Why are some people so much luckier than others?

Sure. And there's no reason why things went so differently for James Garner than they did for Bob Jones. Just luck.

That's a really great point. However, I think there's still a lot of value studying a guy like James Garner and people who are the best.

I've actually studied acting for years. I've seen a lot of terrible actors and people who are good and struggle to get parts.

On observation. One of the biggest things to being a good actor or at least not a terrible actor is to learn that acting is much more about reacting. Learning to listen. Stop reciting lines, and instead LISTEN to the other people on stage and their needs and desires. Then react to those. A good actor could forget all their lines and still get through a scene because they can just react in character to what's going on around them.

James, as you can imagine from this article, was awesome at just listening. He didn't start out as a great actor but this quality definitely helped get him there.

On taking chances. I know some good actors who are baristas right now when not acting. When James needed money as a starting actor he was helping other actors recite lines, cleaning actors dressing rooms, even washing their cars. Which do you think will get you more possibilities for "luck", making coffee for random Joes, or helping Marlon Brando with lines?

But I agree with you that there are a lot of people trying and they'll never be as successful as James. But I also know a lot of people who won't ever as successful as they want because they do so little to find new opportunities. Also, the article wasn't titled, how to be as successful as James Garner, but was meant to point out some things Wiseman has found "lucky" people (not necessary James Garners) doing that "unlucky" people aren't.

Your observation applies to James Gardner but not to the results of the tests presented in the article.

I think part of the point of the article is to point out how a potential Bob Jones could also consider himself lucky. He may have failed to get that acting part, but he has met so many interesting people and had a wonderful opportunity to grow as a person. Can you believe he got to meet Bill Murray face-to-face? He also just met this lovely woman at a casting call, and is taking her out this weekend. He feels so blessed to be given so many opportunities in life. He sees himself as lucky: He's got family, friends, his youth, his health, and he's growing every day.

There's this TED talk on "manufactured happiness", where they talk about people who experienced devastating opportunity losses and considered themselves happier because of it. It then talks about the concept of the hedonic treadmill, how no matter what happens good or bad in a person's life (barring traumatic experiences that cause mental disorders), a person will, over time, return to a baseline happiness level. This is shown to be the case with people that have won the lottery, and with amputees.

The article shows how people that consider themselves lucky are empirically more observant, more focused, and more grateful. The article also explores the possibility that people considering themselves lucky could cause those individuals to be given more opportunities. For me, the answer is an obvious yes: The Secret is bullshit, but exuding a positive, loving, grateful vibe to those around you, even in the face of personal hardship, causes more good things to come your way, simply because people notice you more and want to be around you.

Re: Bob Jones of the world

"Wiseman also found lucky people go out of there way to try new things and meet new people."

You need to factor in looks as well. No doubt a good looking man or woman has an easier time getting people to like them (both men and women). And that helps a great deal with luck. Not insurmountable by any means. But a big plus. I'm not talking about looks landing you a job (or an agent approaching you) but just looks being a way to make more people want to hang with you or help you or invite you to a party where you meet others (could say the same thing about being funny or any number of qualities that people differ on).

Example: I helped a woman with some business things that I met in a Starbucks. She was attractive. I didn't do it to "score" with her (she was married and much younger not saying I wouldn't have wanted to of course) but simply because she was pleasant to look at and seemed approachable. And it made me feel good to be around her. I can't say that I would have been so nice if she were not as attractive as she was. Or older.

Oh, I like that. Thank you very much!

Some people are just lucky. You know that person at work or school who always seems to win drawings, etc.

I'm higly unobservant and my life I would say has been very "unlucky" :D Great article. Something for me to work on:)

Hey, is there anyone here who feels the need to self-flagellate in public over imagined sins, but not to read the article before trying to contribute to the discussion? Anyone here like that?

And this really is the answer... Luck is created. You'll never win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket, you'll never create Facebook if you don't create a business, and you'll never meet to girl of your dreams if you don't ask girls out...

That's how it looks from the perspective of lucky hard working person. There are also "The harder I work the more I get screwed" people and "The less I work the more money I have" people but those don't make for good quotes.

> But, there is an element of random chance that exists outside our control and always will.

Certainly. But - statistically speaking - this would affect everyone the same way, positively or negatively. You're talking about chance, not luck as a property or attribute that someone can have more of than someone else. It might seem that way, depending on your sample size, but that's not really how it works.

As my family includes many sufferers of anxiety of varying degrees, I've done quite a bit of research on the subject (in addition to personal bouts with mental health issues of that type, going through psychotherapy, etc.) and this James fellow is definitely the exception rather than the rule.

Typically childhood trauma like what the article mentions is much more likely to lead to mental issues (usually something like anxiety + depression) in adulthood.

So yeah, take that one with a grain of salt. It was a silver lining for this guy that he had such a horrible childhood but that is a dangerous part of the thesis to not mention as being very abnormal.

Actually, physical attributes are probably distributed closer to a Gaussian distribution - most people clustered around the average, with a small number of exceptionally lucky and exceptionally unlucky people in the tails of the distribution.

I would agree with you that in some vague sense, we might be able to think of a "luck distribution" with similar properties; however, it's not obvious what exactly that would mean in terms of what is actually being measured. Wealth? Happiness? Recognition in their field? All of these in the short run? The long run?

I'm similar to you. I notice potential problem situations amd opportunities way before friends and family do. I'm also lazy but also very particular.

With regards to coding it means that the lazy part of me wants to write as little code as possible, but the particular part of me is pedantic about making it both elegant and neat (I have a thing about consistent coding styles).

I am also very forgetful (terrible remembering birthdays for example) but more recently I've come to notice that I'm forgetful with regards to things that, in all honesty, I don't find important to me. Hence others are disappointed when I forget their birthdays bit it doesn't really bother me if I don't celebrate mine.

After US Airways' 1549 "lucky" ditching Capt. Sullenberger said that "for 42 years, he's been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience, education and training. And on January 15 the balance was sufficient so that he could make a very large withdrawal". So you might say that he got lucky, but you never see a student pilot with 4 hours flight time being this lucky.