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BBC News
The loser's guide to getting lucky
By Professor Richard Wiseman
University of Hertfordshire
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3335275.stm
Why do some people get all the luck
while others never get the breaks they deserve? A psychologist says he
has discovered the answer.
Ten years ago, I
set out to examine luck.
I wanted to know
why some people are always in the right place at the right time, while
others consistently experience ill fortune.
I placed
advertisements in national newspapers asking for people who felt
consistently lucky or unlucky to contact me.
Hundreds of
extraordinary men and women volunteered for my research and, over the
years, I have interviewed them, monitored their lives and had them take
part in experiments.
The results reveal
that although these people have almost no insight into the causes of
their luck, their thoughts and behaviour are responsible for much of
their good and bad fortune.
Take the case of
seemingly chance opportunities. Lucky people consistently encounter such
opportunities, whereas unlucky people do not.
I carried out a
simple experiment to discover whether this was due to differences in
their ability to spot such opportunities.
I gave both lucky
and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look through it and
tell me how many photographs were inside.
I had secretly
placed a large message halfway through the newspaper saying: "Tell the
experimenter you have seen this and win £250."
This message took
up half of the page and was written in type that was more than two
inches high.
Anxiety
It was staring
everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people tended to miss it
and the lucky people tended to spot it.
Unlucky people are
generally more tense than lucky people, and this anxiety disrupts their
ability to notice the unexpected.
As a result, they
miss opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something
else.
They go to parties
intent on finding their perfect partner and so miss opportunities to
make good friends.
They look through
newspapers determined to find certain types of job advertisements and
miss other types of jobs.
Self-fulfilling prophecies
Lucky people are
more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there rather than just
what they are looking for.
My research
eventually revealed that 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-fulfilling prophesies via
positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms
bad luck into good.
Towards the end of
the work, I wondered whether these principles could be used to create
good luck.
I asked a group of
volunteers to spend a month carrying out exercises designed to help them
think and behave like a lucky person.
Dramatic results
These exercises
helped them spot chance opportunities, listen to their intuition, expect
to be lucky, and be more resilient to bad luck.
One month later,
the volunteers returned and described what had happened. The results
were dramatic: 80% of people were now happier, more satisfied with their
lives and, perhaps most important of all, luckier.
The lucky people
had become even luckier and the unlucky had become lucky.
Finally, I had
found the elusive "luck factor".
Here are Professor
Wiseman's four top tips for becoming lucky:
Listen to your gut
instincts - they are normally right
Be open to new
experiences and breaking your normal routine
Spend a few
moments each day remembering things that went well
Visualise yourself
being lucky before an important meeting or telephone call. Luck is very
often a self-fulfilling prophecy
“I Should Be So Lucky”
is on BBC Radio on Tuesday mornings, at 0930 GMT.
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ARE YOU FEELING LUCKY
Michael Vernon comments on the article by Professor Richard Wiseman
Personally, I do
not believe in luck. I believe in energy. The words luck and unlucky are
but labels used for experiences that are otherwise unexplained
rationally. I’d bet if Mr. Spock were sitting here, he’d agree with me
saying that luck is illogical.
I find this study
very interesting and commend Professor Richard Wiseman for his diligence
researching such a slippery tomato seed. I can see his study explained
clearly by metaphysics. Metaphysics is about energy and the belief that
everything expresses energy. Like energy attracts like energy. If one is
positive, with for example, a winner’s belief, this individual is a
candidate for Professor Wiseman’s lucky people. Metaphysical philosophy
purports that we create our reality. Everything is, after all, but a
thought form. In my seminars, I teach applied metaphysics using casino
games, a microcosm that exemplify the lessons from another dimension.
Professor Wiseman’s study may warrant more research, from my experience
with luck or lack of luck, I would have to say that he is on to
something.
I will address
Professor Wiseman’s four top tips for becoming lucky from a metaphysical
point of view.
1.)
“Listen to your gut instincts – they are normally right.”
The nerve to the
heart also serves the stomach. There are researchers studying the heart
– brain connection that believe there are more “brain cells” in the
heart than in the brain.
http://www.heartmath.org/index.html
That “gut feeling”
is more than just a saying. The solar plexus is your power center and
perhaps the strongest sensory relay of perceptive, etheric,
(metaphysical) information. I believe that “gut intuition” is a
perception of energy before it manifests in reality. I believe that
energy is always true, not just “normally right”. Perception of energy
without judgement provides a powerful edge in the casino. It goes a long
way in the guidance of right time and right place. If you are in the
right place at the right time, is that luck or is it intuitive awareness
and acting on the metaphysical information?
2.)
“Be open to new experiences and breaking our normal routine.”
The first thing
that this suggests to me is a willingness to have experiences out of the
comfort zone. I am not speaking of risks for the sake of gambling on an
outcome. I do suggest the risk of choosing to go beyond one’s
self-limiting fears. Being out of the comfort zone helps to heighten
one’s energy by increasing their experiences. It helps break out of
mediocrity in order to expanded the true authentic self. The authentic
self is something new to me and yet familiar. In the last year, a friend
in Las Vegas reminded me of whom I am, my spiritual essence. I am “a
limitless spiritual being that has been beat down by the constraints of
society, religion, government, school and negative emotion”. My destiny
is to be free. Hard to be free when one is scared to death to leave the
comfort zone. Just outside the comfort zone is the “learning zone”. If
we are not learning we are not expanding and growing. Positive
experiences seem to be drawn toward expansion rather than rigid
contraction (like fearing to step outside of the comfort zone). My
friend said, “Do what you fear the most. That is where your lessons
hide”
3.)
“Spend a few moments each day remembering things that went well.”
When I work with
students, I show them things about affirmations, intentions, and how
their word is their law. It is not about accidents or coincidence.
Metaphysics is about the manifestation of intention. It is affirming a
belief in self, of what is said, done and thought. A person can
influence their destiny. What they think, say and do is directly
proportional to what they experience in life, be it positive or
negative. You could call it lucky or unlucky. It is imperative, that
when intentions, or affirmations manifests, one is not surprised, but
acknowledges the event as an expression of their intention and their
affirmed belief in themselves. Confirm the event. Own the experience.
You build on the energy of self-empowerment through fulfillment and
acknowledgment. Acknowledge all of the things that went well, according
to your plan. Part of acknowledging events is giving gratitude. Although
our action is necessary, it is also important to give credit to the
higher energy force – whatever you believe that to be.
There are no
accidents or coincidence. If you believe in accidents, it probably
explains your kind of “luck”. Recognize and be willing to take
responsibility for the events occurring in your life. Saying that an
event is either positive-lucky or negative-unlucky, is only an opinion.
Either one, in fact, is just an expression of your energy and focus at
the time.
4.)
“Visualise yourself being lucky before an important meeting or telephone
call. Luck is very often a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Matthew Manning, a
healer in the United Kingdom, has long used visualization with
terminally ill cancer patients with amazing positive results. Research
of Matthew’s techniques, carried out in a cancer study at the Mind
Science Foundation in San Antonio, Texas and the University of
California, proved effective in the killing of cancer cells. Of course,
pharmaceutical companies are unable to bottle mind exercises like pills,
and Matthew went back to England.
http://www.matthewmanning.com/
The East German
Olympic teams incorporated visualization along with their training.
Seeing one’s performance in the mind’s eye seems to account for their
overwhelming gold medal success.
In my seminars, I
teach students to work with metaphysical energy by projecting their
feelings ahead, into the future. I encourage students to see themselves
receiving what they want delivered. The process of visualizing yourself
being “lucky” is really a process of seeing yourself already succeeding,
be it an important meeting, a telephone call or a gymnastic routine.
Pushing ahead with your feelings, visualizing an event the way you want
it to go, is a rehearsal. When you instill confidence, you increase your
energy. You create a bigger energy with positive self-esteem. As you
build your energy with intention and affirmed success, you catalyze or
increase the propensity of having your desire manifest. If you say that
it is a cloudy depressing day, you increase your probability of having a
lousy and depressed day. When you say that life is great, and it is a
wonderful day, you increase your probability of experiencing a glorious
day.
Nowhere in the
controls of our education, religion, government or culture, are we
encouraged to discover that we do have a freedom of choice in our life.
We have a responsibility to empower ourselves first. In doing so, we can
then go forward and empower others. However, an empowered person is not
what the “powers-that-be” want. After all, it is easier to manipulate
individuals that are fearful, blaming, complaining, and irresponsible.
Having a population with a mind-set of being lucky or unlucky is
preferred so that the people do not expand with thoughts of empowerment
and spiritual freedom.
The concept of
luck encourages a passive attitude toward life – sort of creating a
victim’s mode where things “just happen”. It belittles active
involvement in your experience and the feeling that you can meet life.
You can have charge of your life’s destiny. Just by your ability to lean
one way or the other, your life is changed and your destiny influenced.
Are we are twigs, drifting in the river of life, with only a glimmer of
hope for the luck of not being caught up in a snag. Not me, I choose not
to be a victim. I believe in taking up an active role with a paddle.
Push to shove, I’ll be splashing with both hands to keep myself moving
free in the current of my destiny.
So, to paraphrase
“Dirty Harry”, “I know what you’re thinking. Did I fire six rounds or
did I fire five. In all the confusion of the excitement, I really don’t
know myself. So, you have to ask yourself, are you feeling lucky?”
Luck has nothing
to do with it when you are Playing 4 Keeps™!
Copyright © 2004 Michael Vernon
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