The Luck Factor

Just read this book called The Luck Factor, which came highly recommended by a friend . It was such an interesting book that I managed to finish it in less than a day.

Briefly, it follows Dr. Richard Wiseman's journey to explore what causes some people to be lucky and others to be unlucky. And whether there are any controllable factors that can change the outcome of luckiness / unluckiness for people. Interestingly, the experiments he conducted showed that between groups of people who thought themselves to be lucky and those who thought otherwise, there are four factors which can affect outcomes for people, and they are (roughly):

1. Maximize your Chance Opportunities - Be active in reaching out, meeting new people, taking chances and giving new experiences a shot. You cannot win that competition you didn't compete in or make friends with that stranger across the room whom you didn't bother to say hi to. No one knows what may come out of such opportunities but not taking them gets you nowhere. Be friendly and sociable with people.
   
   
2. Listen to your Lucky Hunches - Gut Feeling and Intuition sometimes stem from sub-conscious shortcuts your mind takes. Following those hunches sometimes may lead to unexpected success.
   
   
3. Expect Good Fortune - This one is about how pessimistic behavior lead to undesirable self-fulfilling outcomes. Having an optimistic outlook helps to set you in the right direction and mindset to fulfil your dreams and ambitions.
   
   
4. Turn your Bad Luck into Good - Bad Luck happens to everyone from time to time. But the key is to learn to see them in a positive light and not dwell on them. You can also take constructive steps like learning from mistakes of the past to avoid similar situations from occurring in the future.

Though the book is pretty much aimed at the general audience, I do believe that there are a lot of take-home lessons which are key to entrepreneurs who want to succeed. It fills in a lot of the "soft" skills which seem to create favorable settings for success.

So, if you are interested in it, grab it for a quick read!