
The Key to Good Luck Is an Open Mind - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/-the-key-to-good-luck-is-an-open-mind
======
pm90
This is actually a very interesting article. And with the risk of attracting
the wrath on internet haters, let me propose something that personally helped
me a lot and which seems like a very narrow application of the principles
described in the article: meeting romantic partners.

I tend to be more open in talking to strangers and that has opened up worlds
of opportunities to me. But the biggest benefit has certainly been in meeting
people that I would liked to date. And what I realized (or read somewhere) is
that if you live in a large city, you literally run into a lot of people just
in the course of your day. e.g. waiting in line at starbucks, taking the
train, at concerts/shows etc. And all that is really required is for one party
to initiate conversation.

Let me qualify this by saying that I do not condone pestering strangers; that
is borderline harassment (especially for women). But when both parties are
interested/responsive, it can lead to adventures that you wouldn't have ever
expected ....

~~~
Ntrails
> Let me qualify this by saying that I do not condone pestering strangers;
> that is borderline harassment (especially for women).

There is really no way to know in advance whether initiating a conversation
with a stranger is welcome or not, the only way to find out is to try. It's
unreasonable to place the burden of a person to signal "don't impose yourself
on me" when you could simply leave them alone and not take the risk of being
an inconvenience

~~~
gradys
I guess it depends on what version of the social contact you think we're all
operating with. I'd say the quite minor inconvenience of someone ahead of you
in line trying to start a conversation is part of what you sign up for when
you go out in public. That is, as long as the initiator is prepared to take
the hint when it's clear you don't want to talk.

~~~
hokus
I take it as a design question. Do we want a society designed for people who
like to interact or do we want to design it after the desire for limiting
interaction as much as possible?

One time, on a crowded train, an elderly lady just started talking about her
visit to her lovely grandchildren and what they had been up to since her last
visit. It wasn't a short story and to her it was the most fascinating
experience in the world. While telling it she turned her head towards anyone
who wasn't looking at her. She had quite the powerful gaze. She wasn't
screaming but had a loud voice.

Eventually someone rudely interrupted her to ask her if she could stop
talking. She just bluntly told him to go sit some place else. "The train is
full of people silently gazing out of the window, people who forgot how to
talk with others. What are you waiting for? Off you go?"

At that point the laughter made it apparent that people sitting really far
away were also listening to her. She kept staring at him and kept telling him
to just go away, go be miserable some place else, don't expect us to share
your misery. Being made the center of attention everyone else was also looking
at him. Eventually he just got up and left (producing even more laughter)

The moment he got up she continued her story exactly where she left of with a
tone of voice as if the entire incident never happened.

The most interesting thing I took from the experience was how confident she
was that a person who doesn't like to talk with strangers also doesn't talk
back when ordered to piss off. Her involving 30 random strangers in her
monologue also ruled out any physical retaliation.

After the story about her visit to the grandchildren she told us she always
talked to strangers, she did this her entire life and wasn't about to stop.
She got to know many nice people. She didn't like how the last few decades
this made her the center of attention but felt obligated to remind us things
weren't always like this.

We shouldn't let people like the guy who just left force us to stop talking.
They are overstepping the bounds. It isn't for them to decide who you can or
cant talk to. "Who does he think he is being so disrespectful to an elderly
lady?" When she grew up one would listen to what older people had to say.
They've been around, you might learn something.

It was a hilarious experience. I've been talking to random strangers ever
since. At times you run into introvert people who obviously didn't talk with
anyone for years. Without saying anything they reinforce the idea we should
keep doing this.

Trust me, you can PM anyone you like on irc. If they say you can't do that you
just tell them you just did.

The funniest resolve for the protesters you inevitably run into when doing
this has to be....

[https://memecrunch.com/meme/20XL1/come-at-me-bro-bruce-
lee](https://memecrunch.com/meme/20XL1/come-at-me-bro-bruce-lee)

~~~
expertentipp
> She kept staring at him and kept telling him to just go away, go be
> miserable some place else, don't expect us to share your misery

From my experience it’s females are more likely to use this argumentation to
marginalize the enemy - “nobody wants you, you are alone, go away loser”, etc.
Someone might not want to share _your_ misery some time in the future, elderly
lady.

~~~
morgtheborg
Yes, those pesky "females" always ruining the good times of people who just
want them to shut the hell up.

------
nate
This has been a tough year over here with a lot of un-fun life events. So this
morning when trying to get out for a run I was looking for this one and only
long sleeve workout shirt I have. And I couldn't find it. It's trivial, I
know, but I started blowing up. Emptying out drawers, rummaging through the
entire closet. I can't take yet another thing not working right. Where the
f*&^% is this shirt!?

But I took a few deep breaths. Opened my eyes and the shirt was literally in
front of me hanging in the closet.

It's a tiny example but this research rings very true. Being pissed off at
life is a downward spiral where you stop noticing great opportunities to get
you out of the spiral.

~~~
toxik
Ah if it isn’t my friend the anecdata. Blowing a fuse over trivialities
probably means you’re stressed out. I sure am. It’s just modern tech society.

~~~
SubuSS
Anecdotes are a problem only if someone is using them to arrive at
generality/scientific explanation out of it.

In this case - the research is already done, people are just identifying with
that.

------
frgtpsswrdlame
I'm skeptical of a definition of luck where you can be trained to be lucky.
That's not luck, that's skill. There is no skill to luck by definition.

But let's take what we've got here and engage with it:

>She came up with a few basic strategies for parents to teach their kids,
including being open to new experiences, learning to relax, maintaining social
connections, and (yes) talking to strangers. All of these techniques had one
theme in common—being more open to your environment both physically and
emotionally.

Okay but this is still luck, we've just moved it further down the chain. Now
these are kids who are lucky enough to be born into a family which is
concerned enough with these things to train them. Heck even prior to this
training what is it that a kid needs to become an adult who has 'learned to
relax'? Probably a safe environment, one where relaxing won't be punished.
Same goes for 'talking to strangers', even more traditional concepts of luck
being related to hard work, these all rely on growing up in an environment
where these traits are present and are rewarded frequently enough for a kid to
draw the connection. _That_ is luck and I don't think these articles with the
implicit message: _Skill is the real luck_ , ever do a very good job, they
just smuggle the luck away into some other unaddressed reality of our
environment.

~~~
mcguire
" _I 'm skeptical of a definition of luck where you can be trained to be
lucky. That's not luck, that's skill. There is no skill to luck by
definition._"

On the other hand, by that definition, no one can be luckier than anyone else.
And yet, some people seem to have an easier time navigating reality than
others.

~~~
frgtpsswrdlame
>On the other hand, by that definition, no one can be luckier than anyone
else.

Huh? That doesn't follow at all. Luck could be described as 'beneficial acts
of god', there's no connection there to everyone having the same amount of
those acts befall them.

------
mettamage
I remember a book I read years ago called The Luck Factor. It is a pop
psychology book, and outlines the principles of luck and goes in-depth about
it. I internalized most of the principles a little bit.

One time I was in London and lost my bus ticket to Amsterdam. I really needed
some luck. So I asked myself "what would the author of the book do?" I sought
out the highest manager I could find, which eventually was the bus driver
himself and he listened to my story and said "we have a spare seat, so you can
take that."

And with that the book had paid for itself!

There are more situations in which I used those principles and they work quite
well. It changed my whole outlook on how lucky I am. I feel a lot more lucky
nowadays then I used to as a kid, where I always felt I would never be lucky.
You can debate to what extent I am nowadays more lucky on an objective sense,
but I feel using the principles from that book (of which being open to new
things is one of them) helped me a lot.

I am not affiliated with that book. I just love a good pop psychology book
(another good one is Man's Search for Meaning, for example, which is to be
fair a lot more than only pop psychology).

~~~
foxbarrington
Richard Wiseman, mentioned in the article, wrote that book.

------
quickConclusion
I recommend the American Life episode about Alex Zharov, stranded on a desert
island in New York City.

It really gives a vivid insight on how some people find themselves lucky when
others do not.

[https://www.thisamericanlife.org/307/in-the-shadow-of-the-
ci...](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/307/in-the-shadow-of-the-city)

------
maxxxxx
I think the key to good luck is mainly to be lucky and also to have good
judgement. When I was younger I was very open minded, pursued a lot of things
but I didn't have good judgement in what I did and who I did it with. So in
the end a lot of things I did turned out to be big mistakes.

~~~
corpMaverick
Luckly as you get older your judgment improves.

Note. It doesn't mean older people have better judgment. It only means you
have better judgment than your younger self.

~~~
maxxxxx
If you have failed a lot you probably know better when to say "No" but it's
still hard to say "Yes" because you don't know what works. You only know what
doesn't work. Again, the key to good luck is often luck.

------
acconrad
One of the experiments in the post mentions that in order to claim the prize,
you could either count the number of photographs or easily discover the
message "you can stop counting, there are 43 photographs on here." What I
wonder is if there are negative correlations here as well - for example if
lucky people are better at (and more open to) discovering things, does that
also mean they're more likely to blindly follow directions and lack critical
thinking? The first thing I thought when I saw that was "what if they're lying
or they made a mistake and there weren't exactly 43 photographs?"

~~~
purplethinking
I would personally be more worried about not doing any deep thought. At least
I know for myself when I'm in deep thought on some subject, I don't notice
anything around me. I walked past my own wife on the street while she was
trying to get my attention. That seems very detrimental to the kind of luck
the researcher was testing. Maybe my best bet is to try to switch between
being present and thinking.

------
kerng
I liked reading this, the experiment with the 20 dollar bill is fascinating
(although it didn't seem super scientific). You can't control life, but there
are opportunities in abundance around us - we just have to walk through the
world with an open eye and mind.

------
brwsr
In order to get lucky with something you have to give luck a chance. There is
no way to win a lottery when you don't buy a ticket in the first place. The
more tickets you buy (the more involved you are), the greater the chance
you'll win (luck). What's more to it?

Btw, what is luck? Some things that make you happy in the short term can
easily destroy everything that's dear to you in the long term.

~~~
colanderman
A long time ago I was inspired by a comment on HN which put this in terms of
"increasing your luck surface area". The phrasing stuck with me and I've
applied it to my life ever since.

~~~
digaozao
Good book for you: Luck Factor. It talks a lot about this.

[https://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/books/the-luck-
factor/](https://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/books/the-luck-factor/)

~~~
mcguire
...by Richard Wiseman, mentioned in the article.

------
CM30
Eh, I see how having an open mind could help with finding opportunities in
life and make someone 'luckier' in a certain sense, but at the same time I
also feel that there's still a huge portion of success that's down to things
well outside of someone's control.

I mean, I often write about underrated creators on sites like YouTube, and
while there's definitely some semblance of a correlation between marketing
effort and success, it's very much a minor one overshadowed by a lot of other
things. I know plenty of people who worked far harder than I ever could, and
ended up struggling with only a few followers as well as people who seemingly
just lucked into success purely from one random friend having existing
popularity.

And I suspect it's similar outside of the internet too. There's a correlation
between open mindedness and trying hard and promoting yourself and success,
but it's not an absolute one and often overshadowed by a lot of other things.

~~~
restuijs
Speaking from experience, I can say that typecasting problems are a striking
example of this process from a different perspective. In that case, you're
given lots of opportunities, but not the ones you're looking for, for reasons
that have to do with others but not yourself.

A lot of what we discuss isn't luck at all but social dynamics and others'
perceptions. Sometimes that involves skill; sometimes it involves luck, and
sometimes it involves something systematic but ultimately outside the control
of the individual.

------
andriesm
I've always wondered about the role that the reticular activating system plays
in being lucky.

If you are expecting to find good opportunities you may spot them more. I have
seen many typical people blunder blindly past once-in-a-lifetime-
opportunities.

Many people just don't pay attention to massive opportunities. They just don't
notice them or seem to not care when these things are right in front of their
noses.

~~~
gaurav_v
Could you give some examples?

~~~
andriesm
Like the other poster mentioned crypto currencies. I've hit many jackpots like
this in my life. I have also seen big opportunities that are specific to
another person, asked why they don't pursue X or Y, and the responses are
quite often non-responses.

I literally begged several of my friends to just put $10 into a specific
crypto that went up nearly 500 times. I did put about $100 myself into that
one, and of course 20 similar parcels of money into about 20 others.

Of course just citing one example like crypto is not helpful. I had another
idea for a totally passive income business, that I for whatever reason didn't
feel like pursuing, I tried to convince others of the merits of doing this
things. Eventually after about 2 years of failing to convince anyone else to
try it, I did it, and made really lucrative money that came in like clockwork
with about 2 hrs of effort per month. That thing ran for quite a while and
eventually the market changed to not make it work anymore.

I have had some other successes too. I also lost of lot of thr easy money made
along the way, but now I am wizer, and my latest money maker (post early
crypto buying) I have taken a serious amount of thought about not ever letting
it dissapate. I have also had many failures because I have tried many things.
But some things really are no brainers.

Another example is buying massive bargains when shopping second hand. The
trick to capitalise on a bargain is just 2 steps - step 1 make sure there is
no catch (or a sufficient margin of safety) - step 2 - pull the trigger FAST -
exceptional bargains don't hang around indefinitely.

~~~
robocat
> step 2 - pull the trigger FAST - exceptional bargains don't hang around
> indefinitely.

I find this interesting because I have a friend get bargains that saved him
the equivalent to large percentages of his income on deals that were simply
unbelievable. He is seemingly average tradesman...

I have been trying to train myself to get better at finding/creating and then
jumping on great bargains, to understand his skill and the skills of others.

However there is a lot lot more depth to it than the two sentences you added
to the bottom of your comment ;)

------
chronotis
My family has always made jokes about or accused me of being unusually lucky.
I didn't really believe that was the case; over time, my standard response to
these suggestions is that we can manufacture luck. That wasn't based on any
actual research, though, so it's refreshing to see some data back me up.

------
cvaidya1986
Ok I am gonna be really open minded that we get into YC Summer 2018 :)

------
ivankolev
When I had tough times, reading this lifted me up big time:
[http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2013/12/the-ultimate-cheat-
shee...](http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2013/12/the-ultimate-cheat-sheet-for-
reinventing-yourself-2/)

------
megamindbrian2
Relevant? [https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Mindset-The-New-
Psychology-...](https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Mindset-The-New-Psychology-
of-Success)

------
andersamundson
Some of these ideas seem a very close cousin to the 'curiosity conversations'
from Brian Grazer's 'A Curious Mind.'

------
danschumann
The psychological trait of openness is often associated with creativity.
Creating something from nothing seems very lucky indeed.

------
k__
Isn't openness part of the big five (OCEAN) that can't be changed much later
in life?

You only become less and less open later in life.

~~~
petra
This is different, it's not about bring conceptually open and interested in
new ideas, its about openennes of attention.

~~~
k__
Really? I saw a few psychologist talk about creativity and they said it was
about openness (O in OCEAN) and intelligence.

So it seemed to me that this openness was in fact about being conceptually
open to new ideas

------
costcopizza
I want to know the correlation of people who like this article and consider
themselves a lucky person.

------
davebryand
"The strategies included using meditation to enhance intuition, relaxation,
visualizing good fortune, and talking to at least one new person every week."

These are basic techniques that have been taught by almost every spiritual
system for thousands of years. Unfortunately for all of my atheist-materialist
friends, you have to change your metaphysical views to employ these
techniques.

~~~
marcus_holmes
Atheist-materialist here. Also meditator, and visualiser.

It's just psychology. No need to invoke deities.

~~~
davebryand
It's not about deities, it's about whether there are ways to use consciousness
to manipulate the material universe. Are there laws of the universe that are
knowable through experience and intuition that do not yet have a scientific
explanation? The traditions I mention say "yes", I would imagine an atheist-
materialist would say "no". I would have said "no" up until just a few months
ago.

~~~
maxpupmax
I think they all seem to have a pretty scientific explanation. Don't we see
research on meditation pop up here almost every other week?

I guess I'm pretty firmly in the atheist-materialist camp here. If you don't
mind me asking, what happened to you to convince you otherwise?

~~~
davebryand
Thanks for asking. Here is a grab bag in rough order of events. (Spent years
1-20 as Catholic, and years 21-39 as an atheist)

* Leaving my third "failed" startup, post YC. (For the record, my awesome co-founders sold to Cisco after I had left)

* Working with a coach to find and clearly define my deepest values

* Leaving San Francisco to align my life with those values

* Deciding to search for the meaning of life

* Truly realizing that the meaning of life isn't accumulation of money or stuff, and that my identity needn't be tied to those goals

* Wrestling with my ego and deciding it does not deserve primacy

* Donating many of my possessions

* Fasting (many 2-3 day water fasts, 5 day as peak)

* Reading 20-30 books on different spiritual traditions

* Watching hundreds of hours of lectures on esoteric systems and spiritual traditions

* Researching Tarot, Kaballah, Freemasonry, and other ancients systems of enlightenment

* Studying Zen and Taoism

* Learning about [Natural Law]([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASUHN3gNxWo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASUHN3gNxWo)) and allowing myself to honestly imagine if that is the way that the universe works

* Experimenting with psychedelics

* Practicing Transcendental Meditation twice daily

* Getting out in nature and learning about plants

* Explicitly working to balance my left and right brain by beginning to trust my intuition

* Keeping a diary of synchronicities and searching for deeper connections than I previously allowed myself to believe could exist

* Opening myself up to the possibility that there is more to the universe than that which has been explained by science

* Learning the eight-circuit model of consciousness

* Researching state of the art physics

* Refactoring, uninstalling or rewriting the legacy operating system and long ago installed background processes that were my subconscious

* Buying a house

* Taking guitar lessons

* Teaching myself to draw

* Releasing fear and deciding to love everyone and everything

* Adopting an amor fati attitude

* Living for the present moment

* Finding my higher self and living out of it on a daily basis

~~~
foldr
Holy shit. I'd rather be unenlightened than do all that.

~~~
davebryand
I would have thought so, too--it just sort of happened :)

------
guskel
which is also the key to bad luck.

------
oculusthrift
i don’t like articles like this because it discounts the effect of actual
luck. An open mind isn’t going to help you if a family member is sick and you
have to take care of them instead of going to college.

------
weitzj
So for me definition of luck would be:

The ability to recognize and pursue opportunities

------
ppeetteerr
If you can go to "luck school", you're privileged. What a scam

~~~
dfsdfdsfds
So you'd rather remain unlucky than acquire anything that could reek of
privilege?

Maybe those unlucky people you have in mind, once they make it out of their
misery, will wonder what to do, and find themselves interested in going to
luck school.

Ultimately, it sounds as if when you are not privileged, under no
circumstances should you try anything that could change your luck. If it would
work, it would prove that you were never underprivileged to begin with, which
is a big no no. Self defeating logic at its best.

~~~
ppeetteerr
Luck, but definition, is something outside of your control. Any time you have
influence over your luck, it's no longer luck, it's ability. Maybe this school
teaches people to recognize the opportunities in their life (still a
privileged position), but luck by its definition is success or failure outside
of one's control.

The idea that one chooses to be lucky or remain unlucky is about as sensible
as theology.

------
soheil
Most wanted hackernews feature: auto hide all stories from certain domains

~~~
sincerely
nautil.us and aeon.co are the two that commenters tend not to like, right?

anyways it would probably be pretty easy to write a browser extension to do
this for you. you could even make a show HN when you're done! :)

------
ebbv
Yeah all those dumb kids who are dying of diseases in poverty should be more
open minded.

~~~
Robotbeat
It's almost like you read the article: _“On the academic side of things, I’ve
always been sort of skeptical of any concept related to luck,” says Carter.
“Because as a sociologist, it’s like, Oh, so all those children in Darfur are
just not lucky? We know that there are other things there.”_

