people, and they each are in touch with 100 other unique connections, you’re essentially in second-degree contact with 10,000 people. Being more extraverted helps here

overted behaviour in serendipity. While extraverts might benefit from their outgoing behaviour, serendipity often requires inward focus, self-awareness and time. For those of us who identify more as introverts, you don’t need to be an extravert to have a propensity for serendipity. The most unexpectedly valuable associations can come from areas that aren’t obvious to us ( (as soon as it’s safe to do so again, post-COVID-19). You could even subscribe to a meal plan to save you time and money on eating out. When you stop procrastinating and these mundane things are finally taken care of, they will no longer take up headspace. You’ll enhance your ability to be observant, present, inspired and curious, all of which will have a profound impact on building your serendipity muscle.

Carve out ‘me time’. Serendipity is a process. It’s an opportunity to turn chance into good fortune through your own efforts, which doesn’t always happen in a flash. It often requires an incubation period. Be patient, knowing that some of your efforts could result in an immediate spark while others will be more like planting seeds, for which the fruits of your labour will pleasantly surprise you in the future. In the interim, respecting your time every day is a critically important habit. Making a schedule for yourself – and protecting your ‘me time’ – will gi

when things go wrong – knowing that, often, they do – which tends to bring the audience over to their side as they appear to be quick on their feet and comfortable sharing their humanness. The same logic applies to all the good things that can happen throughout the day. Only once we accept that the unexpected happens all the time do we start ‘seeing’ it (like the ‘lucky’ person who spotted the money planted on the street in the experiment above) – and begin to view it as a potential benefit or opportunity rather than a threat.

Hindsight bias. When we construct stories of past events, we often act as if there was a linear trajectory, even though reality most probably followed a squiggly path. This can lead us to perceive events as having been more predictable than they were (known as ‘hindsight bias’), and to construct narratives that conveniently explain everything, ignoring the role of chance. This post-rationalisation speaks to our human need to find familiarity in the unknown, and to contr

in a number of ways, including by meeting large numbers of people, by attracting people, and by keeping in touch with people. This starts with simple steps such as chatting with someone in a supermarket or in the coffee shop queue. Extraverted people are often easier to get to know and they tend to keep in touch with larger numbers of people.This raises the question – how does serendipity work if you are a cautious intr

Statues of the Buddha, a staple of lots of Chinese restaurants, are commonly thought to be lucky features of a home.

Practice feng shui to bring luck and harmony to your living space.

St. Christopher totems and Virgin Marys are common in the homes of Christians. Other prayer candles, commonly available, can be considered good luck and sources of spiritual comfort.

Horses are dependable creatures and horseshoes are often thought of as being lucky. Horseshoes are often hung above doorways, keeping good luck in and bad luck out.