Janet CollinsAre you lucky?
March 23rd 2009 19:52
Is everything good that happens to us in life a matter of luck?
Luck we have always been told has little to do with success. Just ask one of the successful entrepreneurs or business people. They will tell you it was all down to hard work, planning and seizing opportunities.
The jury is continually out on the luck factor because many a successful venture sometimes goes unexplained but, if you look at where the criticisms of the luck theory come from, it is usually the successful business people and entrepreneurs and some of the new age gurus. How many times have we heard “the harder I work the luckier I get”.
Adele Horin in the Sydney Morning Herald this weekend talked about the luck factor when it comes to careers. Focussing on the massive retrenchments at Macquarie Bank, Horin highlights the fact that hard work and an MBA is no guarantee for survival as many of these executives are now finding out.
Horin also goes on to talk about her own life and her luck including her parents and her family, where she grew up, her friends and the opportunities she has had in her career.
Even Bill Gates has openly admitted that the continual success of Microsoft was mainly the result of competitors not wanting to do enough and not adapting quickly enough to new technologies.
He is not the only one. Joe Wilcox on microsoftwatch.com recently put together a list of Microsoft’s Ten Lucky Breaks. His top one was the IBM licenses for MS-DOS. His tenth was the worm that infected so many sites many years ago pushing security into the number one focus for Gates.
Professor Richard Wiseman from the University of Hertfordshire in the UK has done extensive studies on luck. These culminated in a book of his called “The Luck Factor”.
In 2003 for the BBC magazine, Wiseman published some of his findings from earlier research on lucky and unlucky people. Things that became apparent to him about luck were evident. Lucky people generate good fortune via four principles: They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities; make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition; create self-fulfulling prophesies via positive expectations and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.
Might sound very inspiring but tell that to all the Macquarie Bank executives who have been given the tap on the shoulder and all the other ones out there who are headed for the street right now.
I am sure they are all hoping that a little luck will come their way….and fast.
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Comment by Chris Champion
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I've always subscribed to the "you make your own luck" school of thought.
Comment by Janet Collins
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Comment by The Rusty Can
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I've noticed that some of those successes can be attributed to having excellent arse-kissing skills.
Comment by Janet Collins
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I refrained from going there.
Comment by Mistersmith
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Those 4 principles sound right . . . like attracts like, and all that.
'Attitude is Everything' - I saw that written somewhere and I liked it - seems to encapsulate all 4.
Comment by Morgan Bell
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it would be like saying Packer or Murdoch are lucky, its not luck, its maintaining control and squashing competition
i dont believe in luck, but there was a funny Seinfeld episode where he observed that within a group of friends it seems that as soon as one is going well another will start to be more prone to misfortune - it was entertaining!
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Comment by Wilson Pon
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To me, I felt very lucky for being born and raised in a peacefully country, not like those that have civil wars all day long...
Comment by Wilson Pon
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To me, I felt very lucky for being born and raised in a peacefully country, not like those that have civil wars all day long...
Comment by RubySoho
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Comment by Cibbuano
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Comment by Janet Collins
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Morgan, there was a lot of the domnance factor but even then, a lot of things somehow went right for him miraculously. Even the court case where he was being forced to split his company into two to stop a monopoly situation failed. Other companies business decisions helped him too like Lotus refusing to go to windows. I agree that these companies end up squashing everyone else in the end.
Gaye, Luck can certainly mean a lot of things but I guess it is getting in life what you want - career, success (whatever that means to anyone) and yes, happiness would have to be number one, of course.
Thanks for dropping in.
Comment by Janet Collins
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Ruby, I didn't know about Bill Gates' first computer. I also think there has to be a certain amount of luck in everything too. I'll keep an eye out for the book. Thanks.
Cibbuano, I hope it only gets luckier for you too.
Comment by Mistersmith
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In the usual measure of success - I wouldn't rate a blip.
You'd probably be a little shocked by my circumstances -which i wouldn't mind revealing except that a certain Orbler would take delight in unflattering revelations about me. I know that a few people view my circumstances as pretty dismal - in fact a close family member has only just spelled out to me that my future prospects are almost zero. How thoughtful. How kind.
But I still feel lucky!
Comment by Janet Collins
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I guess it sometimes boils down to what you want to be lucky with. For some it's a career, for some it's just financial success and others it's just being happy or having those around you who you want around you.
Thanks again.