When luck meets resilience

This week we’re looking at why certain people seem to have more luck than others. However, this isn’t about the type of luck that might result in winning the lottery. It’s real-world thinking that can help us re-shape the space we operate in.

If you want to explore further, let’s chat. I help organizations and individuals tackle challenges and setbacks with resilience and adaptability. Your team and company has the skill set, but do they have the mindset? More info here.

I met this guy once, a friend of a friend we had over for dinner. He entertained the whole table with outrageous stories that always ended with him landing miraculously on his feet. To hear these stories, I couldn’t help but think it was a miracle he was still alive. However, not only was he alive, he was one of the happiest people I’ve ever met.

It was also clear that he was one of the luckiest people I’ve ever met.

Perhaps luck and happiness are intertwined? Science would suggest it. Let me share a quick story.

Dr Richard Wiseman is a British psychologist and author who studies the psychology of luck, humour, and self-help. He has run a ton of tests about luck over the years, and wrote a full book on the subject.

In one of his experiments, Wiseman recruited 1000 participants and had them screened with a basic questionnaire to determine if they considered themselves ‘lucky’ or ‘unlucky’. He then requested each subject to go through a newspaper and count the number of photographs within. When they got to the end of the paper, they were to put it down and let the experimenter know how many photographs they saw. There were 43 in total and almost everyone counted correctly.

However, on the second page of the newspaper, he had placed a large half-page ad with big bold font that said “STOP COUNTING. THERE ARE 43 PHOTOGRAPHS IN THIS NEWSPAPER”. The ‘lucky’ ones saw it and completed the task almost instantly.

The ‘unlucky’ ones didn’t see the ad at all.

He gave everyone an additional chance too. On a later page in the newspaper, another ad said: “STOP COUNTING. TELL THE EXPERIMENTER YOU HAVE SEEN THIS AND WIN $100”.

The ‘unlucky’ ones missed that one too!

On reflection of the experiment, Dr Wiseman recalls the difference in personalities of the lucky vs unlucky people. The lucky people came in and were relaxed and happy - they were open to new ideas and opportunities.

However, the unlucky people seemed to have a much more narrow view of the situation. They weren’t relaxed at all. Instead, they were anxious, worried and only focused on completing the task exactly as indicated.

They couldn’t see another opportunity.

Wiseman indicated that through the experiment, he wanted to be around the lucky people. He said they were fun to be with. But the unlucky people came in, normally in an absolutely foul mood, and their mood would rub off on him. He didn’t want to be around them as much.

In conclusion, Wiseman suggests that lucky people tend to be focused on the positive side of whatever happened to them. So much so that, when bad things happen, the lucky ones tend to be able to bounce back. In other words….they have more resilience! 

So, how can we increase our luck, and therefore our resilience?

Change is easy….if we keep the tasks simple. Here is one simple way we can improve our luck.

But first of all, if we think we’ve been unlucky in the past, that’s no reason to assume that it’s going to be the same way in the future. Our brain can always learn and change, so we need to be able to imagine there is a chance that things will go our way. To do this, we can build a luck diary.

A luck diary is a physical piece of positivity. We can write down the most positive thing that has happened to us….or we can write down a negative thing that is no longer happening. And, if all else fails, we can simply list some things that we are grateful for.

By doing this simple exercise, we’re building up evidence that things are not actually as bad as we think. With that evidence in hand, we become more optimistic and we have these wonderful examples that we can always go back to. We’re essentially reminding ourselves that we’re good! And, if things get bad, then “hey, they can always get better.”

We should try to do this in our daily professional lives as well. When a campaign goes well, or the results for that month are strong, or someone gives us great feedback, then let’s carve it stone somewhere! These are positive reminders that we have done great things in the past and will reinforce those ‘lucky’ feelings when we need them in the future.

Remember that the people who saw the big bold ad are those who were relaxed and open to new ideas and opportunities. There are plenty of other ways to get to a place of being open, but a luck diary is a simple way to start seeing the good stuff all around us and build our resilience.

So, what went well for us today? Let’s write it down.

Until next time friends, stay resilient!

Carre @ Resilient Marketing Minds