Is there any luck? The laws of luck: what our luck depends on

Some people are lucky in cards, some are lucky in love, and others fall down the stairs.

Sharp failures and unplanned successes, incredible cases, happy turns of events, vicissitudes of fate and endless “suddenly”, “oops”, “what if...” There are people who are constantly lucky, and there are those who stumble out of the blue . Why do lucky people always end up in the right place at the right time? What is the reason for their luck? Does luck exist? Is it determined at the moment of birth? And is it possible to somehow help the losers?

In order to study this issue in detail, extremely successful and unlucky people were brought in. A variety of techniques were used, including psychometric questionnaires, experiments and interviews. All methods were aimed at exploring the nature of luck as best as possible.

What happened as a result? As the results showed, luck does not exist, and lucky people are not born. There is no luck that is laid down at birth or transmitted to a person in any other way. And luck depends entirely on a person’s behavior and thinking. Without realizing it, the lucky ones use the principles that form the basis of their luck.

As an example, we can take randomly encountered opportunities. When faced with such, successful people take them into account, analyze and actively apply them. As for the unlucky category of people, they do not do this. Unlucky people are more stressed, more fixated on something and do not see the good opportunity that comes their way. This anxiety about every occasion prevents them from noticing an unexpected opportunity. As a result, all real opportunities and chances pass them by, because losers usually strive for something completely unrealistic and unattainable.

Lucky people know how to take advantage of random opportunities. They are able to create them by listening to their intuition, making the right decisions, self-realization, hoping for the best, maintaining an optimistic attitude in life, which ultimately leads to success.

There are 4 main rules for lucky people:

Listen to your instincts, to your intuition

Open yourself up to everything new, try not to think in stereotypes

Try to think more often about pleasant things, about positive things, and prepare yourself for an excellent result in advance.

Imagine yourself as a happy and successful person before every important event or meeting

Every person who dreams of a happy life must develop a constant awareness of himself as happy. Here are the main ideas that distinguish the lucky from the unlucky:

The world is full of riches.

The loser thinks as follows: There are few decent and highly paid jobs and all of them, as a rule, are occupied by thieves and scoundrels. He is confident that every person is in a constant struggle to achieve identical goals, and around him there are only competitors. At the same time, there are very few opportunities in life. An unlucky person does not doubt that the benefits have long been divided, the money has been received, and does not tire of whining that he does not get anything in this life.

What does the lucky person think - he is sure that in life there will be enough wealth and resources for everyone, because they are inexhaustible and there is enough of them to satisfy all needs and goals. For those who are looking, there will be a highly paid job, a great couple, true friends, you just have to open your eyes wider and see all this.

All people are born for joy.

What does a loser think about? He is sure that initially life is hard and full of problems. You should work hard all your life, but this work will not be appreciated. Such a person is constantly waiting for a catch, problems, disappointments, and they will certainly happen to him.

How a lucky person thinks - he regards life as an adventure, expects joy and encouragement, and always receives them. If difficulties suddenly arise on his way, he accepts them as a challenge, looks for solutions and gets incredible pleasure from it.

The number of possibilities is limited.

A loser thinks that initially he is deprived of everything, including education, finances, health, beauty, and nothing can compensate for this. He finds many reasons why he cannot become successful. Very often, such people can refuse lucrative offers, as they are sure that there are catches and pitfalls. At the subconscious level, such people are afraid to destroy the picture of injustice in the world that they have created.

A lucky person believes that with the beginning of each new day, many opportunities await him. All you need is to be able to see and recognize them.

And finally, there is one more surefire way to make yourself a luckier person: try to be friends and communicate with cheerful, successful and positive people. We must try to be close to successful and purposeful individuals. This will allow the energy of success to be absorbed into you and achieve the accomplishment of all plans, fully realizing yourself in life.

Antonina Lebedeva, psychologist, psychotherapist.

Our environment does not consist of lucky people, but lucky ones still exist. It is quite difficult to overcome envy of those who move through life easily and do not stumble over obstacles. Previously, such phenomena were explained by supernatural reasons: luck - witchcraft, failure - curses.

Positive psychology has proven that troubles can, at a minimum, be provoked by failures in parental programs, which means attracting a lucky break is also possible. We have collected 18 principles of behavior that will help you create a life of successful moments.

1. How we accept gifts of fate

The lucky one unconditionally believes that he is lucky and never passes by a coincidence of circumstances. Having met a celebrity on the street, a loser will not ask for a selfie together, believing that they will refuse. It’s the same everywhere where minimal activity is needed to get a prize (housing with inexpensive rent, a trendy item on sale, a dream job)

2. What our thoughts are occupied with

What matters is whether we can recognize a lucky break when we find ourselves in the right place at the right time. you are unlikely to notice a surprise that can change your life. Anxiety interferes with openness and observation.

3. Do we know how to relax?

A person who is totally unlucky is also totally trying to keep everything under control. And he regularly receives confirmation that this is impossible, having already spent a lot of effort on it. Lucky knows that giving up on a difficult situation is often the best way to solve it. Life is fluid, and everything can turn for the better while you're having coffee with friends.

4. Do we notice our contributions?

Luck is a subjective concept. From the outside it seems that the lucky ones do nothing, but they also care about shelter and food, bear responsibility and get tired. However, they would rather praise themselves for the most minimal efforts than scold themselves for shortcomings. The result is the result, but in any case, you should tell yourself that you are smart, and life will sparkle with new colors.

Anyone can become a sorceress, attracting good luck into her life!.. Watch the video!

5. Are our strengths working?

Before you try to break down the doors, look around to see if there is an open window nearby. Some win with their minds, some with their charm, and some take part in a completely different competition. The lucky ones prefer the easy way, and they are able to calmly refuse to argue for victory if they understand that the chances are low. You won’t earn all the prizes, but it’s easy to achieve what you feel like you’re on top of.

6. Do we know how to feel the moment?

Something has to wait if it is truly worth the wait. Instead of rushing to the front line in the most exhausting battle, analyze the situation and choose the appropriate opportunity. Don't break bad news to your boss immediately after he returns from closing a difficult deal. There will be one less bad moment in your life.

7. Within what framework do we live?

“They won’t pay much in this market,” “This man is too good for him to like me,” “I don’t have enough experience yet to take on such a task,” losers reason. And they discover that someone earns much more, meets with “unequals” and gains experience in solving difficult issues along the way. The lucky ones come not from restrictions, but from desires. Whether it will work out or not, only practice will tell.

8. How insidious self-esteem fails us

In their understanding of themselves, losers are static - “I’m a timid person,” “I was raised to be a hard worker.” The lucky one knows that an old woman can be a mess, but on the whole he has the best qualities. For this, you can allow yourself to be greedy, lazy, or “play a fool.” It is easy for him to forgive himself for minor mistakes, because he does not attribute them to himself forever.

9. Do we submit to happiness?

A huge amount of positive emotions passes by the loser because he does not know how to rejoice. Happiness is not very clear to him, so it’s easier to shrug it off and continue to wait for fantastic luck. Luck must be respected even in small things, so from a lucky person we will hear how lucky he was with the weather, but from someone who did not notice this, we will not hear anything.

The fatality of relying on providence and doing nothing is more typical of those who are unlucky than of the real darlings of fate

10. Do we believe in real luck?

Is it necessary to try to explain everything rationally? After all, coincidences also happen, even if we have never tried to visualize them. On the other hand, science and technology can easily lead us to a dead end - even the most progressive inventions break down. The lucky ones do not look for reasons or analysis, they simply enjoy what is happening when it gives such a reason.

11. Do we hear our impulses?

Home-work-friends-leisure - the classic scheme. Even pleasures are familiar. A loser clings to his comfort zone because he is afraid of losing what he has. The lucky one trusts his inner voice and is more likely to grab onto the new when the old has outlived its usefulness. He will successfully change his home, find love and suddenly become rich by growing cabbage. Just because I wanted to.

12. Do we deal with failures?

Looking for pluses in the minuses is a useless exercise, they are not there. Moreover, by plunging into the negative, we only feel it more acutely. The pros always exist separately, and to find them, the cons must be pushed far away. Lucky people focus on those areas where everything works out; they strive there with all their hearts. This is where the strength comes from to solve everything else.

13. Are we shifting responsibility to fate?

An important feature of the lucky ones is independence, but those who fail can fall into the fantasy that everything is in the hands of providence. The effect can be different - give up completely, stop perceiving reality, or get stuck waiting for luck. For a successful person, luck is not something he bets on, but only the background against which he acts.

14. Are there signs of bad luck around us?

Anyone who believes in his own failure is doomed to put up with a bad deed addressed to him, with unfavorable conditions, and insults. At the same time, the lucky one will not accept this into his happy aura at all, or he will simply be surprised - why would he? - and will pass by.

15. Do we live in harmony with ourselves?

Psychology theory suggests that the subconscious of the world and man are inextricably linked. If we go against ourselves, do not do what we want and constantly fight with the inner world, this war will certainly express itself in external circumstances. If your soul asks for peace and rest, you will begin to have catastrophic bad luck at job interviews, even if you have enough experience and qualifications.

16. How we look at life

A happy accident is an elastic concept. For an honest lucky person, a wonderful coincidence of circumstances can be the arrival of a bus after a long wait. The loser will say that he was unlucky and had to freeze before getting home. The realism is that this is common and can happen to anyone. Becoming lucky is simple - realizing that the same glass of water is half full, not empty.

17. Are we willing to take risks?

Those who are unlucky may be intimidated by the very possibility of taking risks and changing their lives. But for the lucky one, these are only actions with an unguaranteed result. In fact, no one has guarantees, but the first deprives himself of even potential luck, and the second gets chances (which in themselves, with an optimistic approach, are enough for happiness)

18. Are we afraid of the “happy” status?

Strange but true. Many will not say goodbye to even the most treacherous fate simply because being lucky is scary, unusual and somehow naive. The belief that serious adults must have problems will subtly lead them to be themselves. Successful people seem superficial and immature to them, like small children. This is a direct path to starting to consider luck itself a fairy tale and empty fiction.

Feng Shui teaches you how to manage energy and attract success with the help of proper organization of space. Do you want luck in your career? Watch the video!

Archimandrite Cleopas (Ilie). “Be vigilant, wish each other well-being and God’s Help, not the demon!” I see that in some memorials you mentioned the demon Luck, writing: “About the luck of a daughter,” “About the luck of a son,” “About the luck of the family.” Why did you write the devil in my memorial?” Published on the web portal

Do you know who Luck was?

It was the greatest demon that mowed down millions of souls. Moloch, or "Luck", was the god of happiness among the Romans, Sumerians and Carthaginians.

What was this god Moloch, or “Luck” as we call him today? His statue, cast from copper or silver, was carried on a two-wheeled cart. On his back was a copper stove, and in front of him was a copper frying pan; From behind, they threw firewood into Luck until the statue got hot. And his priests carried axes in their hands, large and sharpened.

What kind of sacrifice did Luck accept?

Only infants from the hands of mothers. They came to the village where you live. They dragged the chariot of Luck with a red-hot frying pan and called, clapping their hands: “Whoever wants good luck, make a sacrifice to Luck!” And listen to the crazy women, they said to each other: “Godmother, will you give up your child?”, and she answered: “I will give it away for good luck!” The woman took the child from the father's hands, transferred it to the hands of the idolater, he cut it into pieces and put it on the frying pan of Luck to fry. So he put up to 40-50 children at a time on that frying pan”...

Probably many people have a question. After all, “Moloch” is translated as “king”, “royal”. What does luck have to do with it?

Many sources indicate that it was a strong, powerful demon that claimed many lives. Many people worshiped Molech at that time. Therefore, it is not surprising that “Moloch” is translated precisely as “royal.”

Let’s now take a look at the definitions and read about what kind of idol it was.

“Moloch (lat. Moloch coll. “king”) is the name of the Semitic deity mentioned in the Bible, who was worshiped by the Jews during the exodus (Amos. 5:26) and during the time of King Solomon (1 Kings 11:7). The worship of Molech was characterized by the sacrifice of children through burnt offerings. God, giving the law to Moses, already then categorically forbade, on pain of death, such a form of worship of other gods (Lev. 18:21; Lev. 20:2). In addition to the Jews, Moloch was worshiped by the Ammonites (1 Kings 11:7) and the Phoenicians (to them he was known under the name Melkarta). The Moabites also practiced a similar cult.”

It’s clear: a terrible, royal demon who accepted infant sacrifices.

Now let’s read the texts about the words of Elder Cleopas in Romanian and figure out how this Moloch is connected with luck. Elder Cleopas from Romania. And it is likely that the text contains translation errors or simply interpretation errors. But if he is quoted accurately, the elder speaks of the demon Noroc. In our language, “noroc” is translated as “luck”.

Cleopas says to Elijah: “Who is this god Moloch, or good fortune, as he is called today?”

And in some places the word “luck” is used as a proper name; in the texts it is written with a capital letter.

What kind of sacrifice did Luck accept?

It turns out that the elder is talking about the same demon.

So here it is. In short. This text says that before the coming of Christ, people for every sin had their own demon, an idol, which they revered as a deity. Mars, deity of war. Aphorodite, deity of lust. But Moloch is a deity, an idol, to whom terrible sacrifices of children were made to obtain good luck.

Then the elder describes who this idol Moloch was. And how women sacrificed babies to him, explaining that they wanted to get good luck. And then he quotes the words of the prophet Isaiah. If we take a modern translation of the verses he speaks of, they sound like this:

“But those who forsake the Lord, I will punish. They forgot about My holy mountain and began to worship luck and rely on the unfaithful god of fate.”

That is why Elder Cleopas asks not to wish good luck to anyone, not to call for it! Because in fact, when we call on luck, we turn not to our Lord Jesus Christ, but to demonic forces, as we once did in those idolatrous times...

An article about the psychology of luck, after reading which it seems that you have understood everything and now you will become rich, healthy and happy in your personal life. (Spoiler: you actually won't.)

Vlad Smirnov

Sergey Radionov

As people, for the most part spoiled by higher humanitarian, and even technical education, we here, in the editorial office, are suspicious of the otherworldly, astral and ethereal. However, it would be foolish to deny that horoscopes, personal growth courses and car iconostases can bring financial and personal well-being - especially to those who sell them. Therefore - attention! - watch your hands! If you are reading this now, you are incredibly lucky! Only today on the pages of our magazine we offer a 100% effective spell for good luck! Read this article - and you will continue to have good luck! As soon as her text appeared in the editorial office, they immediately gave us heating, the printer repaired itself, and the secretary came in the shortest miniskirt in the entire history of the magazine. It really works!

Okay, let's not fool around any more and show our cards: the article is really about how to become lucky. However, not a single medieval spell, astral projection or Himalayan guru was used in its writing. It is largely based on the book “The Luck Factor” by Professor Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire, who for many years studied the psychology of lucky people and came to the conclusion that they all have certain character traits and habits that determine their “supernatural luck”.

Wiseman is generally quite an interesting person. At the age of eight, he became interested in performing magic tricks and soon began performing in Covent Garden in front of crowds of passers-by. When he turned eighteen, this lively young man was already a star in his genre, but decided to put his showman career on hold and went to university to study psychology. Wiseman became an expert on people's reactions to paranormal phenomena, miracles and anomalies. He wrote several scientific articles and received a professorship. After this, Wiseman returned to public speaking, but on a completely different level - as the host of a program exposing the supernatural on the BBC.

One of the objects of the professor’s keen interest was luck. There was something so unscientific about the whole concept of luck that it just needed to be exposed. However, the fact remained: some people considered themselves lucky and all sorts of gifts of fate actually rained down on them like from a cornucopia. Well, the losers, no matter how hard they tried, barely managed to stay afloat. Wiseman placed advertisements in national newspapers, and more than 400 people agreed to participate in his study. These were people who considered themselves either very lucky or chronic losers. For ten years, a persistent British scientist forced them to fill out questionnaires, followed their life's ups and downs, arranged tests and analyzed the information received. As a result, Wiseman finally found out what the secret of the elusive fortune was! The professor identified five character traits that make a person lucky. So, lucky ones...

That's just how they talk to strangers

Our “alas” to all the stammering quiet people and gloomy misanthropes, those who like to sit comfortably watching a TV series instead of dragging themselves to a stupid party, and people with an impenetrable cocoon, lonely meditating over a cappuccino in the corner of a coffee shop... According to Professor Wiseman, the basis of our career and personal success was the ability to constantly expand my social contacts. All the “lucky” ones from the control group constantly met someone, got involved in a conversation on an airplane, went into a bar and immediately sat down with lonely people, and at all kinds of exhibitions, corporate events and markets, they deftly moved from one person to another, without being at all embarrassed introduce yourself and make a stupid joke.

Talking to strangers is important not only when you are selling something or looking for a new relationship on your own. New Carolina University recently conducted a study of engineering careers with 42 respondents. Most of them said that offers that influenced their career advancement, as well as professional knowledge and skills, very often came to them through completely random acquaintances.

What to do if you are absolutely not created for social life? And now, in the midst of this stupid birthday, they are all already drunk and loudly chattering happily, and you are sitting in the corner and reading this article... It seems that it is people like you who have managed to turn the shafts of evolution in their direction over the past fifteen years and invented social networks. According to Professor Wiseman, virtual communication, of course, is not as productive as real communication, but it will also help you find, and most importantly, maintain new contacts. Therefore, feel free to shut up the feeling of guilt that gnaws at you an hour after viewing your Facebook feed. You are not idle, but expanding your social circle and forging good luck!

Example. John was one of Professor Wiseman's "lucky" group. He was a classic extrovert - he constantly went to parties and noisy gatherings. Once he even told the professor about his secret method: before going to any public event, this man decided for himself that today he would get to know, say, all the people in red or everyone who wears glasses. This completely random sample yielded surprising results. This is how John received a very lucrative contract for his business and met the woman who became his wife.

Distracted by other things

This quality, which your elementary school teacher was so keen to exterminate in you, is in fact the most ancient instinct of a hunter and gatherer, which helps you track down game or spot an edible plant, even when you are busy with other important things. Professor Wiseman illustrated this with one illustrative experiment. He handed out a newspaper to his subjects (the losers and the lucky ones) and asked them to count how many photographs there were in it. Both groups completed this task quite quickly. However, there was a drastic difference in how they completed the task! Among the unlucky ones, the majority simply took and counted the photographs, while the vast majority of the lucky ones found a huge ad on the second page: “Stop counting! There are 43 photographs in the newspaper!”

Professor Wiseman argues that the results of this experiment can be extrapolated to how successful people perform any task. They are in no hurry to reach the goal, gritting their teeth, constantly fearing that someone will bypass them at the turn. Anxiety is not typical for them at all. Even on deadline, they allow themselves to go to the smoking room to chat or follow a link to a new blog, where they discover an idea for an unexpected rethinking of the entire project. And now the boss postpones the deadline, and the unfortunate loser colleague, who turned in his part on time, curses the upstart. It is very important to try not to let a deadline put you into a state of stress: this narrows the scope of our attention to the only task that looms in front of a tired brain.

“Feel free to get distracted! - advises Wiseman. - Break your habits, look around, don’t be afraid to turn onto an unfamiliar street. Even if you arrive home half an hour late, you might find something wonderful! And even if you don’t find it, new experiences still help exercise your brain, and expanding your habitat brings good luck in hunting.”

Example. Her husband constantly scolded Joanna for driving very slowly. However, the woman could not help herself: she constantly looked at everything that was happening around. Joanna said that in this way she gets special pleasure from driving, notes how spring and autumn change the landscape, how people decorate their houses for the holidays, how the clouds turn sunset colors... As a result, it was Joanna who accidentally stumbled upon an advertisement for the sale of a house, when she and her husband searched for a long time and unsuccessfully for a new home. From the outside, the structure looked like an abandoned warehouse without windows, but it turned out that inside it was a real loft with a glass wall facing the forest. The advert for sale was small and inconspicuous, and the owner did not use an agent, so it was possible to stumble upon this house only by chance. All her friends thought that Joanna was simply incredibly lucky.

Not afraid of change

Imagine that you have been offered a new job in another city. If you're over thirty, this becomes a real problem. As Wiseman found, most people will refuse to change their lives even for the sake of bright career prospects. We are biologically equipped with a mechanism that draws our attention to risks rather than to possible profits. Only if the benefits greatly outweigh the potential sacrifices do we act without hesitation.

So, the lucky ones have this mechanism broken! Among them, the percentage of those ready to “leave their comfort zone” is growing sharply. Quit a stable job and go to do a project in another country - please! Fall in love and move to another city? At least tomorrow! Changing the make of a car, going to dinner at an unfamiliar restaurant, going to a party where they don’t know anyone, changing their last name, profession and partner is as easy as blowing their nose. Most of us, looking at this whole crazy carnival from our box, believe that these people are simply indecently lucky. However, it should be taken into account that failures in modern Instagram culture are still usually left behind the scenes. Therefore, we see and hear about events that ended well - so it seems that the lucky ones succeed. Most likely, they end up in the fool as often as they pull out a lucky ticket, it’s just that in the general noise no one pays attention to it. In addition, travel, new things and moving in our minds are always associated with prestigious consumption. Therefore, even if you went to Paris, where your heart was broken, this is perceived as incredible luck compared to the prospect of spending your whole life in the city of Zheleznodorozhny as a senior ticket cashier.

In general, you understand Professor Wiseman. If you are offered a business trip or an affair, agree, and you’ll figure it out later. Even if you have to break your favorite case, and you still don’t like the nomadic life, you can always build a new one with European-quality repairs on the ruins of an old cocoon, and from it on holidays you can tell how you once went to Mount Doom and back.

Example. Benjamin was a classic loser. His favorite story was about how, after graduating from college, he did not go to play professional beach volleyball in California, but stayed with his family. At any moment, when something didn’t work out at work or at home, Benjamin looked up reproachfully, and everyone understood that now he, tanned and flawless, could trample the warm sand on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Even if something worked out, the pathetic ordinary luck was infinitely far from the ideal Californian happiness.

They go ahead

The classic advice “If you get a lemon, make lemonade out of it” was invented just for lucky people. The simplest secret of their luck is that they never despair, play out the situation to the end and eventually leave the casino of fate with at least a small winning. We are talking about blocking another important survival mechanism: in general, our species rarely agrees to this to make fruitless attempts for a long time. We save energy. Several failures in a row can completely turn off the vision of the situation for most of us. This feeling can be compared to the desire to spit on everything and hibernate on the sofa, which comes after a series of unsuccessful parties where you never met the girl of your dreams.

So, a lucky person, as Professor Wiseman discovered, will go to these parties in the same way. It is quite possible that he, too, will never meet a suitable partner (by the way, his requirements for this partner will be radically different: instead of looking for a blonde with a sense of humor and a bust of at least a “C”, the lucky guy will formulate his request simply as “find some pretty girl"). However, since his energy saving function is disabled, this scoundrel will continue to meet just anyone and, quite possibly, will have a good time with new friends or receive an invitation to an interesting event of a completely different format, where the desired princes and princesses will finally come in droves. What's wrong? you might say, this unquenchable optimism and positive attitude (as well as the absence of anxiety in stressful situations, depression from lack of ultraviolet radiation and other delights of the life of a hypochondriac) is a kind of genetic given. Perhaps this is what we can call luck.

The rest, deprived, are left with only pathetic attempts to imitate God's gift with the help of improvised alcohol or antidepressants (strictly according to a doctor's prescription, of course).

Example. The inventor of the cyclone vacuum cleaner, James Dyson, assembled 5,100 models of his device before he had a working prototype. All this time he lived on his wife's money. We can say that in his life this man had 5,100 failures and only one happy accident. Even after the vacuum cleaner was operational, it took Dyson another five years to sell it. However, he eventually founded his own company and became a billionaire.

In addition to activating intuition, the belief that they were born under a lucky star allows people to exhibit all the other “lucky” character traits. They are self-confident and therefore more sociable. They know that everything will work out somehow, and therefore are more relaxed even in the most stressful situations, which allows them to see more opportunities to resolve them. Confidence that everything will be fine helps you decide to take the risk of change and see things through to a victorious end, despite the obstacles.

Example. FedEx founder Fred Smith was known among his friends as a phenomenally lucky man. He himself always said that he did not know how it worked, but at critical moments he was simply lucky. This amazing confidence once saved the company from bankruptcy. This was at the very beginning, when FedEx just started shipping. Smith collected a large number of orders, but the price of jet fuel was constantly rising and at some point a huge hole appeared in the company's budget. FedEx had millions in debt, the bank refused to give another loan. There were only 5 thousand dollars left in the company's cash register. Fred didn't tell any of his partners about his daring plan. That evening he took all the money from the cash register, boarded a plane and flew away somewhere. The next day there were 27 thousand in the company’s account. This amount helped the carrier stay afloat for another week, which turned out to be critical. And after that, things took off sharply, and FedEx never faced financial difficulties again. Subsequently, Fred told his partners that he flew to Las Vegas, where he played blackjack all night and won 27 thousand!

It was interesting? Then read these articles too. Your erudition will thank you. Telegram channel MAXIM: Reading

What is luck? Some believe that this is just a happy coincidence of circumstances, others that it depends on certain patterns. Recently, Maya Young, a management specialist at the University of California at Los Angeles, tried to explore this phenomenon. And I came to unexpected conclusions - luck depends on the personality of the person himself!

Patience and a little effort?

Success or unluckiness can be a property of a particular person, the result of the influence of certain personal characteristics, says Maya Young. Thus, in Chinese culture it is believed that if a person works hard, he will achieve success. In Western culture, it is often believed that luck depends on subjective factors. So, they hire the candidate who the recruiter liked best during the interview, and not the one who deserves it more due to his professional qualities.

Our past successes or failures can influence how we behave in later life. We can also be influenced by our own ideas about fortune. So, if we are convinced that we deserve it or that a bright streak has begun in our life, then we can unconsciously behave more confidently and, accordingly, increase our chances of success. The same thing happens if we believe in irrational support, say, using a talisman or “lucky” clothes, going to the temple and offering prayers for our case to be resolved in the best possible way...

Is there a "lucky streak"?

Psychologists from Stanford University Thomas Gilovich, Robert Vallone and Amos Tversky, in their work published in 1985, tried to explore the phenomenon of the so-called “hot streak,” which manifests itself, in particular, in gambling, when a player makes one successful move after another. Scientists have come to the conclusion that there is no “lucky streak”, it is just an illusion, an attempt to see some pattern in a random sequence of events...

However, last year Harvard University students Andrew Bokoski, John Ezekowitz and Carolyn Stein challenged the conclusions of their predecessors. They hypothesized that in a state of "intoxication" with luck, players are more determined to take difficult actions, which temporarily increases the "success effect." Thus, the researchers analyzed videos of National Basketball Association matches from 20123 to 2013. After watching the video, they found that players who made one or more successful throws then began to make more difficult throws, apparently believing that fortune had turned to them. And this led to new positive results.

So Hot streaks are real in a sense. But what causes them to start? Juemin Xu and Nigel Harvey from University College London suggested that this is still a factor of probability. After analyzing nearly half a million sports bets, they found that bettors who start winning are more likely to continue winning. The same applies to losses. Statistics indicate that the probability here is higher than chance - 50 to 50.

It turned out that the winners begin to make safer bets so as not to “scare off” their luck. And the losers, on the contrary, get excited, hoping that in the end fortune will turn to face them. Therefore, the former continue to win, and the latter continue to lose.

A 2009 study by Maya Young found that students who believe they are lucky perform better academically. “It’s worth noting that a person who believes in sustainable luck is more motivated to choose challenging goals and achieve them,” says Maya Young. “And if he believes that luck is a fleeting phenomenon and cannot be relied on, because today It’s there and gone tomorrow, he’s less likely to choose challenging tasks.”

Luck can be cultivated!

Former magician and now professor of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, Richard Weissman, believes that luck can be “cultivated” within yourself. To prove this, Richard Weissman gathered 400 people who considered themselves either lucky or unlucky. After talking with them, he came to the following conclusion. “Lucky” people know how to take advantage of opportunities that come their way, more often listen to their own intuition, and also have a positive attitude towards their future and persevere through challenges. Losers, on the other hand, panic at the slightest provocation, experience anxiety and tension. After a psychologist worked with losers using behavioral intervention techniques, 80 percent admitted that they began to feel more satisfied with life and felt lucky.

It turns out that the same strategies in some situations lead to success, and in others - to the opposite result... Maybe you shouldn’t look for any patterns?