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Unlock Your Luck: Understanding the Science Behind Fortunate Traits
00:00:02 Welcome to *The Path to Calm: Stop Overthinking, Become Present, Find Peace*
00:03:26 Lucky Traits
00:04:52 Extroversion
00:07:31 Open-Mindedness
00:09:38 Low Neuroticism
The Science of Being Lucky: How to Engineer Good Fortune, Consistently Catch Lucky Breaks, and Live a Charmed Life (Mental and Emotional Abundance Book 13) By: Nick Trenton
Hear it Here - https://bit.ly/3I1ynzs
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09SY6NMHD
In this episode we dive into an intriguing chapter from Nick Trenton's book, "The Science of Being Lucky." Chapter 3 explores the fascinating connection between personality traits and luck. Join us as we uncover why extroversion, open-mindedness, and low neuroticism are considered lucky traits and how they can impact your life positively.
We'll delve into the research-backed reasons behind these findings and provide practical insights on how you can cultivate a mindset that attracts good fortune. Discover the secrets of luck and learn to engineer your own lucky breaks! Don't miss this enlightening episode, and remember, it's not just about chance—it's about understanding and applying the science of being lucky. Click the link in the description to grab your copy of "The Science of Being Lucky" by Nick Trenton and embark on a journey towards a charmed life. #luck #personalitytraits #scienceofluck
Transcript
Hello, listeners!
Speaker:Welcome to *The Path to Calm: Stop Overthinking, Become Present, Find Peace*, on this beautiful April 28th, 2025, as we explore the art of embracing tranquility and bid farewell to unnecessary mental clutter.
Speaker:Todays featured book: The Science of Being Lucky: How to Engineer Good Fortune, Consistently Catch Lucky Breaks, and Live a Charmed Life (Mental and Emotional Abundance Book 13) By: Nick Trenton
Speaker:5 00:00:38,720 --> 00:00:43,880 "Unlock Your Luck: Understanding the Science Behind Fortunate Traits"
Speaker:7 00:00:43,880 --> 00:00:49,320 Have you ever heard that old saying by Seneca about how preparation meets opportunity?
Speaker:Well, today we're diving into the world of 'making your own luck' and exploring some simple yet effective ways to stack the odds in our favor.
Speaker:We'll uncover three key traits shared by many a fortunate soul: extroversion, open-mindedness, and low neuroticism.
Speaker:Imagine being like one of those people who seem to have all the right breaks; it's not just about chance encounters but also about how we position ourselves for success.
Speaker:So get ready, because this episode might just be your lucky break!"
Speaker:It might seem like lucky is something you are born to be.
Speaker:Fortunately, being lucky is not just about the accidents of your birth, innate ability, or even talent.
Speaker:If there’s been a theme throughout this book thus far, it is that luckiness is achievable through creating conditions for luck — and that is wholly within your control.
Speaker:Truly being lucky boils down to a short aphorism by the Roman philosopher and statesman, Seneca: “Luck is where opportunity meets preparation.”
Speaker:17 00:02:01,280 --> 00:02:05,320 In Ancient Rome, Seneca lived a life that defined luck.
Speaker:He was born into a low rank, but through his hard work and awareness, he moved up into the realm of the elite in Rome.
Speaker:His “luck” brought him a friendship with Roman emperors, including Claudius and Nero.
Speaker:He eventually became one of the wealthiest people of his day.
Speaker:Was Seneca luckier than most people?
Speaker:He certainly wasn’t unlucky.
Speaker:But he also understood the workings of the world, which is clear throughout the philosophical texts he crafted in his lifetime.
Speaker:He embodied several of the traits that modern researchers and psychologists consider to be those of lucky people.
Speaker:Some people may find that money falls in their lap or a lucky break comes from nowhere, and they find their fortunes turning with no input from them.
Speaker:But this kind of luck (“dumb” luck?)
Speaker:is by definition pretty uncommon, and since we can’t create t for ourselves, it’s not worth thinking about.
Speaker:But as we’ve seen, there are other, subtler grey areas between “100% dumb luck” and “hard work.” In that realm where our attitude, preparation, actions, and perceptions change how we maximize the random opportunities we’re given, we have more control than we think.
Speaker:We’ve seen that lucky people are optimistic and believe they’re lucky.
Speaker:Let’s look at a few more traits that the lucky have in common.
Speaker:Lucky Traits
Speaker:33 00:03:28,720 --> 00:03:33,800 There are a handful of traits that are common in people who consider themselves to be lucky.
Speaker:Richard Wiseman, the psychologist we encountered earlier, has extensively studied luck, and found that people who are lucky find themselves in a certain state of mind that makes them more aware of lucky occurrences.
Speaker:You can call it a lucky mindset, or simply the tendency to get themselves into situations many people would call lucky.
Speaker:Luck, then, is a complex mix of attribution, perception and deliberate positive action.
Speaker:In several experiments relating to luck, he found that those who achieve it tend to have three consistent personality traits.
Speaker:Those three personality traits for luck include variations on the spectrums of extroversion, openness, and neuroticism.
Speaker:Wiseman found that people with those three traits weren’t exactly more blessed or fortunate (that would be quite the scientific finding!)
Speaker:but rather that their outlook made them available to opportunities that turned into lucky moments.
Speaker:The same opportunities that, ostensibly, we’re all exposed to in equal measure.
Speaker:These three traits seemed to give people a better chance at being in the right place at the right time and maximizing their opportunities for great outcomes.
Speaker:Extroversion
Speaker:45 00:04:54,160 --> 00:04:58,840 Extroversion is the first trait Wiseman found to be highly correlated with luck.
Speaker:According to the Big 5 Factors theory of personality, extroversion is defined by people being assertive, energetic, and talkative.
Speaker:Extroversion is associated with comfort with social interaction and a tendency to move towards other people and new situations.
Speaker:Someone who shows extroversion is likely to be lucky due to an enthusiastic involvement with the outside world.
Speaker:It’s easy to imagine why: extroverts have an easy time talking to anyone, so they often have opportunities to meet interesting people.
Speaker:How many times have you heard people describe a lucky encounter that essentially came down to them chatting up the right person by accident?
Speaker:These are opportunities that more shy or withdrawn people might never take advantage of.
Speaker:Extroverts become highly energized when they are around other people.
Speaker:They are likely to become the life of any party.
Speaker:They are easy to notice in crowds because of their talkative and energetic personalities, which could explain why lucky things happen to them.
Speaker:If we take luck to be a quantity that increases with exposure and experience, extroverts are necessarily luckier because they crave that exposure, and tend to put themselves more frequently into varied situations.
Speaker:The more opportunities you come across, even bad ones, the more you increase your exposure to a lucky chance encounter.
Speaker:The more you try, the more you discover and experience.
Speaker:Simply, you’re going to have more lucky breaks when you meet ten people a day versus none.
Speaker:Let’s be honest: luck very often comes from other people doing something for or with us.
Speaker:Our social connections can create our lucky breaks, our pivotal moments, and occasionally save our hides!
Speaker:It stands to reason then that those with more social connections will have more channels through which this kind of luck can flow to them.
Speaker:If you find yourself the aloof or retiring type, you may discover more luck comes your way when you open up to other people.
Speaker:Tell others what you’re struggling with and what you need – you never know when or from where help may be spontaneously offered.
Speaker:Speak enthusiastically about your passions so that other people will help you connect to others who can help or join you on your mission.
Speaker:Most importantly, pay attention and be a good listener – luck often arrives simply because you knew a valuable piece of information you might have otherwise missed.
Speaker:Open-Mindedness
Speaker:68 00:07:34,280 --> 00:07:42,200 When someone demonstrates a high level of openness, they are relaxed about life and ready to experience new circumstances.
Speaker:They are receptive and open to following emerging threads, rather than shutting themselves off to new possibilities or solutions.
Speaker:They are not as risk-averse as others and don’t make decisions through a perspective of fear and anxiety.
Speaker:When opportunity knocks on the door of someone with an open mind, that person will answer the door and investigate the challenge.
Speaker:They’ll not only open the door, but they’ll walk down that path and consider if they even want to return the way they came.
Speaker:Someone with a closed mind will not do any of these things.
Speaker:Simply give yourself more opportunities for luck to occur.
Speaker:It is relatively easy to identify someone who has a high level of openness; this is the person who doesn’t say no to anything, whether you suggest it or they do.
Speaker:Let’s say you want to go skydiving, but you want to go with a friend.
Speaker:The friend who is open to new ideas is the one you will call.
Speaker:Open people tend to land in the luckiest circumstances.
Speaker:They end up with the best jobs because they make themselves aware of opportunities.
Speaker:They’ll be the person who always seems to have a funny story of coincidence or chance encounters that lead to amazing adventures.
Speaker:They also seem to be the people who end up backstage at concerts, with the autographs at ballparks, and as winners in contests.
Speaker:These things happen to them because they are open to opportunities, and they jump on them.
Speaker:They may not readily identify everything as a positive opportunity, but just as importantly, they don’t rule anything out.
Speaker:If this attitude is not your strong suit, you may find yourself feeling luckier if you can simply relax and include more spontaneity in your life.
Speaker:Shift your perspective from why to why not?
Speaker:Accept invitations, try something unexpected and be willing to see the upside in an outcome you didn’t quite plan for.
Speaker:Low Neuroticism
Speaker:89 00:09:42,480 --> 00:09:51,760 Finally, neuroticism is technically a state of being neurotic, which often includes anxiety, nervousness, and jealousy.
Speaker:Essentially, this is the trait of being high-strung and perpetually on guard.
Speaker:Unlike the other two traits, Wiseman found that those at the opposite end, with low-levels of neuroticism, were likely to have more luck in their lives than those at the high-level end.
Speaker:Why is this?
Speaker:Someone who shows low levels of neuroticism will be calmer and more relaxed than someone at the high end of the spectrum.
Speaker:When people are calm and focused, they become highly aware of their surroundings without being anxious.
Speaker:They do not scan the environment looking for threats, and tend to interpret neutral situations favorably, rather than find them intimidating.
Speaker:Someone in a relaxed state of mind allows themselves to be open to opportunity and even happiness, whereas someone who is perpetually anxious will be endlessly preoccupied with perceived slights, insults, and alarms.
Speaker:It comes down to a sense of expectation – a neurotic person expects bad things to happen, while a relaxed and non-neurotic one is calm, comfortable and broadly faces life with curiosity.
Speaker:Someone with low neuroticism also sees what is happening around them, and is therefore often lucky.
Speaker:For example, while many people walk down the street listening to music or focusing on their phones, the low neuroticism person will often walk down the street, taking in the ambiance and the view.
Speaker:They don’t feel threatened by letting their guards down.
Speaker:This is why people with low neuroticism become so lucky — because they are paying attention to the world and choosing not to become closed off to it.
Speaker:When their minds are not preoccupied with anxiety, they are able to be present and explore what’s in front of them.
Speaker:One of Wiseman’s studies clearly showed how openness and awareness can play a major factor in what we consider “luck.” Remember the newspaper experiment?
Speaker:Wiseman asked volunteers to count the number of photographs in a newspaper.
Speaker:On page two of the newspaper, there was a headline that read “STOP COUNTING—THERE ARE 43 PHOTOGRAPHS IN THIS NEWSPAPER.” Further down the page was another headline that read, “STOP COUNTING, TELL THE EXPERIMENTER YOU HAVE SEEN THIS AND WIN $250.”
Speaker:107 00:12:10,360 --> 00:12:16,280 Everyone in the study missed the headlines, but they did count all 43 photographs.
Speaker:Wiseman concluded that people were too focused (too neurotic) on the goal.
Speaker:They failed to relax and see the opportunities that were right in front of their faces.
Speaker:This goes to show that sometimes, our preconceived notions about how things should play out, and our need to control and fixate on tasks and a particular interpretation shut us out to the magical possibility of something better happening.
Speaker:Often, being lucky is simply a question of getting gout of your own way, and allowing that luck to find you!
Speaker:Even though these three personality traits contribute to lucky events, the real reason people tend to be lucky is that they are involved in the world around them.
Speaker:Like Seneca said, it takes work.
Speaker:But Wiseman found that along with work, relaxation helps too.
Speaker:People who try too hard to find opportunities miss them more often than not because they end up making themselves blind to anything else.
Speaker:So, when it comes luck, a balance between being relaxed and alert helps.
Speaker:This is the balance between being open, calm, and extroverted.
Speaker:Recall that luck is mostly random and is only somewhat self-generated.
Speaker:No one can predict what will happen to them, but a person can manage their reactions to those events.
Speaker:Being calm and relaxed, open to opportunities, and involved in life makes it easier to jump on those random events and become “lucky.” We cannot create good fortune, but we can invite it in.
Speaker:In addition to these traits, optimism is a driver of good fortune.
Speaker:Optimists look at the bright side of life, seeking the bright side and anticipating that good things will happen.
Speaker:Lucky people tend to be optimists because they act like they are going to succeed.
Speaker:For instance, you will prepare for a long car ride far differently than you would prepare for a 10-minute ride.
Speaker:The way you view something drastically changes your actions.
Speaker:Along with adding optimism to your daily routine, it is helpful to develop a sense of humility.
Speaker:If you are not afraid of being embarrassed in unexpected situations, then you will be open and free to try new things.
Speaker:By being calm and accepting that you might fail, you will be surprised by the good things that come your way.
Speaker:If you are instead defensiveness and afraid of judgment and rejection, you will probably close yourself off from most chances for luck because the cost (embarrassment) simply won’t be worth the benefit (an opportunity).
Speaker:A little bit of vulnerability can make you far luckier if you are just willing to take a leap of faith more frequently.
Speaker:Take, for example, the professional baseball player.
Speaker:Every time a professional baseball player goes up to bat, he has a roughly 72% chance of failing in front of hundreds of thousands of people on TV and in the stadium.
Speaker:But he expects it and is okay with the potential for failure.
Speaker:If the baseball player did not take that chance of failure, he could never become the hero who hits the big home run to win the game.
Speaker:At the plate, the batter has to be calm, optimistic, vulnerable, and completely ready to accept failure.
Speaker:This also underlies openness.
Speaker:Optimism means you resist labelling outcomes as failures simply because they weren’t what you wanted, and instead see how every change in your circumstances could be welcomed as a positive opportunity for something new.
Speaker:Sometimes, we are so focused on what has gone wrong that we don’t see a great chance sitting right in front of us!
Speaker:Finally, you can change your luck by being proactive.
Speaker:Being lucky involves more than just showing up; you actually have to get engaged in life.
Speaker:You have to search for opportunities, because they will not land in your lap if you are not out there seeking them (well, they might, but waiting for them alone is not going to make them happen any faster than they were going to!).
Speaker:Along with Seneca and Machiavelli’s words of wisdom, the Latin aphorism “Carpe Diem” is another excellent way to live a lucky life.
Speaker:This aphorism is a proclamation to live life to the fullest, grasping the present moment in front of you while you can.
Speaker:Instead of shying away for fear of looking silly or the possibility of failing, lucky people try new things and give it their best shot.
Speaker:They act where others are hesitant, or unprepared, fearful, or still ruminating over the past.
Speaker:When you get involved with life, sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose.
Speaker:But do you skip taking a vacation because you are afraid of the small chance the plane could crash with you on it?
Speaker:If you don’t get on the plane, then you do not get to see the world.
Speaker:If you do not buy the lottery card, then you cannot win the $1 million prize.
Speaker:If we let fear keep us back, then we miss out on all of the wonderful things that could happen.
Speaker:The old “shoulda-coulda-woulda” syndrome.
Speaker:Luck doesn’t come to those people who said, “I wish I would have taken that job,” or “I should have gone on that date,” or “If only I could have another chance, I would do it differently.” How could it?
Speaker:No lucky break is so powerful that it will barge into your life even though you’re doing your best to shut it out.
Speaker:No, luck comes to people who take the job, go on the date, and do it the first time.
Speaker:Luck presents itself in random ways, and it is up to you to recognize it and accept the opportunity.
Speaker:The universe speaks in mysterious ways, and we cannot open our eyes to it if we are always worried about the plane crashing.
Speaker:Richard Wiseman saw the power of mindset in the very different people in his research.
Speaker:In his psychological studies to understand why some people are luckier than others, he has presented strangers with opportunities that many would consider lucky.
Speaker:He has literally placed luck right in front of them in many situations.
Speaker:Some completely miss it.
Speaker:But others immediately spot the opportunity.
Speaker:It has nothing to do with “luck” but everything to do with being receptive to opportunity.
Speaker:Alright listeners, let's talk about luck and how you can create your own fortune.
Speaker:We often hear that "luck is where preparation meets opportunity," as Seneca wisely stated.
Speaker:And it's true; by preparing ourselves mentally and emotionally, we set the stage for those lucky breaks to occur.
Speaker:The Science of Being Lucky reveals three key traits that lucky people possess.
Speaker:First up, extroversion—being socially engaged and confident in speaking out increases our chances of making connections and seizing opportunities when they arise.
Speaker:Next is open-mindedness; adopting a curious and receptive mindset opens us up to new experiences and potential paths we may not have considered before.
Speaker:Finally, keeping calm and reducing neuroticism allows us to think clearly and creatively, spotting solutions and possibilities that others might miss.
Speaker:So, get ready to embrace your lucky self!
Speaker:Remember, luck is not just about chance; it's about being prepared and open to the world around you.
