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#luck

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_The Evening Post_, 17 April 1925:
UNDER A LUCKY STAR
Some people are born under a lucky star. The express which left #Invercargill at 6.10 a.m. on Tuesday had a large complement of passengers, and the abrupt pulling up of the train at Mill road crossing, a short distance out of Invercargill, caused some consternation, states the “Otago Daily Times.” Windows were thrown up, and the passengers noticed in the dusk a bulky shape alongside the engine. A crowd soon gathered, and was much astonished to see a man arise from a motor-car and step on to the railway track, unhurt. Inquiries elicited the information that he had pulled up across the track earlier in the morning, and had gone to sleep. The impact of the train against his car made him realise that his place of rest was scarcely the most suitable. As the engine was jammed into the body of the motor-car, with the cow-catcher resting on the running board, it was found necessary to back the train. The car, which had been carried about 25 yards along the track, was then pushed to safety by a number of the passengers, and seemed little the worse for the collision. The train was able to proceed on its way after a delay of about 15 minutes
paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/news

The 4 Types of Luck by Sahil Bloom [Shared]

The 4 Types of Luck
In 1978, a neurologist named Dr. James Austin published a book entitled Chase, Chance, & Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty.

In it, Dr. Austin proposed that there are four types of luck:

Blind Luck
Luck from Motion
Luck from Awareness
Luck from Uniqueness
Here's how to think about each type:

welchwrite.com/blog/2025/04/15

Now that I'm retired, I've had some time to think back on my whole career. With this perspective, it's become clear to me that a lot of things I thought were really important, just aren't in the big picture. Anyway, I wrote a short article about what made my career successful, and about the best thing I ever did.

You can read it on my no-ads, no-tracking, personal site.

schrag.ca/articles/the-secret.

(Another nice thing about retirement is not having to build an audience or hustle for work. I can just write openly and not worry if it's going to annoy anyone.)

schrag.caThe Secret to my Success

A quotation from Emerson

Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances — it was somebody’s name, or he happened to be there at the time, or it was so then, and another day would have been otherwise. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Essay (1860), “Worship,” The Conduct of Life, ch. 6

Sourcing, notes: wist.info/emerson-ralph-waldo/…

Continued thread

“The ultimate insight of the salesman is not that Everything Is Selling, although that can be true. The actual jewel of #wisdom that every salesman forges out of their agonies and humiliations, if they stay with it long enough, is that Everything Is Luck. Every hotshot hits stretches when you simply can’t close anyone. You thought that your success was a product of your gifts, but the success itself was a gift, a gift of randomness, of luck—and #luck always turns.”

"After ten years of scientific research my work has revealed a radically new way of looking at #luck and the vital role that plays in our lives. It demonstrates that much of the good and bad fortune we encounter is a result of our thoughts and behavior. More important, it represents the potential for change, and has produced that most elusive of holy grails – an effective way of increasing the luck people experience in their daily lives.
The project has also demonstrated how skepticism can play a positive role in people’s lives. The research is not simply about debunking superstitious thinking and behavior. Instead, it is about encouraging people to move away from a magical way of thinking and toward a more rational view of luck."

richardwiseman.com/resources/T

cc: #psychology

Should we be thinking about #luck differently?
We tend to focus on good or bad fortune,. But what about the fact you’re here at all?

Luck has been called “the operation of chance, taken personally”.
Statistician #DavidSpiegelhalter describes three kinds of luck in The Guardian:
Circumstantial luck — Right place, right time or wrong place, wrong time
Outcome luck — Randomness outside your control
Constitutive luck — A series of events leading up to the present
theguardian.com/books/2024/oct