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How to change your luck for good or ill OR The nature of luck REFERENCE View this page WITHOUT references Sponsor this page This page last updated on or about 5-19-05

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Ever wished for something different to shake up your life? Jerry Staute did, and look what happened to him.

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There appears to be at least a dozen major elements or dimensions to luck on the individual to intermediate size group scale, and the weight of each in any particular event may be fluid. That is, the one element which plays 100% of the role in determining the outcome of one event may play 0% in the next. But it's likely that for most events all the different components listed below carry some non-negligible weight on the outcome. The order of the following list is entirely random, and non-prioritized or weighted by importance:

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In most circumstances the odds of random chance are against you-- unless you're out to harm yourself or others, or wreak destruction in general. Death, decay, and destruction represent the mainstream of events in this universe, and are not so prey to undoing by random chance as more creative and constructive endeavors.

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Most people learn in their youth just how lucky or unlucky they personally are, and so what level of resources they can afford to waste on a regular basis. The majority of us learn pretty early on that we have no choice but to be thrifty.

To see more about this aspect of luck, CLICK HERE

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Note that a good amount of local historic biospheric, chemical, geological, and geographic 'stats' are likely 'frozen' as biological programming code into the DNA of lifeforms universe-wide. That is, survival strategies which worked for predecessors are enshrined in DNA as bodily characteristics, instincts, etc., thereby enabling present generations to live and breed, sometimes in unbelievably hostile conditions.

You ARE a statistical data point. Sometimes this will be a good thing; others, a bad.

Normal luck is a much older article of mine exploring the possible role of probability in personal luck, which you may find interesting in its own right.

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Optimism looks to be a generally beneficial trait, so long as it's not 'blind' optimism, or 'foolish' optimism. Taking good fortune for granted is always a no-no.

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The placebo effect in medicine, wherein certain conditions of patients may improve significantly due to nothing more than the belief or faith in such success, may be another example of how confidence may affect circumstances for better or worse (there's a reverse placebo effect as well, where negative expectations will help bring about negative results).

Note that the placebo effect is not effective for all ailments.

Confidence alone can sometimes be all you need. But relying exclusively on confidence is basically bluffing, and so not recommended as anything but a last resort.

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If you want still more on how the art of deceit is considered vital in modern government and military matters, look to the huge resources spent on spying on virtually everyone, domestically and abroad, disseminating propaganda (lies of various degrees) for political, economic, or military gain, and disguising our actions and policies so as to mislead others regarding our true intent in trade and research pacts, etc., etc., in order to strengthen our negotiating positions.

Then there's the other celebrities we worship, such as actors and actresses, and chief executives of corporations. Those in the acting biz officially make their living by deceiving their audiences-- making us believe they really are murderers or madmen or sailors or whatever on screen or stage, when the public record clearly shows they are not.

Many of our chief executives 'get paid the big bucks' for their ability to manipulate employees, customers, vendors, investors, and various accounting, regulatory, and tax agencies-- frequently to the point of outright deception and sometimes worse-- so as to produce specific results on paper and in the public and/or market's perceptions.

But such deceit is widespread in the plant and animal kingdoms, in the form of camouflage or fraudulent sounds, scents, and appearances. The walking stick insect looks like part of a plant. Lions sport fur coats that blend into their stalking terrain. And so on and so forth. So deception is not a uniquely human trait by any means.

So charisma, leadership, and mastery of the art of deceit are important aspects to luck in modern human society. They can win wars, allies, generate (or steal) vast fortunes, and bring fame for those already at or near the top of the social hierarchy. They can offer benefits and advantages to those lower on the social scale too, but an enormous law enforcement infrastructure has historically been maintained by nations to actively discourage such indulgences, often with severe punishments. In practice such enforcement is primarily focused on the lower classes rather than the higher. Thus, it's usually far, far riskier for a poor person to attempt to improve their fortunes via deception, than it is for a member of the elite (especially where significant cash sums or potential prestige are involved).

Note that an important aspect to successfully practicing deception is not getting caught or found out. Or, alternatively, enjoying the 'connections' or influence necessary to 'cover up' or suitably justify those instances where you do get caught.

In modern society, being exposed as a liar is usually most damaging to those of low social stature, such as the poor. So it's little wonder that personal honesty is valued more highly among those of the lower classes than the higher ones. The more social status or financial wealth you possess at the time of such exposure, typically the smaller price you'll pay for your deception being revealed. In some cases, the elite may actually benefit from being found out for fraudulent behavior-- where the same exact actions would put poorer, less influential folks in dire straits.

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But in purely contemporary and secular human terms, networking is usually viewed as 'schmoozing' with associates to either sow or harvest potentially useful information among the group, and/or incur behavior which might affect changes in status for one or more of the number (or related activities), for good or ill. Untold numbers of business and social groups, clubs, and other types of organizations which exist today are based on the power and functionality of networking principles.

Metcalfe's law, meant to apply to computer networks but surely useful for sociometrics as well, states that the more nodes (or members/contacts) a given network acquires, the more useful it becomes for everyone. Now this law likely runs up against practical limits in terms of human social networking, but still it should work up to a point.

So in general, the more folks you have connected to your own network, the more powerful or effective the network potentially is for all members.

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One serendipitous example of how suitable preparation can translate to good luck might be an anecdote from my own life. I basically won a pretty massive promotion at one company due to some purely accidental preparation I'd done years before.

A friend of mine called me in basically as an artist to help with a business presentation. But over time I gradually became a valued tech support person for many of the computer users at the company. This made the current IT head consider me a threat, leading to him attempting to ambush and publically humiliate me at the firm in what essentially turned out to be a duel of computing technical jargon, before dozens of witnesses.

Fortunately for me, I had no idea of his plans, and even remained unaware of what was happening during the ambush itself. This left me light-hearted and relaxed, or 'innocent', as certain interpretations of the I Ching might say, and so in optimal condition for a mental duel.

And that's where the preparation came in. For my opponent couldn't know that I'd been fascinated with personal computing technologies for a whole decade by that point, and spent untold hours at my college library years before devouring all available back issues of BYTE magazine, as well as other technical journals-- and continued such reading for long afterwards in my personal life. So I enjoyed a fairly impressive command of computing jargon-- the very thing my opponent had chosen to challenge me on.

So my challenger ended up humiliating himself instead of me. He soon afterwards quit his job and disappeared, leaving a vacuum which many folks felt I should move into-- and I did. I got a big raise too. And what won the duel for me wasn't my college education, but my reading of computer magazines for years on end-- as a HOBBY.

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Note here that I'm not coming down on either side on the morality of snooping. In some cases it'd plainly be wrong, perhaps even evil. But in other cases not doing it could be lethal. Such matters as these may often have to be decided on a case-by-case basis, and even then the morality of the practice may be unclear.

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Physical beauty and natural athletic speed, coordination, and grace may be the most easily recognized examples of this element of luck.

Typically based largely on the luck of the random genetic draw (as of 2003), such traits can never-the-less exert strong influences on your destiny if you possess them. They can help open the way for you to become a high paid model or ball player, or actress, etc.

In some instances such characteristics may be artificially gained, by way of plastic surgery or intensive training and coaching. But rare indeed is the case of someone 'self-made' in this respect outdoing a 'natural', where such come into direct competition.

So desirable natural (or unnatural) traits like physical attractiveness, coordination, and creative talent can give the owner a 'leg up' over much of their competition.

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The 'fight or flight' response is a leftover from our Stone Age history, when a saber-toothed tiger or pseudo-grizzly bear might surprise us on the trail at any moment, leaving us but the two choices, and prepping us biologically with adrenalin and other aids to endure the crisis as best we could.

Today though, most of us would have to go to an awful, awful lot of trouble and even expense to put ourselves into such dire situations. Sure, we might still fall into an open roofed bear compound at the zoo, or wander into a bad section of town populated by muggers, both scenarios where our 'fight or flight' mechanisms might still be of some value. But mostly we just worry about our jobs, paying the bills, and how to persuade or motivate ourselves or our loved ones into changing personal habits for the better, etc., etc., etc. Often such mundane matters will become agonizing enough to trigger our 'fight or flight' responses-- but neither fight or flight will be viable solutions to our dilemma, and so the biochemical changes due to our Stone Age response merely worsen our stress levels, and even damage our long term health, if such triggering events occur too often.

And even where flight or fight is an appropriate response to today's ills, submitting to the most primitive forms of these responses usually will not be. That is, modern flight or fight responses must often be cooly thought out to work, as our escapes may involve blindly navigating complex artificial environments like large building interiors filled with smoke or darkened by power loss, or eluding stalkers on unfamiliar city streets. Our fights might require combatting or defending against fires blocking our exits or endangering our families. Simply running away or clubbing, hacking, scratching, and biting as our Stone Age forebears might have won't help us in many modern situations of real danger. No, thinking is often required. And thinking can be clouded or negated entirely by panic or overwhelming fear.

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But wealth and power themselves are modifiers of fate too, for good or ill. A few folks are born with them, a few others inherit them, or have them dropped on them unexpectedly for some other reason. Not all who get to enjoy wealth also get power and influence along with it, or vice versa (although each may often include at least some aspects or glimmers of the other).

Gaining widespread fame can often be related to these, and even become a source of wealth and power itself. But there's no guarantee. There's quite a few people who became household names, even for the most positive of reasons, who never got wealth and power to go along with it. There's also rich and powerful folks who few have ever heard of, that may even have spent huge sums to gather such fame, to no effect. And there's plenty who had wealth, influence, and fame all at once and lost all three.

So while achievement, possession, or inheritance of wealth and/or power may offer many benefits in themselves, and in some cases allow a person more choices and more powerful means of persuasion of others to obtain what they need or desire, wealth and power combined may still fall short of what some of the other elements of luck on this page can bring a person. For example, good fortune in timing alone might prevent you from being in the wrong place at the wrong time during some natural or unnatural cataclysm, and so save your life, when all the wealth and power in human society could not.

There's also some fairly big potential liabilities to substantial wealth and power. Someone born into it, then not raised and educated properly, might find themselves completely helpless if they ever lose the advantages later on-- even if only temporarily. But a good raising and education won't necessarily always protect someone from the related downsides either, should they earn, win, or inherit wealth and power.

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This aspect may help provide a characteristic somewhat like that of physical momentum or inertia to a person's luck. Or the 'streaks' of luck that some people seem to experience at times.

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Successfully shifting between parallel universes could in theory be one way to change your luck. This is explored in Champion of destiny. Another method might be time travel and its ilk (technologies for which may be explored here). Somewhat related to this would be preparing yourself to exploit a coming technological singularity (if such preparation is possible).

Plotting a successful method of reincarnation or mind transfer to an immortal inorganic platform or even deciding to accelerate your journey into an afterlife might also offer wildly unlikely ways to change your fortunes for the better.

Of course, one of the easiest and fastest ways to radically change your luck (all the way up through imaginary omnipotence!) is via lucid dreaming.

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How might we change one or more of the above variable quantities so as to garner net gains in good luck?

That being said, let's explore our options.

Basically the stats element can only be practically manipulated in certain human games of chance, or similar events where the total number of possible outcomes is pretty small and rigidly defined. In other words, the formulas of probability and statistics won't do you much good in shaping most real life events better to your liking-- primarily because there's usually far too many variables (and variables involving immense numbers) involved for you to effectively control.

The best way to control the factor of random chance is to eliminate it entirely from a given process, if possible. For example, if you want someone to pick the Ace of Diamonds from a group of 52 cards, make sure all 52 cards are the Ace of Diamonds. Note I'm not condoning cheating here: just giving an example of how someone can easily improve their odds of success in something like a basic magician's trick. If you can't remove random chance from an event, the next best thing is to reduce the number of possible outcomes. For instance, having just three poker players rather than four increases your own chances of being the winner, where all other factors are equal.

As you can see, controlling random chance is something pretty much like trying to control statistics and probabilities. The smaller and more closed the environment, the better able you may be to stymie random chance in that environment. Unfortunately for such efforts, there's no way to create an environment completely closed to random chance. It pervades everything in this universe. In general you may be able to diminish its role, but not utterly eliminate it.

Example: Let's say you were prepping for that card trick mentioned previously, and had put together a deck of cards consisting entirely of Aces of Diamonds. You obviously can't do this preparation in front of the folks you intend to fool with it, so you do it sometime before that, and in a different location. Thing is, the more time and distance that exist between that preparation and your actual trick display, the more chance that some random element will spoil your plans by somehow getting one or more different cards inserted into your deck. And I'm talking pure accident here, perpetrated by folks entirely ignorant of-- or circumstances wholly unrelated to-- your plans. Your child might find your deck and decide to trade one of his math flash cards for one of your Aces, for instance.

And all the varying possibilities related to the example above doesn't include mistakes you possibly make yourself during your all Aces compilation, such as inadvertantly getting the back of one card sticky or wet, which causes a non-Ace to become temporarily stuck to it so that you don't realize one of your Aces is actually an Ace and a seven-- until your intended victim stuns you by drawing the dried out and unstuck seven during your trick. Or you may transfer your deck from a box to a slipcase, not noticing there's a non-Ace card still in the slipcase from a previously staged prank.

The universe can be extremely creative in undoing the best laid plans of mice and men, as the old cliche goes.

Networking is a multi-faceted entity, which can be somewhat inherited or bequeathed, or artificially increased or reduced in quality. There's potentially LOTS of improvements a given individual can do to their own networking quotient. Indeed, networking may be the most readily malleable of luck's elements.

The simplest rule to networking is to make as many high quality friends and contacts as you can, and try to maintain the connections as best you might into perpetuity. Family and neighbors are often good places to start building a network. After that you'll find opportunities among school and work mates.

There's several practical limitations to networking however. For instance, members of the net which don't get the attention or reciprocity they expect from you will diminish in net quality and possibly leave your network altogether. Thus, the demands of network maintenance must always be balanced against your other priorities and requirements. Different people under different circumstances will possess different capacities for such net maintenance, making some able to sustain a larger network, and for a longer period, than others. The quality and character of your network members will also be an important factor here. Some folks will be a persistant drain on your resources, perhaps for little or no return on your investment. Thus, networks have to be pruned like trees too, at times. Example: you're in college and become pals with your room mate. You have a few good times with him, but come to learn that he's a borderline alcoholic that shows no signs of responding to your attempts to persuade him to be more moderate in his drinking. If he has redeeming qualities in your eyes, you might invest more time and effort in getting him to dry out. But if not, you would want to excise his bad influence from your personal world/network.

It may be that there's two distinct and different network levels to be utilized by folks. One is their own personal networking-- the version naturally utilized by all of us, to various extents. The other is reputation networking-- the sort of stuff widely known book authors, scientists, business execs, and other celebrities/notables may possess.

Reputation networking (once it takes off) may be something like personal networking on steroids. It can bring you new opportunities with little or no extra effort on your part, unlike the typical processes of personal networking. Reputation networking at least partially explains why those already well-known tend to continue garnering a greater share of private and public attention than others for extended periods, even where they may be trying to reduce or stop the excess attention altogether.

As there already exists lots of literature relating to networking and the improvement of same, I won't expound on it further here.

Optimism/open-mindedness is another factor over which you enjoy potentially lots of control. Again, improving or enhancing one's optimism and/or positive attitude is a subject well covered elsewhere, and so I'll avoid such redundancy here-- but for just one recommendation: Regular moderate to high impact physical exercise. Even if you ignore the enormous wealth of health benefits from same [see low cost health and medical care for details], you may want to do it for the increased optimism it can bring, alone.

Preparation is another key element over which you can enjoy much control-- but it can be tricky. Because you can't always know for what to prepare. Much as a young person might not know what they should major in at college, someone wanting to utilize preparation to change their luck may be confounded as to what precisely they should study or train at in order to succeed. I can't possibly offer anyone specifics here tailored to their own goals and circumstances. So here's a generic recommendation:

If you haven't done so already, get to know yourself as best you can, and after that set out clear priorities in regards to your life and behavior. Start with the basics and work from there. Once you have a well-fleshed out set of priorities in your back pocket, you'll find yourself able to make better decisions, and make them faster, than you could before. Of course, getting to know yourself that well can require a substantial amount of education and/or personal experience. Lots of folks may not ever achieve such inner knowledge, much less assemble a useful set of personal priorities which can serve as a 'quick-reference' guide for behavior and decisions afterwards. So don't expect this to be something you can complete in mere days or weeks, from a standing start. Months and years of concerted effort is far more realistic for most of us.

There's lots of 'self-improvement' books on the market that offer ways to learn more about yourself and set priorities. Adding more formal education to your record, almost no matter what the subject matter, may help speed things along as well.

Keep in mind that doing the best you can to prepare for your chosen course in life, and setting or discovering your personal priorities should also do a lot to help you build up real confidence in yourself in general, and regarding a large number of the situations you're most likely to face down the road-- thereby increasing your 'C.Q.', or confidence quotient: a sometimes important facet of good fortune.

Most folks will find it about as difficult to gain substantial wealth and power during their lives as it would be to eliminate the element of random chance from daily events. But there are a few ways to mount a reasonable attempt. Not surprisingly, the methods most likely to succeed depend on other factors of luck listed on this page, such as preparation (get as much education as possible), networking (make useful business and/or political connections), timing, etc., etc. Some helpful ideas on the nuts and bolts of self-employment, entrepreneurship, investing, and politics can be useful in a personal quest for power and wealth. But if you decide to give it a shot don't forget to stir in lots of hard work and always be on the look out for ways to include the other elements of luck listed on the page, wherever possible.

Note that in some ways the 'highway of fate/destiny' described above in the Determinate continuum much resembles the parallel tracks which could exist across multiple realities, as described in my article Champion of destiny. Ergo, some of the ideas for 'switching tracks' in Champion might also work on your 'road', as-it-were. Or at least they might wherever your present stretch of roadway isn't too narrow, thereby allowing you to swerve off your current course and onto a somewhat different one.

Successfully leveraging timing to your advantage is not entirely out of your reach. It can be done-- at least to a limited extent. But it may be one of the more complex exercises described on this page, requiring the juggling of several elemental contributors to luck all at once. Indeed, at times pulling off such a feat may require pretty much all the factors discussed on this page being brought into near perfect synchrony.

Examples include fairly brazen contrarian stock buying in the face of panic, such as the head of the Kennedy clan did around the time of the 1929 stock market crash, thereby creating the fortune which would establish an American political dynasty. Kennedy successfully combined preparation (ready capital and investment smarts) with shrewd yet bold risk-taking, and more, to make himself a key figure in history.

There's another aspect to timing that can be crucial to good fortune. Free time itself. That is, disposable time you have available to seek out new opportunities, and then exploit them if and when they arise. If you have zero free time, then sooner or later you're going to be forced to pass up on one or more golden opportunities, the likes of which may never pass your way again.

Things that can deplete your free time include addictions, obsessions, paranoia, and extremes of other sorts. If you're addicted to smoking (of any kind), or alcohol, or truly obsessed with collecting some sort of strange stuff like ceramic shoes or candy wrappers or funny looking knives with purple handles, then not only will you likely fail to notice that grand opportunity when it bumps into you on the street, but you'll also maybe have insufficient time to exploit such a golden ticket, due to the extra hours you must spend working to buy the goods necessary to support your habit. Beyond that, habits like smoking cut years off your life in an absolute sense as well, thereby costing you still more free time. Maybe you're destined to have your ship come in in 2013, but darn it, your smoking kills or incapacitates you in 2012.

Personal debt-- especially debt due to frivolous or wasteful spending-- can rob you of valuable free time as well, as you must sooner or later spend much time making the money necessary to pay it off.

In extremely rare cases people may be able to affect their luck via extraordinary means.

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Luck as a finite resource

Finite luck elements may include DNA which determines the basic attractiveness of your physical appearance, or protects you from certain types of disease or environmental poisons.

For you can always overwhelm innate protection from poisons by simply exposing yourself to excessive amounts. In many cases there's a limit to how much even superb DNA could take without succumbing.

Likewise the attractiveness genes. You could sooner or later take sufficient risks of injury to obtain horrible and permanent scarring or loss of limb, or pursue a diet of harmful food, drink, or drugs which likewise resulted in substantial harm to your looks or general health.

It's conceivable that there may even be some time-dependent elements to luck. That is, you could use up a lifetime's worth in a single incident.

As the universal law of entropy seems to skew everything towards worse outcomes over time, it would seem that in general 'good' luck in all things will be in somewhat shorter supply than 'bad' in any randomly chosen situation.

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