Are You A Lucky Person?

Yes, Napoleon demanded lucky generals. Grand Slam winning golfer Gary Player famously quipped, 'the more I practice, the luckier I get'. Not to mention the ol' driving force long spake throughout Sales, 'luck is a place where planning meets opportunity'.

You may also have caught the aphorism, 'luck is believing you're lucky'.

It appears Amazillionaire Jeff Bezos may have heard similar too.

For the title of this post was indeed a favourite question of his when interviewing job candidates. Asked every time, of everyone.

The desired response echoes the famed Henry Ford aphorism; "whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right". Also traceable from Dr. Seuss, I recall a Derren Brown show once that determined 'however lucky you think you are, you are'. Not forgetting the Selling industry recruitment flagstone through research by Martin Seligman, finding that we're best to hire optimists.

From 'learned optimism' now also read 'learned luck'.

There's plenty of ways to suggest you feel lucky. Depending on how modest or otherwise you wish to project yourself. From the merely fortunate, to perhaps the more literary, 'leading a charmed life', 'favoured of the gods' or 'smiled upon by Providence'.

The issue with going too far down this route, is that you can come across as being the unworthy, unwitting, unwarranted perennial benefactor of randomness. To such an extent, that your default setting could be seen as one of reactive nonchalant floating around until something magically happens for you.

That doesn't sound like the slicing of luck that I think Bezos would appreciate.

So, are you lucky? Well, yer make your own luck, and this is how I get lucky...