The Tactics of Lucky People
Do you need to believe in luck to get it?
I won first place, but I kind of thought I would. My 13-year-old daughter tugged on my arm and pointed out the colouring contest plastered on the movie theatre window. “Look mum, adults can do it, too. Enter with me!”
First prize in the 18–99 age group was a navy blue umbrella with stars on the inside. Gorgeous.
I hadn’t entered a colouring contest since childhood, so I was reluctant. My first win was at age 6, where I’d received a giant chocolate Easter bunny. I’d used just a handful of colours and my 6-year-old self thought that was funny. Who’d have thought you could win with a couple of felts?
Now, standing with my daughter, I browsed the entries taped by their corners to the glass and saw a few other adults had entered. “Okay,” I told her. “I’ll win us an umbrella.”
When the phone call came and we’d both won our categories, we were delighted, but not overly surprised. I tend to be quite lucky, have a lot of successes in life, and win a lot of contests. Too many to count since that first contest at age 6 — and now my kids do, too. The thing is, I don’t actually believe in luck. Turns out, you don’t have to.
True believers
Many of us are superstitious and believe in luck. A collection of little rituals start appearing when we want to win something. We wear the same pineapple socks for every football match, because that one time we did, we won the game. We touch our friend’s lucky cap before we make a bet or always pick the same ‘lucky’ numbers. I know I said I don’t believe in luck, but I do actually have a lucky number: 101. I swam 101 lengths non-stop as a young teen and after that, it symbolized success for me.
I’ve always found our human superstitious quirk endearing, if a bit silly, but believing in luck does appear to make you luckier in some ways.
The research backs it up. In his article, American author Nir Eyal writes, “several academic studies have found that the question isn’t whether luck exists. It’s whether you think it does.”
If you believe in luck, he says, it boosts your confidence and performance according to research.
“If you had a winning streak in the past and you believe in luck, you’ll likely try, try again.”
True believers keep trying, but I’m not a true believer and I keep entering and winning (I won another contest – a postcard competition – just today). What’s the deal? Is it just random?
The randomness of success
When we’re talking about being lucky in life, there’s an important aspect we can’t ignore. Very specifically, how luck relates to financial success. Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, professor of psychology at Cambridge University, outlined the research in this area in Scientific America where he writes:
“luck and opportunity may play a far greater role than we ever realized, across a number of fields, including financial trading, business, sports, art, music, literature, and science.”
It’s not all about working hard and having talent. For example, Kaufman highlights a study which found people with easy to pronounce names are judged more positively than those with difficult-to-pronounce names. Another study outlines the fact that about half of the differences in income globally is explained by the country you happen to live in and by the income distribution within that country. Your name and where you live, things that have nothing to do with talent or work ethic, may be the difference between your financial success and failure.
Elizabeth and Steven are more likely to land the job, even before the interview. I’m Kelly and live in New Zealand — two advantages right there that have nothing to do with me or how hard I work.
A growing number of studies strongly suggest luck and opportunity play an underappreciated role in an individual’s success. Being in the right place at the right time, meeting the right people. Those lucky breaks add up and they make a difference.
Saying that, a lot of success is still you. While we can’t ignore the large luck factor, Kaufman found certain traits also pay off: passion, perseverance, imagination, intellectual curiosity, and openness to experience.
A lucky break or badass
We certainly shouldn’t downplay all our successes as just dumb luck. I always felt icky when I heard people say “I just got lucky” after a success where they’d clearly worked very hard. Apparently, I’m not the only one. In her book, Year of Yes, American Television Producer and Screenwriter Shonda Rhimes, talks about why she dropped the saying “I just got lucky”.
“I am not lucky,” she writes. “You know what I am? I am smart, I am talented, I take advantage of the opportunities that come my way and I work really, really hard. Don’t call me lucky. Call me a badass.”
― Shonda Rhimes, Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person
In the book, she goes on to talk about how fake that felt to say. How hard it is to say it’s not luck — it’s me. It feels arrogant. Like you “love yourself too much,” she says.
And she’s right. That’s why we go for the easier, humbler “Oh shucks, I just got lucky.”
But Shonda decided that’s no longer okay and I have to agree. It’s not luck.
It’s badass.
It’s not arrogance to claim the hard work you put into something. The hours and hours you poured into a project to make it successful. The scary ways you had to put yourself out there, stretch out of your comfort zone, do the thing many other people are afraid to do. You did that. It’s the truth.
We do need to acknowledge the luck factor in success. — at the big end of the scale it matters. If you’re a policy maker or distributing resources to others, such as research funding or small-business investments, it helps us think about fairness and how to better support talented people. But at a personal level, we can claim our success and be proud of it.
Instead of answering “I got lucky” when someone compliments your success, why not say “Thank you. I worked hard and I’m really glad it paid off.” There are a few ways you can increase your chances of it paying off, too.
Making your own luck sandwich
Like the saying goes, you can make your own luck according to one of the leading experts in the psychology of luck. Professor Richard Wiseman, author of Luck Factor has this to say about lucky people:
“For the most part, these people were making their own luck by the way they were behaving,” he says. “There was a very good reason why some people got all the lucky breaks.”
One of the very good reasons? They expected good luck.
In a podcast, Wiseman, discusses how we can all become luckier. The luck factor, as he calls it, comes down to research-backed behaviors that make you luckier. What are some of these factors?
1) Being open to opportunities. Keeping open and taking opportunities that come your way makes you more likely to have good luck. But there’s more to it. You also need to be ready to make the most of any opportunities you get by being flexible. Imagine, for example, you enter and get accepted into your dream mentoring program, but your schedule is already full. You can be flexible and shift things around to make it work or you can say, “That’s a shame. I wish I could take that opportunity, but I’m too busy.”
2) Trusting your gut alarm bells. Lucky people notice the warning signs and avoid bad luck. Whatever area you’re trying to be more lucky in: romance, business, property investment, or playing poker, the more you learn, the more you’ll notice the signs. We call this being “tinny” in NZ. Tinny people are the ones who avoid bad circumstances through luck, but maybe it’s those gut alarm bells at work?
3) Being optimistic and resilient. Lucky people have different tactics for handling seemingly unlucky events. They say: “It’s lucky it wasn’t worse”. They look for the silver lining.
My wedding, for example, was canceled because of Covid, which at the time was disappointing, and some people might have seen as unlucky. I quickly came to see it as very lucky. The week before our wedding date, my fiancé had his appendix removed. If lockdowns hadn’t delayed the wedding, he would’ve been very sick and the honeymoon would be off. Instead, we were married 6 months later in summer, when Covid-19 restrictions lifted a little, and he was completely recovered.
4) Lucky people are always looking for the win-win. They want to collaborate and achieve something rather than be somebody important, says Wiseman.
“All of us can make the most of our potential,” he says.
Fake it ‘til you make it
I can certainly see Wiseman’s luck factors playing out in my life. What gives me the confidence to enter contests, apply for jobs, and take a whack at various opportunities is about being open to them and believing in myself. I believe in my skill-set and the idea that if you’re not in, you can’t win. Why not put yourself forward for opportunities? What is there to lose? (I don’t gamble or play lotteries, so there’s no money to lose!)
Undeniably, there are times I was just in the right place at the right time or it was random luck they drew my number. I can see how success has a luck factor. But I also tend to forget the times I don’t win. I brush off the doors that don’t open up for me. If you added it all up, I’ve probably had hundreds, if not thousands, of losses. When you enter plenty of contests and apply for opportunities, like my kids and I do, chances are you’re going to lose a lot. You’ll get your fill of “better luck next time” responses, but it’s about perspective.
Sometimes, you win. And when I enter, I always expect I might win.
I can also see that a lot of luck comes down to privilege. I have a lot of advantages: to start with, I was born into a supportive family and live in a safe country with good resources. Although, some might say there are ways I haven’t been especially lucky. My health isn’t perfect — I’ve had many years of health struggles — but even that is a matter of perspective. Getting sick with Crohn’s disease is how I became a writer, which was always my dream job. In that way, getting sick was my own personal pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
It’s true I got dealt a mixed hand in life, but isn’t that true for most of us? I don’t think it really matters if we’re actually lucky or not. We can work with the cards we have and aim for the win, anyway. Fake it ‘til we make it!
Making Yourself a Lucky Duck
There are practical approaches to take if we want to get luckier in life. Wiseman says it can be as simple as journaling three things:
good things that happen,
bad things that used to happen but no longer do,
and things you’re grateful for.
Overtime, the written record makes you aware of how lucky you are and changes your perception of yourself, which in turn improves your health, happiness, and other measurable aspects. Becoming more aware of all the good in your life, also changes how others perceive you because you’re putting out a different “vibe”, according to Wiseman.
It’s like a circle of luck. Feeling lucky makes you luckier, which makes you feel luckier.
A significant amount of luck also comes down to subconscious (and conscious) knowledge. Whether they realize it or not, lucky people have picked up skills along the way that help them win.
They’ve figured out what the judges/employers etc. are looking for.
They have an understanding of what makes a winning proposal, application, or entry.
They enter things that fit within their skills set.
Take my colouring contest as an example. I was quite artistic growing up and my mother is a painter. I’ve spent many years studying art, learning about shading, composition, and colour theory. Even though I’m no professional artist like my mother, my art knowledge gives me a huge advantage in a contest.
Obviously, if you pick contests or opportunities that lie within your skill set, you increase your odds of winning. You can also increase your knowledge of what they’re looking for by studying past winners.
A Magical Force? Not likely
I don’t believe luck is some magical force, but when I look at my life, I can’t help feeling incredibly lucky. And when it comes to contests, I don’t see my winning streak coming to an end. I’ll keep on the lookout for contests to enter and opportunities to apply for.
As author Nir Eyal says, “people who think they are lucky might feel more confident approaching new tasks and challenges because they have higher expectations of a positive outcome.”
Sounds like feeling lucky, whether you believe in luck or not, is a pretty good way to be.
Kelly has been telling and selling stories for over 16 years. If you want to do the same, grab free resources at her newsletter for writers Because You Write.