
Be lucky - it's an easy skill to learn - Flemlord
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3304496/Be-lucky---its-an-easy-skill-to-learn.html
======
swombat
I saw a TV version of this article quite a while ago, and like JacobAldridge I
have used it a number of times in conversations about luck.

It certainly makes sense to me. You make your own luck by being more aware of
things going on around you, so that you can spot opportunities that others
might miss. Observing my own life, I feel that a lot of my "luck" has come
from an ability to leap onto opportunities that others might have hesitated
about for months - this despite the fact that I have a natural tendency to
delay and be extremely conservative.

So my view is, if I can overcome this risk-averseness and take on
opportunities that I'd normally be scared of, surely others can too. It's
extremely hard to convince self-styled unlucky people of this, though. Perhaps
I'm just bad at persuading them.

------
biohacker42
This reminds me of a recent study in bird personalities. It turns out there
are very big differences from bird to bird in terms of curiosity and risk
taking and other things.

And there is a huge body of scientific work about bird behavior EXCEPT that
now it turns out the birds studied, trapped, tagged, etc, would have been a
self selecting group of atypical super curious risk takers.

And all of this science is now suspected to be skewed.

And the fact that there are BOTH lucky and unlucky birds and people tells us
that there's more than one way to optimize fitness.

Curiosity, optimism, luck work some times, and other times get you killed.

Now in the modern industrialized world, you're probably better of being open
and optimistic and all the rest. But then again we've had an unprecedented
multi-decade period of peace stability and economic growth.

If we are heading into a new great depression this might change.

Or imagine you're in some kind of accident or disaster, perhaps a building
fire, and being a pessimist and super focused you bail at the first hint of
smoke and single mindedly make it down the stairs as fast as possible and
you're out and alive. Still a worried unlucky pessimist but alive. The lucky
optimist on the other hand might have tried the elevator, when the heat
expended both the elevator and the shaft, it got stuck, and the lucky
optimists got cooked.

Just saying.

~~~
req2
I think in your search for a contrary example, you're looking at it in the
wrong way. The focus of the unlucky pessimist will lead them unerringly to the
stairs, whether or not that's the best option. The lucky optimist won't
foolishly do what no one should ever do, but instead notice that the open
elevator shaft has a ladder that someone else just safely used to escape.
Being lucky doesn't mean you have to be stupid.

The unlucky pessimist will stand in line while the lucky optimist will notice
that what she needs is easily obtained out of the line.

~~~
biohacker42
Take this thought experiment to its extreme and the unlucky should have gone
extinct. The fact that both lucky and unlucky personality types persist,
suggest both have advantages.

------
hegemonicon
Unlucky people tend to be more focused on whatever they happen to be doing
because they're worried about making a mistake. But there's quite a bit of
evidence that this sort of conscious, focused thought uses up so many mental
resources that it can actually become a hindrance. Professional athletes
perform significantly worse when they actively contemplate their behavior, and
focusing on something prevents the mindwandering that's necessary for
creative, insightful solutions. Your subconscious is a HUGE part of your
brain, but focusing too hard on something makes it harder to use it.

~~~
nollidge
Agree entirely. Just today I was staring at some code that I intuitively knew
could be rearchitected to be simpler, more maintainable, etc., but I couldn't
put my finger on just how to do it. So I'd stare at it for half an hour, and
then take a break, repeat throughout the day. Now I'm pretty sure exactly what
I need to do, and I think it's entirely because I took my attention away from
it every so often.

------
oz
I've always thought of myself as being very lucky. When I was younger, I
attributed this to the fact that my parents were Christians and that 'God was
watching over us.' But in truth, my mind seems overwhelmingly to ignore the
bad and remember the good. This is partly due to my narcissism. I'm special!

Now as an atheist, I've come to accept and indeed appreciate the role of pure,
random chance in our lives. What happens to is is not determined solely by us,
but but rather by our response to our situations, over which we have not
control.

Thought experiment: Let's say that there is someone with whom you would be a
perfect romantic match-your values align, etc. But let's say that on the day
you meet them, they happened not to eat breakfast. They were so hungry, that
just a minute before you saw them, they had to eat a biscuit, leaving residue
in their teeth. "Ewww!", you say, in ignorance.

Thing like this happen Every.Single.Day. There are probably thousands of
Einsteins who will die in poverty and obscurity. That's life. Failure to
realize this is part of what causes Fundamental Attribution Error.

~~~
pmsaue0
I think the main thing to realize regarding the Fundamental Attribution Error
is that when committing the error you are judging others and yourself on
differing criteria.

For example, if you, when experiencing 'bad luck', tend to recognize its
source as your environment rather than qualities of your person, it would be
because of the Fundamental Attribution Error that you would incorrectly assume
that the same 'bad luck' experienced by someone else is because of some
qualities of that person rather than their environment. In many cases,
especially with regard to 'good luck' it's just the opposite: For yourself you
see the 'good-luck' as coming from YOU, for others you see the 'good-luck' as
coming from their environment.

It's been helpful for me to remember these things especially when someone
ticks me off or whatever... It's incorrect to assume that my neighbor being a
douche is because deep down he is a douche-bag, rather than because of his
crappy morning that I know nothing about. I would want to be given the same
courtesy.

------
JacobAldridge
I remember this article from when it first came out - in 2003 - and have used
the newspaper / picture story as an example countless times.

If you don't believe you create the reality you experience, think again.
Blaming external factors, like luck, just absolves us of our own
responsibility to ourselves.

------
donaq
Dammit, where's Eliezer Yudkowsky when you need him. I'm pretty sure he'll
have an interesting take on this.

~~~
Eliezer
BEHOLD, I AM HERE!

MBlume posted the article to LW here:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/1b9/do_the_unlucky_systematically_un...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/1b9/do_the_unlucky_systematically_underestimate/)

If you want me to say something stunningly intelligent about it, um... ah...
okay, how about this:

Since we know at the start of the problem that luck in the supernatural sense
doesn't _really_ exist, we would expect people experiencing systematic
exogenous runs of genuine good or bad luck to be rare in the population. But
people who claim to be lucky or unlucky are much more common than that.

The next question you'd have to address is whether the people who claim to be
"lucky" or "unlucky" actually seem to be experiencing more-than-chance
proportions of good or bad life events, of a sort we would otherwise think of
as exogenous (like falling down stairs) or partially randomness-based (like
meeting a new girlfriend in a crowd). There would be a large problem of biased
reporting at this point.

If so, then because we know luck doesn't _really_ exist, we should indeed look
for hidden internal characteristics to explain these runs of good or bad luck.
As the saying goes, "YOU are the only common denominator in all your failed
relationships."

Trying to train people to be lucky was an interesting attempt at experimental
manipulation, but it's hard to untangle from the "biased reporting" hypothesis
- you may just be making people think they're lucky. Still a good thing to
test, though. (Possible stronger test: Train people to be "lucky in love"
(that's what you tell them you're doing) and see if they become luckier in
other areas too.)

~~~
gatormax
If the data is valid, I think the article establishes rather well that people
who call themselves "lucky" are indeed measurably different from people who
call themselves "unlucky." The latter group blew the photo-counting test, for
instance.

It is at that point where I would inject your perspective. What other
measurable differences are there? Are "lucky" people wealthier? Healthier?
Laid more? Etc.

Then there's the matter of training people for greater "luck." I agree, the
article is sketchy here, and I'm not sure of a reliable way to measure an
increase in "luck" (unless we assume that the "unlucky" can be expected to
flunk the photo count indefinitely).

In essence, I think the article is 1/3 of the way there. True, "lucky" people
differ from "unlucky" people. So let's figure out if they differ in ways that
we care about, and if we can make "unlucky" people become "lucky." Then we'll
have something.

------
codexon
He has convolved luck with happiness.

If someone believes he is happy, he is happy.

If someone believes he is the lucky, he is not necessarily lucky.

Seeing the world rose colored glasses does not make you any luckier, it makes
you happier. By only asking for those that self-identified as lucky or
unlucky, he has failed to isolate the variable of happiness.

Here is an excerpt from the book which points out the author's faulty
reasoning.

"On average both `lucky' and `unlucky' participants lost about £2.50.
Wiseman's conclusion: `The results indicated that luck wasn't due to psychic
ability'."

In this quote it is revealed that the people who "felt" lucky really weren't
lucky. In fact, they were about as lucky as the people who felt unlucky. The
people who were "lucky" also expected to win twice as much as people who felt
"unlucky". So his whole experiment is flawed.

This is the type of optimism hawked by many self-help gurus. But then again,
it doesn't really matter if your situation really has improved with these
"tips" as the Romans found out with church and bread and circuses. Keep the
plebs amused and fearful and they will willfully ignore everything else.

~~~
BrandonM
I disagree; I think he is just using a slightly different definition of luck
than you are. Luck is not simply a matter of "defying the odds" or getting the
better end of coinflips more often. It's also about opportunities. I think the
article did a nice job of examining how "lucky" people are often more
fortunate largely because they give themselves more chances to be lucky.

The point about perception of luck being self-perpetuating is good as well. If
you view yourself as unlucky, you will tend to be more timid in situations
where you might need a little luck to succeed, while a lucky individual will
be willing to take more chances.

This dynamic is very visible in poker... After a run of bad luck, it's very
easy to miss an opportunity to do something like play a drawing hand
aggressively to make a player fold ( _I don't want to get the money in and
lose, again!_ ), instead taking a more passive, less successful route ( _I'll
call the flop... of course, I missed again and don't have odds to continue,
now I have to fold._ ).

~~~
codexon
Again, being willing to take risks for greater gain doesn't make you luckier.

In the case of poker, it might be smarter to pretend to play aggressively
after a losing streak, but at this point, you are using reverse psychology and
you are playing smarter, NOT luckier.

Ever heard of the overaggressive guy that failed a business or died in a
stunt? No, of course not. You only hear the success stories which make it seem
like the answer to life is aggressiveness.

~~~
btilly
Re-read the article. The people who considered themselves "lucky" turned out
to be more observant, and therefore would encounter unexpected opportunities.
The people who considered themselves "unlucky" would miss glaring
opportunities that should have been staring them in the face. If opportunities
keep on dropping in your lap but not in others, after a while you're likely to
feel lucky. If opportunities keep on _not_ dropping in your lap while they do
in others, after a while you're likely to feel unlucky. Objectively you just
don't understand the source of your consistent fortune. But that is how it
will feel.

It isn't about risks or risk-taking at all. It is about better observation
leading to noticing and taking advantage of opportunities. What is the risk in
being given an offer to easily make 250 British pounds? The unlucky people
didn't even see it! (The lucky people presumably would have noticed that, but
didn't because they noticed that the second page gave them the answer they
were looking for so they didn't read the rest of the paper.)

He then figured out some of the factors that lead to the improved observation
rate, and found that he could teach "luckiness" as a skill. Of course you
aren't going to actually be lucky if you learn that skill. But if you have it
you'll have more opportunities to take advantage of. And that's pretty
worthwhile.

~~~
codexon
That is easily an artifact of verification bias.

There was no effort in trying to introduce events that would be negative if
aggressively pursued such as a Nigerian 411 or lottery scam. You certainly
aren't lucky if you noticed one of these and decided it was a nice
opportunity.

~~~
btilly
The perception is definitely verification bias. However there was an effort to
train "unlucky" people to be more "lucky", and there was evidence that this
really improved their lives. So while there are cases that it will cause them
to fall for scams, on the whole it seems to be a good change.

~~~
codexon
The "training" wasn't actually luck, it was a training of attitude.

Sure it may have improved their lives, but attributing this to luck is as much
of a mistake as saying that learning to prospect for gold is increasing my
luck at getting rich.

------
10ren
Tunnel vision is caused by stress. It also represents the worldview that all-
you-see is all-there-is. It's a kind of solipsism. What makes what _you_ see
so significant? Literally, it is true that you can only observe from your
point of view; and that you are always at the center of your horizons. So it's
an understandable mistake to make.

But to appreciate the unknown requires humility - it's not just that you don't
know the answers, but that you do not know the question; cannot even conceive
of the question. It's a door being unlocked, where you didn't even know there
was a doorway.

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. It's not that the teacher
arrives, but that we are surrounded by teachers at all times, and we can only
see them when we are ready. That's when they appear.

------
raju
_They tend to take the same route to and from work and talk to the same types
of people at parties. In contrast, many lucky people try to introduce variety
into their lives. For example, one person described how he thought of a colour
before arriving at a party and then introduced himself to people wearing that
colour. This kind of behaviour boosts the likelihood of chance opportunities
by introducing variety_

This may be tangential to the discussion at hand, but for many, like myself,
who tend to be shy and hesitant to reach out to others, this seems like one
good way to overcome that. If you make it into a game, it can become less
stressful. Anyone else have any other ideas like this?

[Edit - Formatting]

~~~
maneesh
Do what I did to make it happen---just do it. Do it everyday. Talk to random
strangers. Go live in a hostel in a foreign country (by far the easiest way
ever to meet people). Make it natural

~~~
Psyonic
Agreed on hostels being the easiest way to meet people. You don't even need to
try, which is why it actually might not improve your skills at home all that
much.

------
jodrellblank
Parcel this up as a message about making your own luck or being determined,
taking advantage of opportunities or consciously priming your selection bias
in your favour, and some kinds of people are all over it.

Parcel up the same message as positive thinking, cosmic ordering, the law of
attraction or subjective reality, and the same types trip over themselves to
be the first to ridicule it.

And it does seem to be the same core message.

~~~
Eliezer
Yeah? Let's train people in the law of attraction and compare them to people
trained to be _non_ -supernaturally lucky, and see who gets luckier.

~~~
jodrellblank
Given that the supernatural doesn't exist, if the training teaches a similarly
useful change in behaviour, they should get a similar increase in luck as
defined by Prof. Wiseman in the article.

------
swerling

      >  'For fun, I placed a second large message
      >  halfway through the newspaper: "Stop
      >  counting. Tell the experimenter you have
      >  seen this and win £250." Again, the unlucky
      >  people missed the opportunity because they
      >  were still too busy...
    

Uh huh. Was this 'study' financed to the tune of thousands of pounds? Or were
the offers rescinded from all those light-hearted, open-minded, happy, lucky
people who are good and deserving in every way, especially when compared to
bad, sick-hearted unlucky people who probably molest their pets and deserve to
be poor because they're actually inferior in deep spiritual ways when you
think about it, especially when you think about the matter 'scientifically',
with like, stats and everything?

Or, was the offer of £250 not actually ever made?

The article reaks of a kind of manufacturable 'luck' that it nevertheless did
not mention.

------
jcl
For an alternate (and more rigorous) view on the feedback between positive
outlook and positive experience, see Martin Seligman's _Learned Optimism_.

In it, he describes a number of experiments to show that how optimistic we are
depends on how we choose to interpret past events. He also shows that
increased optimism has measurable positive effects in many occupations and
that a person's seemingly inherent level of optimism can usually be changed
through a set of behavioral exercises. (However, he also points out that
optimism can be a detriment in some circumstances.)

------
futuremint
The world is what _you_ make of it.

------
wallflower
If you ever want an interesting look into the psyche of a person / have them
reveal themselves, ask them to describe to you situations in which they were
'lucky' (from a book "On Flirting")

------
mitko
I am thinking of the words _opters_ and _non-opters_ to describe such people.
Lucky/unlucky would mean they have better odds at games with random elements
such as roulette, or better chance of walking over money on the street or so
on.

[Edit] As jodrellblank replied that would mean a person for which the laws of
probability/statistics do not apply. [/Edit]

 _opter_ \- n. A person(or agent) who is good at seeking opportunities and is
able to take advantage of them.

~~~
jodrellblank
_Lucky/unlucky would mean they have better odds at games with random elements
such as roulette_

If you define 'lucky' as someone for whom physics/statistics do not apply then
you make it a pretty meaningless term for the real world.

 _or better chance of finding money on the street or so on._

This is what the article is talking about - the chance of money being on the
street stays the same, the 'lucky' person is more likely to spot it.

~~~
mitko
_...chance of finding money on the street or so on..._

Sorry, I was not clear. I meant that the there will be money in the street.
Not that they will find them. I will edit my post.

------
orionlogic
luck, by its meaning of definition, cannot be determined or manupilated.You
can either define the situation as your luck or your willingness, it just
depends on how you see the context. Luck, fate and willingness.How all those
are related to each other is best examined in the Kieslowski's movie Blind
Chance.

I was just thinking about this issue today because the house that i wanted to
rent was just rented to someone else. It was depressing & important for
several reasons. I keep asking myself: "what if i called the broker earlier,
just a day before? Could i have the chance to rent the house?" Well, i might
be act earlier but i didn't know about the house earlier, the reason that i
didn't know, well i had to do something that day..and this goes and goes and
goes...Its like the Feyman video that i watched from here, some very simple
things can branches into very complicated and sophisticated manners. This also
partly mentioned in the funeral monologue from Synecdoche, NY
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9PzSNy3xj0>

~~~
Psyonic
Yes, but if you take that attitude too far you'll never learn from your
mistakes. It's quite possible that if you had stopped procrastinating and
called earlier, you really would have had the chance the rent the house.

------
RevRal
Don't take luck personally; there isn't enough luck out there for everyone to
be as lucky as Bill Gates.

There are a lot of things out there that guarantee success. Low risk, and time
consuming. Most people are too scared of high risk endeavors to attempt
anything high risk more than a few times in their entire lives.

------
Mz
I am someone who seems to often have phenomenal "good luck". My subjective
experience is that it also relates to how you treat other people. Just being
consistently polite and having good boundaries opens up opportunities in a big
way -- often to a degree that astonishes me.

~~~
as_anon
I do all of this, and my personal life has had lots of good luck in the last
five years, but at the utter expense of my professional luck. I have had an
astounding series of bad luck, especially recently. I do all the things you
mention, the article mentions, etc. And still, it seems as if my luck as gone
from bad to worse. It's shocking to me. Certainly a large part of this is my
fault; I had too much hubris and self-confidence, and was sure if things had
been going a certain way, they would continue that way even to some extent.
But bad luck happens, just as good luck happens, with no priming for the
condition at all.

~~~
Mz
It's not like my life is ALL cherries and no pits. But because of the personal
challenges I have had, I simply couldn't make it if I didn't have some serious
"saving graces" going on.

------
lionheart
Well, lucky people could just be more naturally observant. It seems that would
be a useful trait.

~~~
ccarpenterg
This is more about anxiety than luck. It seems the 'unlucky' volunteers had a
higher level of anxiety and thus a decreased ability to detect opportunities.

Anxiety and stress can interfere in many activities.

~~~
modelic3
Totally true. Anxiety saps all kinds of brain power.

~~~
cojadate
I'm not so sure. I've found a certain level of anxiety can make me perform
better at things. Complacency can be dangerous too in my experience.

~~~
modelic3
True but anxiety tends to narrow focus and depending on what you are trying to
accomplish it can either help or hurt.

------
maarek
Didn't the Pierson's Puppeteers breed for luck?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierson%27s_Puppeteers#Foreign_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierson%27s_Puppeteers#Foreign_policy)

------
MikeHawk
The moral is that luck is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's just a mindset.

------
fizx
This article highlights a reason that 12-hour work days could be a bad idea
for startups. Perhaps you'll be working so hard on your Odeo that you won't
get "lucky" and find your Twitter.

------
kree10
I wish I could know how the luckies and unluckies would have done on the
"marshmallow test" as 4-year-olds.

(Then I'd make the "luckies" be guards and the "unluckies" be prisoners...)

~~~
bh23ha
I think the unluckies would resist the marshmallows better. The hight degree
of worry strikes me as mind over emotion. Then again the variables might be
independent and there would be no correlation between EQ and luck.

------
chrischen
The moral of the story is to not be so tightly procedural in your tasks as to
miss opportunities when they naturally arise.

------
quizbiz
Those that get lucky more often identify more opportunities to get lucky from.

------
quizzical
Surely there are anxious people that have won the lottery?

------
ecq
1) Be more adventurous 2) Don't be afraid to fail 3) Relax 4) Think out of the
box 5) Think Positive

------
chanux
Yay! I was right there's nothing called luck.

------
nearestneighbor
I read an article about this once. Here's the gist of it: if you want to be
lucky, you should gamble, etc. only when the entropy levels are higher than
usual.

~~~
Arkanin
What? No. Maybe you should read this article. Perhaps you can interchange
"Luck" with "Fortune", but it contains a few principles that could benefit you
in the future.

~~~
nearestneighbor
I'm sorry, I meant "lower", not "higher" (less chaos).

------
davi
Anybody else annoyed by what a blatant advertisement this is for a self-help
program?

"My research revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four basic
principles. ... After graduating from "luck school", she has passed her
driving test after three years of trying, was no longer accident-prone and
became more confident. ... The Luck Factor (Century), is available for £9.99 +
£1.99 p&p. To order, please call Telegraph Books Direct on 0870 155 7222."

To me the news here is, "Publishing company uses newspaper it owns to promote
one of its books."

