WHY SUCCESS
IS NOT A MATTER
OF LUCK
IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
 Is success just a matter of luck?
 What kinds of behaviour are likely to increase
our chances of achieving our goals or to find
success in education, work or relationships?
 What sorts of attitudes and values do those
who have been successful have compared to
those who have not?
IS SUCCESS A MATTER OF LUCK?
 Clearly some of us experience more than our
fair share of negative things by chance, often
caused by events outside our control: illness,
accidents, loss of those near to us
 This is true of good fortune too.
Chance
encounters and ‘good luck’ can lead to our
unfair share of happy outcomes
THE RESEARCH OF
DR RICHARD WISEMAN
 Studied 700 people who either considered
themselves to be ‘lucky’ or ‘unlucky’
 He interviewed them and put them through
experiments to try to find out if the personal
characteristics of lucky people were different
from unlucky people. Some people do SEEM
to be luckier than others:
THE RESEARCH OF
DR RICHARD WISEMAN
 SUSAN fell and broke her arm. Soon after she
broke her leg, crashed on her driving test and
then had eight car accidents in a 50 mile
journey
 LEE was saved from falling onto lethal moving
spikes when the brand new stainless steel link
between tractor and plough broke and saved
him from being impaled
RESEARCH FINDINGS
 Lucky people do seem to have
encounters which create opportunities
chance
 Lucky people make good decisions without
knowing why
 Lucky people’s dreams and ambitions have the
knack of coming true
 Lucky people have the ability to turn bad luck
into good fortune
HOW TO BE SUCCESSFUL
 We can create our own luck
 ‘Life is not a like a lottery. Often our
expectations make a difference. They make a
difference to whether we try something, how
we interact with others and how others
interact with us.’ Richard Wiseman
 It is a question NOT of luck but how to be
successful
(1) MAKE THE MOST OF CHANCE
OPPORTUNITIES
 Being in the right place at the right time is
about the right state of mind
 Successful people are more sociable, meet
more people and keep in touch
 Successful people smile, make more
contact, show ‘open’ body language
eye
 Successful people build secure and long lasting
attachments
(1) MAKE THE MOST OF CHANCE
OPPORTUNITIES
 Successful people have a relaxed attitude to
life
 If you are calm and relaxed you will be able
to make the most of opportunities. Anxiety
will cause you to miss them
 Successful people are open to new
experiences and introduce variety and new
experiences into their lives
(2) LISTEN TO YOUR HUNCHES
 In
financial,
career,
or
relationships, trust to intuition
personal
 Don’t deceive yourself into believing what you
want to believe. Listen to your inner voice
and do not indulge in wishful thinking and
self-denial
 Boost your intuition: meditate/ relax, return
to problem later, find a quiet place, clear the
mind
(3) EXPECT GOOD FORTUNE
 Successful people also expect good fortune to
continue in the future and persevere in the
face of failure
 They believe unpredictable and uncontrollable
events will work out
 Unsuccessful people are believe events are
outside their control
 Positive expectations
prophecies
become
self-fulfilling
(4) TURN BAD LUCK INTO GOOD
 Successful people see the positive side
of failure:
at least you survived the
accident, does failure to get promotion really
affect your quality of life, compare yourself
with others less fortunate
 Failure will work out for the best in the
long run: use it to learn from the experience
(4) TURN BAD LUCK INTO GOOD
 Successful people do not dwell on any
failure but move on and distract
themselves: do something you really enjoy,
take
exercise,
think
about
something
successful that happened to you, socialise
 Successful people take steps to avoid
failure in the future: take control, consider
your options, act now, do not drift
USEFUL SOURCES
 ‘The Luck Factor’, Dr Richard Wiseman,
Random House, ISBN: 978-0099443247