The Luck Factor

Unplanned Events Can Change Your Life

On a scale of one (luck has nothing to do with your life) to seven (luck has a lot to do with your life), which number would you select to represent how lucky you are as a whole? After you have written down a number for how generally lucky you think you are, carefully consider important events in your life, such as meeting your spouse or a best friend, the highlights of how your career has developed, or an important event that is central to your life story. Rate how lucky you think you were in each of these events or experiences on the same luck scale of one to seven. Then reconsider the overall role of luck in your life. You most likely wrote down a higher number for the role luck played in each special event than you did for the general role luck has in your life.

Everyone can come up with stories from their own lives – or the lives of friends or even from the lives of famous people – in which a chance meeting, a few moments spent haphazardly this way or that, or a decision seemingly made by the toss of a coin, changed things forever in ways no one could ever have expected or planned. This is often referred to as having...