by Alysa Dudley

Created on: April 27, 2010

Napoleon, it is said, used to inquire of officers whose names had been submitted for promotion to field rank, “Is he lucky?”    It is splendid advice to “be lucky” in your investments, in your health, activities, and friends.

You might think that being lucky is like being born with blue eyes and curly hair, either you have it or you don’t.  However that is not true.  There is much that we can do to bring more luck into our lives.  First it is important to know what luck is. The better prepared we are to recognize favorable chances the more likely we are to extract good luck from them.

A.H.Z. Carr says in his book “How to Attract Good Luck “Luck is the effect of chance on our lives.  We can improve our luck by making ourselves readier for the chances of life as they come to us.”  In order to attract luck we must first expose ourselves to it.  We must recognize that most of our luck – the beneficial effect of change upon our lives – comes to us through other people.  

To expose ourselves to luck,  means in essence to come into healthy human relations with more people.  The more luck-lines a person throws out, the more luck he is likely to find.  Carr says, “After ready-made luck, such as birth, the vast realm of luck that remains is ruled jointly by chance and ourselves.”

Luck always tends to favor those who make maximum use of their equipment whatever it may be.  There are three crucial phases of the luck process:  attraction; recognition and response.  Don’t despise small changes.  The more we know about what we want, the better prepared we are to recognize favorable chances, the more likely we are to extract good luck from them.  Friends and family play an important part in the lucky life but a high proportion of lucky chances comes to us through strangers.

Again and again in life, determination applied to a specific purpose, after numerous failures, touches the one chance needed to produce luck.  When this happens we usually find the person kept his purpose in sight and was persistent.  

As Coolidge said:  “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.  Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.  Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.  Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.  Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”  

Many personal characteristics influence luck.  Warm-spirited actions intensify and sustain awareness of you in the minds of others and the concentrated favorable attention of others increases the probability that they will remember a fact or conceive an idea beneficial to your interests.  Generosity of spirit consistently acts as a magnet for favorable chances.

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