17 ms·

The Key to Good Luck Is an Open Mind

396 points by dnetesn 9y ago

acconrad 9y ago
One of the experiments in the post mentions that in order to claim the prize, you could either count the number of photographs or easily discover the message "you can stop counting, there are 43 photographs on here." What I wonder is if there are negative correlations here as well - for example if lucky people are better at (and more open to) discovering things, does that also mean they're more likely to blindly follow directions and lack critical thinking? The first thing I thought when I saw that was "what if they're lying or they made a mistake and there weren't exactly 43 photographs?"
- purplethinking 9y ago
  I would personally be more worried about not doing any deep thought. At least I know for myself when I'm in deep thought on some subject, I don't notice anything around me. I walked past my own wife on the street while she was trying to get my attention. That seems very detrimental to the kind of luck the researcher was testing. Maybe my best bet is to try to switch between being present and thinking.
- gowld 9y ago
  Yep, it's a weak methodology. A better one would be "Take a break from counting, and show this frobnozzle to the administrator for a special bonus prize!" That rewards the "openness" they are looking for without making it into a relatively high-stakes gamble with a pre-fabricated outcome.
guskel 9y ago
which is also the key to bad luck.
maxxxxx 9y ago
I think the key to good luck is mainly to be lucky and also to have good judgement. When I was younger I was very open minded, pursued a lot of things but I didn't have good judgement in what I did and who I did it with. So in the end a lot of things I did turned out to be big mistakes.
- corpMaverick 9y ago
  Luckly as you get older your judgment improves. Note. It doesn't mean older people have better judgment. It only means you have better judgment than your younger self.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    If you have failed a lot you probably know better when to say "No" but it's still hard to say "Yes" because you don't know what works. You only know what doesn't work. Again, the key to good luck is often luck.
andriesm 9y ago
I've always wondered about the role that the reticular activating system plays in being lucky. If you are expecting to find good opportunities you may spot them more. I have seen many typical people blunder blindly past once-in-a-lifetime-opportunities. Many people just don't pay attention to massive opportunities. They just don't notice them or seem to not care when these things are right in front of their noses.
- gaurav_v 9y ago
  Could you give some examples?
  - saiya-jin 9y ago
    I can imagine cryptocurrencies for myself. I was never highly involved, but can imagine investing say 100$ when prices were super low, or just mining on desktop for the fun of it. When thinking back about it, there were some potential signs, and losing 100$ even back then would be without issues. Life now wouldn't be significantly different, but I would have much less financial pressure on myself. And that can be translated to a slight amount of happiness, compounded by years and years of not having to pay the mortgage.
  - andriesm 9y ago
    Like the other poster mentioned crypto currencies. I've hit many jackpots like this in my life. I have also seen big opportunities that are specific to another person, asked why they don't pursue X or Y, and the responses are quite often non-responses. I literally begged several of my friends to just put $10 into a specific crypto that went up nearly 500 times. I did put about $100 myself into that one, and of course 20 similar parcels of money into about 20 others. Of course just citing one example like crypto is not helpful. I had another idea for a totally passive income business, that I for whatever reason didn't feel like pursuing, I tried to convince others of the merits of doing this things. Eventually after about 2 years of failing to convince anyone else to try it, I did it, and made really lucrative money that came in like clockwork with about 2 hrs of effort per month. That thing ran for quite a while and eventually the market changed to not make it work anymore. I have had some other successes too. I also lost of lot of thr easy money made along the way, but now I am wizer, and my latest money maker (post early crypto buying) I have taken a serious amount of thought about not ever letting it dissapate. I have also had many failures because I have tried many things. But some things really are no brainers. Another example is buying massive bargains when shopping second hand. The trick to capitalise on a bargain is just 2 steps - step 1 make sure there is no catch (or a sufficient margin of safety) - step 2 - pull the trigger FAST - exceptional bargains don't hang around indefinitely.
frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
I'm skeptical of a definition of luck where you can be trained to be lucky. That's not luck, that's skill. There is no skill to luck by definition. But let's take what we've got here and engage with it: >She came up with a few basic strategies for parents to teach their kids, including being open to new experiences, learning to relax, maintaining social connections, and (yes) talking to strangers. All of these techniques had one theme in common—being more open to your environment both physically and emotionally. Okay but this is still luck, we've just moved it further down the chain. Now these are kids who are lucky enough to be born into a family which is concerned enough with these things to train them. Heck even prior to this training what is it that a kid needs to become an adult who has 'learned to relax'? Probably a safe environment, one where relaxing won't be punished. Same goes for 'talking to strangers', even more traditional concepts of luck being related to hard work, these all rely on growing up in an environment where these traits are present and are rewarded frequently enough for a kid to draw the connection. That is luck and I don't think these articles with the implicit message: Skill is the real luck, ever do a very good job, they just smuggle the luck away into some other unaddressed reality of our environment.
- mathgladiator 9y ago
  I look as environment (and privilege) as an equivalency group. If all other factors are the same, then evaluate this as advice with that cohort. You can be trained to be lucky, and it is a simple problem of exposing yourself to more and more. Try more things, spend more time, be open to new ideas.
  - alexpetralia 9y ago
    I would love to hear more about this if you have more thoughts. I was thinking "skill" is best measured relative to a benchmark cohort (ie. a control group). In other words, _given_ your education, upbringing, connections, etc., where did you end up relative to the average person in your cohort? I'd like to think _that_ difference could be explained by skill. But this falls short for many reasons, including: 1. You could simply be a statistical anomaly, and where you ended up reflects nothing about your skill. If you were to "repeat the trial" (or your life), you may end up average or below average. 2. The more narrow your control group (eg. controlling for parents, beliefs, what TV shows you watched, which friends you had), the sample size becomes smaller and smaller, which means it's hard to find a statistically meaningful cohort. At the other end, too broad a control group and you risk not controlling for the factors which by mere chance highly influence life outcomes.
davebryand 9y ago
"The strategies included using meditation to enhance intuition, relaxation, visualizing good fortune, and talking to at least one new person every week." These are basic techniques that have been taught by almost every spiritual system for thousands of years. Unfortunately for all of my atheist-materialist friends, you have to change your metaphysical views to employ these techniques.
- marcus_holmes 9y ago
  Atheist-materialist here. Also meditator, and visualiser. It's just psychology. No need to invoke deities.
  - davebryand 9y ago
    It's not about deities, it's about whether there are ways to use consciousness to manipulate the material universe. Are there laws of the universe that are knowable through experience and intuition that do not yet have a scientific explanation? The traditions I mention say "yes", I would imagine an atheist-materialist would say "no". I would have said "no" up until just a few months ago.
    - maxpupmax 9y ago
      I think they all seem to have a pretty scientific explanation. Don't we see research on meditation pop up here almost every other week? I guess I'm pretty firmly in the atheist-materialist camp here. If you don't mind me asking, what happened to you to convince you otherwise?
      - davebryand 9y ago
        Thanks for asking. Here is a grab bag in rough order of events. (Spent years 1-20 as Catholic, and years 21-39 as an atheist) * Leaving my third "failed" startup, post YC. (For the record, my awesome co-founders sold to Cisco after I had left) * Working with a coach to find and clearly define my deepest values * Leaving San Francisco to align my life with those values * Deciding to search for the meaning of life * Truly realizing that the meaning of life isn't accumulation of money or stuff, and that my identity needn't be tied to those goals * Wrestling with my ego and deciding it does not deserve primacy * Donating many of my possessions * Fasting (many 2-3 day water fasts, 5 day as peak) * Reading 20-30 books on different spiritual traditions * Watching hundreds of hours of lectures on esoteric systems and spiritual traditions * Researching Tarot, Kaballah, Freemasonry, and other ancients systems of enlightenment * Studying Zen and Taoism * Learning about [Natural Law](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASUHN3gNxWo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASUHN3gNxWo) and allowing myself to honestly imagine if that is the way that the universe works * Experimenting with psychedelics * Practicing Transcendental Meditation twice daily * Getting out in nature and learning about plants * Explicitly working to balance my left and right brain by beginning to trust my intuition * Keeping a diary of synchronicities and searching for deeper connections than I previously allowed myself to believe could exist * Opening myself up to the possibility that there is more to the universe than that which has been explained by science * Learning the eight-circuit model of consciousness * Researching state of the art physics * Refactoring, uninstalling or rewriting the legacy operating system and long ago installed background processes that were my subconscious * Buying a house * Taking guitar lessons * Teaching myself to draw * Releasing fear and deciding to love everyone and everything * Adopting an amor fati attitude * Living for the present moment * Finding my higher self and living out of it on a daily basis
brwsr 9y ago
In order to get lucky with something you have to give luck a chance. There is no way to win a lottery when you don't buy a ticket in the first place. The more tickets you buy (the more involved you are), the greater the chance you'll win (luck). What's more to it? Btw, what is luck? Some things that make you happy in the short term can easily destroy everything that's dear to you in the long term.
- colanderman 9y ago
  A long time ago I was inspired by a comment on HN which put this in terms of "increasing your luck surface area". The phrasing stuck with me and I've applied it to my life ever since.
  - digaozao 9y ago
    Good book for you: Luck Factor. It talks a lot about this. https://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/books/the-luck-factor/ https://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/books/the-luck-factor/
    - mcguire 9y ago
      ...by Richard Wiseman, mentioned in the article.
  - gowld 9y ago
    Seems to go back to 2010 in the HN context: https://page99test.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/making-the-front-page-of-hn-without-even-trying/ https://page99test.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/making-the-front...
quickConclusion 9y ago
I recommend the American Life episode about Alex Zharov, stranded on a desert island in New York City. It really gives a vivid insight on how some people find themselves lucky when others do not. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/307/in-the-shadow-of-the-city https://www.thisamericanlife.org/307/in-the-shadow-of-the-ci...
pm90 9y ago
This is actually a very interesting article. And with the risk of attracting the wrath on internet haters, let me propose something that personally helped me a lot and which seems like a very narrow application of the principles described in the article: meeting romantic partners. I tend to be more open in talking to strangers and that has opened up worlds of opportunities to me. But the biggest benefit has certainly been in meeting people that I would liked to date. And what I realized (or read somewhere) is that if you live in a large city, you literally run into a lot of people just in the course of your day. e.g. waiting in line at starbucks, taking the train, at concerts/shows etc. And all that is really required is for one party to initiate conversation. Let me qualify this by saying that I do not condone pestering strangers; that is borderline harassment (especially for women). But when both parties are interested/responsive, it can lead to adventures that you wouldn't have ever expected ....
- da02 9y ago
  What do you mean by adventures?
  - phil21 9y ago
    Life experiences and personal growth. Opening yourself up to others (especially interesting others!) and entering their world is about the only way I've seen humans reliably grow and change as individuals. Something I wish I would have learned and internalized at a much younger age!
    - da02 9y ago
      Oh ok. Thanks for clearing that up. I thought you meant stuff like skydiving. Can you give an example of "personal growth"? (I'm not sure what exactly that is, but I think I need lots of that.)
      - Woberto 9y ago
        Maybe learning new things by hearing others' perspectives and experiences? I often need to remind myself to think more about how others feel and think since I'm accustomed to staying in my own head. Talking with somebody even briefly often enlightens me to interesting things
ebbv 9y ago
Yeah all those dumb kids who are dying of diseases in poverty should be more open minded.
- Robotbeat 9y ago
  It's almost like you read the article: “On the academic side of things, I’ve always been sort of skeptical of any concept related to luck,” says Carter. “Because as a sociologist, it’s like, Oh, so all those children in Darfur are just not lucky? We know that there are other things there.”
chronotis 9y ago
My family has always made jokes about or accused me of being unusually lucky. I didn't really believe that was the case; over time, my standard response to these suggestions is that we can manufacture luck. That wasn't based on any actual research, though, so it's refreshing to see some data back me up.
kerng 9y ago
I liked reading this, the experiment with the 20 dollar bill is fascinating (although it didn't seem super scientific). You can't control life, but there are opportunities in abundance around us - we just have to walk through the world with an open eye and mind.
ppeetteerr 9y ago
If you can go to "luck school", you're privileged. What a scam
- dfsdfdsfds 9y ago
  So you'd rather remain unlucky than acquire anything that could reek of privilege? Maybe those unlucky people you have in mind, once they make it out of their misery, will wonder what to do, and find themselves interested in going to luck school. Ultimately, it sounds as if when you are not privileged, under no circumstances should you try anything that could change your luck. If it would work, it would prove that you were never underprivileged to begin with, which is a big no no. Self defeating logic at its best.
  - ppeetteerr 9y ago
    Luck, but definition, is something outside of your control. Any time you have influence over your luck, it's no longer luck, it's ability. Maybe this school teaches people to recognize the opportunities in their life (still a privileged position), but luck by its definition is success or failure outside of one's control. The idea that one chooses to be lucky or remain unlucky is about as sensible as theology.
cvaidya1986 9y ago
Ok I am gonna be really open minded that we get into YC Summer 2018 :)
soheil 9y ago
Most wanted hackernews feature: auto hide all stories from certain domains
- sincerely 9y ago
  nautil.us and aeon.co are the two that commenters tend not to like, right? anyways it would probably be pretty easy to write a browser extension to do this for you. you could even make a show HN when you're done! :)
k__ 9y ago
Isn't openness part of the big five (OCEAN) that can't be changed much later in life? You only become less and less open later in life.
- petra 9y ago
  This is different, it's not about bring conceptually open and interested in new ideas, its about openennes of attention.
  - k__ 9y ago
    Really? I saw a few psychologist talk about creativity and they said it was about openness (O in OCEAN) and intelligence. So it seemed to me that this openness was in fact about being conceptually open to new ideas
megamindbrian2 9y ago
Relevant? https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Mindset-The-New-Psychology-of-Success https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Mindset-The-New-Psychology-...
mettamage 9y ago
I remember a book I read years ago called The Luck Factor. It is a pop psychology book, and outlines the principles of luck and goes in-depth about it. I internalized most of the principles a little bit. One time I was in London and lost my bus ticket to Amsterdam. I really needed some luck. So I asked myself "what would the author of the book do?" I sought out the highest manager I could find, which eventually was the bus driver himself and he listened to my story and said "we have a spare seat, so you can take that." And with that the book had paid for itself! There are more situations in which I used those principles and they work quite well. It changed my whole outlook on how lucky I am. I feel a lot more lucky nowadays then I used to as a kid, where I always felt I would never be lucky. You can debate to what extent I am nowadays more lucky on an objective sense, but I feel using the principles from that book (of which being open to new things is one of them) helped me a lot. I am not affiliated with that book. I just love a good pop psychology book (another good one is Man's Search for Meaning, for example, which is to be fair a lot more than only pop psychology).
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- foxbarrington 9y ago
  Richard Wiseman, mentioned in the article, wrote that book.
- lazerpants 9y ago
  This talk is in a similar vein: https://www.ted.com/talks/jia_jiang_what_i_learned_from_100_days_of_rejection https://www.ted.com/talks/jia_jiang_what_i_learned_from_100_...
danschumann 9y ago
The psychological trait of openness is often associated with creativity. Creating something from nothing seems very lucky indeed.
nate 9y ago
This has been a tough year over here with a lot of un-fun life events. So this morning when trying to get out for a run I was looking for this one and only long sleeve workout shirt I have. And I couldn't find it. It's trivial, I know, but I started blowing up. Emptying out drawers, rummaging through the entire closet. I can't take yet another thing not working right. Where the f*&^% is this shirt!? But I took a few deep breaths. Opened my eyes and the shirt was literally in front of me hanging in the closet. It's a tiny example but this research rings very true. Being pissed off at life is a downward spiral where you stop noticing great opportunities to get you out of the spiral.
- toxik 9y ago
  Ah if it isn’t my friend the anecdata. Blowing a fuse over trivialities probably means you’re stressed out. I sure am. It’s just modern tech society.
  - SubuSS 9y ago
    Anecdotes are a problem only if someone is using them to arrive at generality/scientific explanation out of it. In this case - the research is already done, people are just identifying with that.
CM30 9y ago
Eh, I see how having an open mind could help with finding opportunities in life and make someone 'luckier' in a certain sense, but at the same time I also feel that there's still a huge portion of success that's down to things well outside of someone's control. I mean, I often write about underrated creators on sites like YouTube, and while there's definitely some semblance of a correlation between marketing effort and success, it's very much a minor one overshadowed by a lot of other things. I know plenty of people who worked far harder than I ever could, and ended up struggling with only a few followers as well as people who seemingly just lucked into success purely from one random friend having existing popularity. And I suspect it's similar outside of the internet too. There's a correlation between open mindedness and trying hard and promoting yourself and success, but it's not an absolute one and often overshadowed by a lot of other things.
- restuijs 9y ago
  Speaking from experience, I can say that typecasting problems are a striking example of this process from a different perspective. In that case, you're given lots of opportunities, but not the ones you're looking for, for reasons that have to do with others but not yourself. A lot of what we discuss isn't luck at all but social dynamics and others' perceptions. Sometimes that involves skill; sometimes it involves luck, and sometimes it involves something systematic but ultimately outside the control of the individual.
costcopizza 9y ago
I want to know the correlation of people who like this article and consider themselves a lucky person.
oculusthrift 9y ago
i don’t like articles like this because it discounts the effect of actual luck. An open mind isn’t going to help you if a family member is sick and you have to take care of them instead of going to college.
throwPass123 9y ago
I agree with the author. The way I see it is that life throws opportunities in a lottery: You may have 1 ticket out of thousands and still win it. There is undoubtedly a luck factor yet, the harder you work the more tickets you will get. So the question is do you want to play a lottery owning 1 ticket out of 100 or 90 out of 100?
weitzj 9y ago
So for me definition of luck would be: The ability to recognize and pursue opportunities
andersamundson 9y ago
Some of these ideas seem a very close cousin to the 'curiosity conversations' from Brian Grazer's 'A Curious Mind.'
ivankolev 9y ago
When I had tough times, reading this lifted me up big time: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2013/12/the-ultimate-cheat-sheet-for-reinventing-yourself-2/ http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2013/12/the-ultimate-cheat-shee...

396 points by dnetesn 9y ago

One of the experiments in the post mentions that in order to claim the prize, you could either count the number of photographs or easily discover the message "you can stop counting, there are 43 photographs on here." What I wonder is if there are negative correlations here as well - for example if lucky people are better at (and more open to) discovering things, does that also mean they're more likely to blindly follow directions and lack critical thinking? The first thing I thought when I saw that was "what if they're lying or they made a mistake and there weren't exactly 43 photographs?"

purplethinking 9y ago
I would personally be more worried about not doing any deep thought. At least I know for myself when I'm in deep thought on some subject, I don't notice anything around me. I walked past my own wife on the street while she was trying to get my attention. That seems very detrimental to the kind of luck the researcher was testing. Maybe my best bet is to try to switch between being present and thinking.
gowld 9y ago
Yep, it's a weak methodology. A better one would be "Take a break from counting, and show this frobnozzle to the administrator for a special bonus prize!" That rewards the "openness" they are looking for without making it into a relatively high-stakes gamble with a pre-fabricated outcome.

guskel 9y ago

which is also the key to bad luck.

maxxxxx 9y ago

I think the key to good luck is mainly to be lucky and also to have good judgement. When I was younger I was very open minded, pursued a lot of things but I didn't have good judgement in what I did and who I did it with. So in the end a lot of things I did turned out to be big mistakes.

corpMaverick 9y ago
Luckly as you get older your judgment improves. Note. It doesn't mean older people have better judgment. It only means you have better judgment than your younger self.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  If you have failed a lot you probably know better when to say "No" but it's still hard to say "Yes" because you don't know what works. You only know what doesn't work. Again, the key to good luck is often luck.

andriesm 9y ago

I've always wondered about the role that the reticular activating system plays in being lucky. If you are expecting to find good opportunities you may spot them more. I have seen many typical people blunder blindly past once-in-a-lifetime-opportunities. Many people just don't pay attention to massive opportunities. They just don't notice them or seem to not care when these things are right in front of their noses.

gaurav_v 9y ago
Could you give some examples?
- saiya-jin 9y ago
  I can imagine cryptocurrencies for myself. I was never highly involved, but can imagine investing say 100$ when prices were super low, or just mining on desktop for the fun of it. When thinking back about it, there were some potential signs, and losing 100$ even back then would be without issues. Life now wouldn't be significantly different, but I would have much less financial pressure on myself. And that can be translated to a slight amount of happiness, compounded by years and years of not having to pay the mortgage.
- andriesm 9y ago
  Like the other poster mentioned crypto currencies. I've hit many jackpots like this in my life. I have also seen big opportunities that are specific to another person, asked why they don't pursue X or Y, and the responses are quite often non-responses. I literally begged several of my friends to just put $10 into a specific crypto that went up nearly 500 times. I did put about $100 myself into that one, and of course 20 similar parcels of money into about 20 others. Of course just citing one example like crypto is not helpful. I had another idea for a totally passive income business, that I for whatever reason didn't feel like pursuing, I tried to convince others of the merits of doing this things. Eventually after about 2 years of failing to convince anyone else to try it, I did it, and made really lucrative money that came in like clockwork with about 2 hrs of effort per month. That thing ran for quite a while and eventually the market changed to not make it work anymore. I have had some other successes too. I also lost of lot of thr easy money made along the way, but now I am wizer, and my latest money maker (post early crypto buying) I have taken a serious amount of thought about not ever letting it dissapate. I have also had many failures because I have tried many things. But some things really are no brainers. Another example is buying massive bargains when shopping second hand. The trick to capitalise on a bargain is just 2 steps - step 1 make sure there is no catch (or a sufficient margin of safety) - step 2 - pull the trigger FAST - exceptional bargains don't hang around indefinitely.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago

I'm skeptical of a definition of luck where you can be trained to be lucky. That's not luck, that's skill. There is no skill to luck by definition. But let's take what we've got here and engage with it: >She came up with a few basic strategies for parents to teach their kids, including being open to new experiences, learning to relax, maintaining social connections, and (yes) talking to strangers. All of these techniques had one theme in common—being more open to your environment both physically and emotionally. Okay but this is still luck, we've just moved it further down the chain. Now these are kids who are lucky enough to be born into a family which is concerned enough with these things to train them. Heck even prior to this training what is it that a kid needs to become an adult who has 'learned to relax'? Probably a safe environment, one where relaxing won't be punished. Same goes for 'talking to strangers', even more traditional concepts of luck being related to hard work, these all rely on growing up in an environment where these traits are present and are rewarded frequently enough for a kid to draw the connection. That is luck and I don't think these articles with the implicit message: Skill is the real luck, ever do a very good job, they just smuggle the luck away into some other unaddressed reality of our environment.

mathgladiator 9y ago
I look as environment (and privilege) as an equivalency group. If all other factors are the same, then evaluate this as advice with that cohort. You can be trained to be lucky, and it is a simple problem of exposing yourself to more and more. Try more things, spend more time, be open to new ideas.
- alexpetralia 9y ago
  I would love to hear more about this if you have more thoughts. I was thinking "skill" is best measured relative to a benchmark cohort (ie. a control group). In other words, _given_ your education, upbringing, connections, etc., where did you end up relative to the average person in your cohort? I'd like to think _that_ difference could be explained by skill. But this falls short for many reasons, including: 1. You could simply be a statistical anomaly, and where you ended up reflects nothing about your skill. If you were to "repeat the trial" (or your life), you may end up average or below average. 2. The more narrow your control group (eg. controlling for parents, beliefs, what TV shows you watched, which friends you had), the sample size becomes smaller and smaller, which means it's hard to find a statistically meaningful cohort. At the other end, too broad a control group and you risk not controlling for the factors which by mere chance highly influence life outcomes.

davebryand 9y ago

"The strategies included using meditation to enhance intuition, relaxation, visualizing good fortune, and talking to at least one new person every week." These are basic techniques that have been taught by almost every spiritual system for thousands of years. Unfortunately for all of my atheist-materialist friends, you have to change your metaphysical views to employ these techniques.

marcus_holmes 9y ago
Atheist-materialist here. Also meditator, and visualiser. It's just psychology. No need to invoke deities.
- davebryand 9y ago
  It's not about deities, it's about whether there are ways to use consciousness to manipulate the material universe. Are there laws of the universe that are knowable through experience and intuition that do not yet have a scientific explanation? The traditions I mention say "yes", I would imagine an atheist-materialist would say "no". I would have said "no" up until just a few months ago.
  - maxpupmax 9y ago
    I think they all seem to have a pretty scientific explanation. Don't we see research on meditation pop up here almost every other week? I guess I'm pretty firmly in the atheist-materialist camp here. If you don't mind me asking, what happened to you to convince you otherwise?
    - davebryand 9y ago
      Thanks for asking. Here is a grab bag in rough order of events. (Spent years 1-20 as Catholic, and years 21-39 as an atheist) * Leaving my third "failed" startup, post YC. (For the record, my awesome co-founders sold to Cisco after I had left) * Working with a coach to find and clearly define my deepest values * Leaving San Francisco to align my life with those values * Deciding to search for the meaning of life * Truly realizing that the meaning of life isn't accumulation of money or stuff, and that my identity needn't be tied to those goals * Wrestling with my ego and deciding it does not deserve primacy * Donating many of my possessions * Fasting (many 2-3 day water fasts, 5 day as peak) * Reading 20-30 books on different spiritual traditions * Watching hundreds of hours of lectures on esoteric systems and spiritual traditions * Researching Tarot, Kaballah, Freemasonry, and other ancients systems of enlightenment * Studying Zen and Taoism * Learning about [Natural Law](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASUHN3gNxWo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASUHN3gNxWo) and allowing myself to honestly imagine if that is the way that the universe works * Experimenting with psychedelics * Practicing Transcendental Meditation twice daily * Getting out in nature and learning about plants * Explicitly working to balance my left and right brain by beginning to trust my intuition * Keeping a diary of synchronicities and searching for deeper connections than I previously allowed myself to believe could exist * Opening myself up to the possibility that there is more to the universe than that which has been explained by science * Learning the eight-circuit model of consciousness * Researching state of the art physics * Refactoring, uninstalling or rewriting the legacy operating system and long ago installed background processes that were my subconscious * Buying a house * Taking guitar lessons * Teaching myself to draw * Releasing fear and deciding to love everyone and everything * Adopting an amor fati attitude * Living for the present moment * Finding my higher self and living out of it on a daily basis

brwsr 9y ago

In order to get lucky with something you have to give luck a chance. There is no way to win a lottery when you don't buy a ticket in the first place. The more tickets you buy (the more involved you are), the greater the chance you'll win (luck). What's more to it? Btw, what is luck? Some things that make you happy in the short term can easily destroy everything that's dear to you in the long term.

colanderman 9y ago
A long time ago I was inspired by a comment on HN which put this in terms of "increasing your luck surface area". The phrasing stuck with me and I've applied it to my life ever since.
- digaozao 9y ago
  Good book for you: Luck Factor. It talks a lot about this. https://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/books/the-luck-factor/ https://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/books/the-luck-factor/
  - mcguire 9y ago
    ...by Richard Wiseman, mentioned in the article.
- gowld 9y ago
  Seems to go back to 2010 in the HN context: https://page99test.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/making-the-front-page-of-hn-without-even-trying/ https://page99test.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/making-the-front...

quickConclusion 9y ago

I recommend the American Life episode about Alex Zharov, stranded on a desert island in New York City. It really gives a vivid insight on how some people find themselves lucky when others do not. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/307/in-the-shadow-of-the-city https://www.thisamericanlife.org/307/in-the-shadow-of-the-ci...

pm90 9y ago

This is actually a very interesting article. And with the risk of attracting the wrath on internet haters, let me propose something that personally helped me a lot and which seems like a very narrow application of the principles described in the article: meeting romantic partners. I tend to be more open in talking to strangers and that has opened up worlds of opportunities to me. But the biggest benefit has certainly been in meeting people that I would liked to date. And what I realized (or read somewhere) is that if you live in a large city, you literally run into a lot of people just in the course of your day. e.g. waiting in line at starbucks, taking the train, at concerts/shows etc. And all that is really required is for one party to initiate conversation. Let me qualify this by saying that I do not condone pestering strangers; that is borderline harassment (especially for women). But when both parties are interested/responsive, it can lead to adventures that you wouldn't have ever expected ....

da02 9y ago
What do you mean by adventures?
- phil21 9y ago
  Life experiences and personal growth. Opening yourself up to others (especially interesting others!) and entering their world is about the only way I've seen humans reliably grow and change as individuals. Something I wish I would have learned and internalized at a much younger age!
  - da02 9y ago
    Oh ok. Thanks for clearing that up. I thought you meant stuff like skydiving. Can you give an example of "personal growth"? (I'm not sure what exactly that is, but I think I need lots of that.)
    - Woberto 9y ago
      Maybe learning new things by hearing others' perspectives and experiences? I often need to remind myself to think more about how others feel and think since I'm accustomed to staying in my own head. Talking with somebody even briefly often enlightens me to interesting things

ebbv 9y ago

Yeah all those dumb kids who are dying of diseases in poverty should be more open minded.

Robotbeat 9y ago
It's almost like you read the article: “On the academic side of things, I’ve always been sort of skeptical of any concept related to luck,” says Carter. “Because as a sociologist, it’s like, Oh, so all those children in Darfur are just not lucky? We know that there are other things there.”

chronotis 9y ago

My family has always made jokes about or accused me of being unusually lucky. I didn't really believe that was the case; over time, my standard response to these suggestions is that we can manufacture luck. That wasn't based on any actual research, though, so it's refreshing to see some data back me up.

kerng 9y ago

I liked reading this, the experiment with the 20 dollar bill is fascinating (although it didn't seem super scientific). You can't control life, but there are opportunities in abundance around us - we just have to walk through the world with an open eye and mind.

ppeetteerr 9y ago

If you can go to "luck school", you're privileged. What a scam

dfsdfdsfds 9y ago
So you'd rather remain unlucky than acquire anything that could reek of privilege? Maybe those unlucky people you have in mind, once they make it out of their misery, will wonder what to do, and find themselves interested in going to luck school. Ultimately, it sounds as if when you are not privileged, under no circumstances should you try anything that could change your luck. If it would work, it would prove that you were never underprivileged to begin with, which is a big no no. Self defeating logic at its best.
- ppeetteerr 9y ago
  Luck, but definition, is something outside of your control. Any time you have influence over your luck, it's no longer luck, it's ability. Maybe this school teaches people to recognize the opportunities in their life (still a privileged position), but luck by its definition is success or failure outside of one's control. The idea that one chooses to be lucky or remain unlucky is about as sensible as theology.

cvaidya1986 9y ago

Ok I am gonna be really open minded that we get into YC Summer 2018 :)

soheil 9y ago

Most wanted hackernews feature: auto hide all stories from certain domains

sincerely 9y ago
nautil.us and aeon.co are the two that commenters tend not to like, right? anyways it would probably be pretty easy to write a browser extension to do this for you. you could even make a show HN when you're done! :)

k__ 9y ago

Isn't openness part of the big five (OCEAN) that can't be changed much later in life? You only become less and less open later in life.

petra 9y ago
This is different, it's not about bring conceptually open and interested in new ideas, its about openennes of attention.
- k__ 9y ago
  Really? I saw a few psychologist talk about creativity and they said it was about openness (O in OCEAN) and intelligence. So it seemed to me that this openness was in fact about being conceptually open to new ideas

megamindbrian2 9y ago

Relevant? https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Mindset-The-New-Psychology-of-Success https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Mindset-The-New-Psychology-...

mettamage 9y ago

I remember a book I read years ago called The Luck Factor. It is a pop psychology book, and outlines the principles of luck and goes in-depth about it. I internalized most of the principles a little bit. One time I was in London and lost my bus ticket to Amsterdam. I really needed some luck. So I asked myself "what would the author of the book do?" I sought out the highest manager I could find, which eventually was the bus driver himself and he listened to my story and said "we have a spare seat, so you can take that." And with that the book had paid for itself! There are more situations in which I used those principles and they work quite well. It changed my whole outlook on how lucky I am. I feel a lot more lucky nowadays then I used to as a kid, where I always felt I would never be lucky. You can debate to what extent I am nowadays more lucky on an objective sense, but I feel using the principles from that book (of which being open to new things is one of them) helped me a lot. I am not affiliated with that book. I just love a good pop psychology book (another good one is Man's Search for Meaning, for example, which is to be fair a lot more than only pop psychology).

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
foxbarrington 9y ago
Richard Wiseman, mentioned in the article, wrote that book.
lazerpants 9y ago
This talk is in a similar vein: https://www.ted.com/talks/jia_jiang_what_i_learned_from_100_days_of_rejection https://www.ted.com/talks/jia_jiang_what_i_learned_from_100_...

danschumann 9y ago

The psychological trait of openness is often associated with creativity. Creating something from nothing seems very lucky indeed.

nate 9y ago

This has been a tough year over here with a lot of un-fun life events. So this morning when trying to get out for a run I was looking for this one and only long sleeve workout shirt I have. And I couldn't find it. It's trivial, I know, but I started blowing up. Emptying out drawers, rummaging through the entire closet. I can't take yet another thing not working right. Where the f*&^% is this shirt!? But I took a few deep breaths. Opened my eyes and the shirt was literally in front of me hanging in the closet. It's a tiny example but this research rings very true. Being pissed off at life is a downward spiral where you stop noticing great opportunities to get you out of the spiral.

toxik 9y ago
Ah if it isn’t my friend the anecdata. Blowing a fuse over trivialities probably means you’re stressed out. I sure am. It’s just modern tech society.
- SubuSS 9y ago
  Anecdotes are a problem only if someone is using them to arrive at generality/scientific explanation out of it. In this case - the research is already done, people are just identifying with that.

CM30 9y ago

Eh, I see how having an open mind could help with finding opportunities in life and make someone 'luckier' in a certain sense, but at the same time I also feel that there's still a huge portion of success that's down to things well outside of someone's control. I mean, I often write about underrated creators on sites like YouTube, and while there's definitely some semblance of a correlation between marketing effort and success, it's very much a minor one overshadowed by a lot of other things. I know plenty of people who worked far harder than I ever could, and ended up struggling with only a few followers as well as people who seemingly just lucked into success purely from one random friend having existing popularity. And I suspect it's similar outside of the internet too. There's a correlation between open mindedness and trying hard and promoting yourself and success, but it's not an absolute one and often overshadowed by a lot of other things.

restuijs 9y ago
Speaking from experience, I can say that typecasting problems are a striking example of this process from a different perspective. In that case, you're given lots of opportunities, but not the ones you're looking for, for reasons that have to do with others but not yourself. A lot of what we discuss isn't luck at all but social dynamics and others' perceptions. Sometimes that involves skill; sometimes it involves luck, and sometimes it involves something systematic but ultimately outside the control of the individual.

costcopizza 9y ago

I want to know the correlation of people who like this article and consider themselves a lucky person.

oculusthrift 9y ago

i don’t like articles like this because it discounts the effect of actual luck. An open mind isn’t going to help you if a family member is sick and you have to take care of them instead of going to college.

throwPass123 9y ago

I agree with the author. The way I see it is that life throws opportunities in a lottery: You may have 1 ticket out of thousands and still win it. There is undoubtedly a luck factor yet, the harder you work the more tickets you will get. So the question is do you want to play a lottery owning 1 ticket out of 100 or 90 out of 100?

weitzj 9y ago

So for me definition of luck would be: The ability to recognize and pursue opportunities

andersamundson 9y ago

Some of these ideas seem a very close cousin to the 'curiosity conversations' from Brian Grazer's 'A Curious Mind.'

ivankolev 9y ago

When I had tough times, reading this lifted me up big time: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2013/12/the-ultimate-cheat-sheet-for-reinventing-yourself-2/ http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2013/12/the-ultimate-cheat-shee...