Charm yourself for good luck
By Bob Condor
Chicago Tribune
This is the kind of person British psychologist Richard Wiseman studies as part of his research: a British gentleman who considers himself unlucky because the week he won the lottery, another person did too. So he had to share the 8-million-pound winnings instead of taking home all the money.
Or the woman who breaks her leg falling down a flight of stairs and feels lucky — because she could have "broken her neck."
Wiseman systematically evaluated 400 self-described lucky and unlucky people for the last eight years. He has made a science of it as a researcher in the psychology department at the University of Herfordshire in Britain.
"We found that lucky people have a completely different way of looking at the world," Wiseman said, giving the first hint that he intends to prove we make our own luck.
He has begun his stateside promotional campaign for his new book, "The Luck Factor: Changing Your Luck, Changing Your Life: The Four Essential Principles" (Miramax/Hyperion, $23.95). It already is available in 20 countries.
"The key idea is it is not that difficult to change your luck," said Wiseman. "You can stop people from going on a downward spiral."
But the persuasion doesn't come easily. Wiseman said his research subjects who considered themselves unlucky tended to be defensive when he suggested that some of the bad luck is created by attitude and behavior.
Wiseman enrolled these individuals in what he calls "luck school." He encourages people to embrace his four principles of changing your luck for the better.
He based his suggestions on what he learned from the 400 lucky and unlucky people, who had responded to advertisements that recruited people who felt particularly fortunate or unfortunate.
"Most people are more patchy (in how they feel about being lucky or unlucky)," Wiseman said. "Some people feel they are lucky in love but not money or vice versa. Some people think they were lucky once but times have changed."
Here are Wiseman's four principles for rearranging the luck in your life:
1. Maximize chance opportunities. Wiseman said lucky people are skilled at creating, noticing and acting upon chance opportunities, such as a New York legal secretary who broke into the movie business because she was OK sharing a taxi with a businessman-movie producer who was running late.
Wiseman has found that people maximize their chance opportunities by networking, adopting a relaxed attitude to life and being open to new experiences.
"Networking has developed an exploitative feel," Wiseman said. "My work shows it's not so much that part of networking but that lucky people enjoy chance encounters. They are interested in hearing about other people's lives."
2. Listen to your hunches. Lucky people tend to trust their intuition and gut feelings, Wiseman said. Interestingly, he said, luckier people find ways to "clear the mind" for intuition by meditating, finding a quiet place or deciding to return the problem later.
3. Expect good fortune. Lucky people expect good fortune to continue, Wiseman said, adding, "They think there is enough to go around."
Although lucky people tend to keep striving and stay positive despite a failure (such as not getting one dream job but continuing to try for another), the self-professed unlucky individuals in Wiseman's research study were more inclined to give up.
4. Turn bad luck into good. Lucky people in Wiseman's study didn't dwell on misfortune. Rather, they imagined how a situation could have been worse and find some way to take control of the situation.
"It's just looking at the bright side of life," Wiseman said. "Lucky people simply are grateful at the end of the day for the good things in their lives. They overlook the micro-hassles of the day, such as missing a bus. They are convinced any ill fortune in their lives will, in the long run, work out for the best."
