“You have to ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?”
~ Clint Eastwood



Serendipity Or Is it Creating The Opportunity Yourself

That Brings You Success?


By Ange Fonce


 
When Dirty Harry asked someone whether they felt lucky all those years back... feeling unlucky was a way to save your life.

For years when a Google search page asks you the same the stakes are not usually quite as high and what say you when I ask you the same? 

Stop for a moment and consider... 




DO YOU FEEL LUCKY?

Here is why I ask...

I recently came across a study by psychologist Richard Wiseman... Wiseman spent years studying how people feel about serendipity and one experiment he did sums up his findings... 

He gave test subjects each a newspaper... then he asked them to count up the total number of photos from front to back and he also posted a notice on the second page that read... 

"Stop counting there are 43 photos total." 

Those who had answered yes to the feel lucky question earlier tended to spot the notice and stop counting just as directed... those who had answered no earlier tended to miss it or dismiss it and count anyway. 

For Wiseman that helped confirm what he had found elsewhere... namely that self defined lucky people were not so much born under a good sign as they were and are more open to opportunity.

So again I ask... do you feel lucky?

Of course you might ask the same of me because I have had my ups and downs in life... yet overall it has been a good run... even a great one with lots more to come... so how much of it has been luck? 

I found an exchange I had a couple weeks ago with a reader... he wrote to me in a comment...

"You were lucky to be associated with the right people when you got started in business... not me that is why I am still struggling."

I wrote back to him with a reply I intended to use as an article in this space and today is that day. 

It read... 

I was indeed fortunate and it would be disingenuous of me to say otherwise. 

On the other hand when I think of the the long days and late nights I put in and the hours of listening to how to tapes there were no CDs back then or reading books and the thousands of pages of I wrote and tossed before getting it right... it is that kind of creating opportunity that starts to feel a little more inevitable.

And then there were not some of the resources available now... which includes 

1... Email and the internet as I started in 1991 just prior to either which makes working for far away clients possible 

2... The entire online information publishing industry which creates enormous opportunities for online work.

3... All those very well done courses out there at least one of which was written by one of my mentors after his experiences of teaching me and a few colleagues.

Yet still maybe that is just evidence that luck played even more of a role rather than less... since those odds sound relatively great compared to now. 

There are definitely hours you have to put into mastering your craft... there are also certain networking opportunities you will need to seek as in anything else. 

Something else that comes to mind about getting lucky early on. 

I really do as you point out feel blessed to have had the help I have had and to know the people I have known and still know... not only because they have been great for me and also because they are good people... of course one could counter I did have to jump through some hoops to meet them. 

I had heard about a coaching conference and I had no qualifications back then and put on a suit and went down there and shook hands at every table and not one led to anything. 

Yet months later I just happened to see the name of one of the companies on a bulletin board looking for coaches... back to lucky again as I took that job... low paying as it was and it helped lead to my own International business...

Dynamic
Life Development Systems Personal Development Academy.

Now you might not be in the stage of life for starting at the bottom and working up and I am just trying to show that luck is often a complex phenomenon and yes it also involves reaching out further than most people are willing to do and creating your own opportunities! 





Luck Or Opportunity?


In this case I took a job for £75 a day doing generic coaching which give me the opportunity to work with clients and was making next to nothing... about £22K per year.

Even the opportunity came up as a bit of a lucky fluke... a long story involving my first business card... yet I did make the choice to seize the opportunity when it when it came and presented it self or was it luck?

Really is does not matter because as I learned... success was not instant... success has to be earned. 

I had to come up with many ways to learn the craft through trial and error... often staying up all night until dawn to get the job done and a 16 hour day was common to me back then and on weekends I would study and practice everything I learned until finally... I started to get it. 

And yes that does not sound like luck... I guess.

What I am trying to say is that on reflection... no question that what ever you invest yourself in and create the opportunities... you have to earn success and yes probably luck does not hurt... in my case I am convinced Serendipity helped along the way. 

And to paraphrase someone somewhere... 

"It is amazing how lucky you can get when you show up."

And speaking of luck... here is an interesting proposition for you.





HOW To WIN The Lottery?

Go out and buy two lottery tickets.  

On the first one choose to play your numbers in a specific order as in 1...2... 3... 4... etc.

On the other lottery ticket... just choose the numbers randomly. 

Done? 

Good.

Now mail me one of the tickets... it does not matter which one... I would like you to choose and if I win I will send you back the full price of both the ticket and the postage. 

Sound fair? 

Perhaps not quite... yet what is really odd is... which ticket were you going to send me?

I am willing to bet it was the one with the sequential numbers. 

Why? 

Because somehow in your gut you feel getting all the numbers in order is just too unlikely and you know what... it is not so... in fact you are statistically NO MORE likely to win with the random sequence than you are the sequential one. 

Yes the odds of winning are exactly the same... the random sequence just feels like a safer bet because you have seen so many random outcomes in the lottery... YOUR random outcome however is no sure thing... not by a long shot. 

What is really happening is that the sequential choice is highlighting how highly improbably the whole lottery formula is... interesting would you not say?

Maybe you will get lucky with the probability of holding the ticket with the numbers that match the drawn numbers.

Now is that a probability for creating success or just feeling lucky?

Send me a ticket and let us find out!

Have you any thoughts or comments you would like to share with me on what I have written?

I would love to hear from you.

Thank you and may you enjoy a Loving... Prosperous and Dynamic day!

Yours Sincerely




Dynamic Lifer...

1... A person with a penchant for Science... creativity... books... writing... communication... fitness... women... sexing... sexuality... human relationships... psychology... physiology and any other area involving heavy use of the Intellect.

2... A bright person and glamorously Intelligent!

3... Ange is an Author... Speaker and Dynamic Peak Performance Personal Development Consultant... and Humanistic Counselling Psychologist... Sexologist and Multipreneur!... who works with those men and women who desire to personally develop themselves and their relationships to become Dynamic Lifers... creators of their own life... relationships and wealth! 

4... If you are Happy and you Know it... you are becoming a Dynamic Lifer!

To Speak to Ange and arrange a consultation for what you would like help with CLICK HERE



"Transformation happens when people fall in love with a different version of themselves and their future!"


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