Book Summary: The Luck Factor: The Scientific Study of the Lucky Mind

The Luck Factor is a book written by Dr. Richard Wiseman, a professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK. His book, The Luck Factor consists four major parts with a total of ten chapters. This book is about understanding luck and how you can create more of it.

Dr. Wiseman has spent over a decade conducting interviews and research on luck and lucky people and suggests an alternative way of looking at luck. He believes that there is a luck “factor” and that you can use simple techniques to increase your luck confidence and success in your life.

Chapter 1: The Power of Luck

In this first chapter, Dr. Wiseman suggests that luck plays a huge part in our lives and luck also impacts the results we get in life. A simple incident can detail a plan and all your effort will be wasted. And luck also influences an unplanned event across your life. The interesting part is that Dr. Wiseman suggests his research has revealed that outcomes may not be the chance events they seem to be and he explains in the rest of the chapters.

Chapter 2: Lucky and Unlucky Lives

In this chapter, Dr. Wiseman reviewed hundreds of lives and he discovered that there are four key differences between lucky and unlucky people. And they are:

• Lucky people constantly encounter opportunities. Unlucky people seldom have these opportunities.
• Lucky people make a good decision without truly understanding why. Unlucky people tend to make more wrong decisions that ended with failure.
  Lucky people’s dreams able to come true in an uncanny way. Unlucky people usually fail to achieve their dreams.
• Luck people have the ability to turn bad luck into good luck, but for unlucky people, their luck seems to remain the same.

Chapter 3: Principle 1 – Maximize Your Chance Opportunities

In chapter three, Dr. Wiseman writes that lucky people build and maintain a strong ‘network of luck’, which means to say that people can become lucky by increasing the number of interactions that they make. And that lucky people are open to new experiences. When you are open to receive whatever that comes to you, you are allowing opportunities to enter into your life too.

Chapter 4: Principle 2 – Listen to Your Lucky Hunches

The author says that lucky people believe and listen to their gut feelings. Your intuition plays an important role in giving you direction in many situations. And Dr. Wiseman also writes that you can learn how to boost your intuition by assessing how well it has paid off and by learning from your previous experiences.

Chapter 5: Principle 3 – Expect Good Fortune

According to Dr. Wiseman, lucky people tend to expect that their luck will continue and they expect everything that they do will turn out good. He also says that luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity. When you expect opportunities, you will often focus on them, which will eventually lead you to find them.

Chapter 6: Principle 4 – Turn Your Bad Luck into Good

In this final principle, Dr. Wiseman talks about how lucky people see the positive of their bad luck. And lucky people believe that any ill fortune or problems will turn out to be the best in the long run. When you treat bad luck purely as feedback, you can learn from the situation and move on to a better future. Perhaps, the best description for this is “the harder you work, the luckier you get”.

Chapter 7: Luck School

In this chapter, Dr. Wiseman writes that it is possible to train yourself to be lucky by using a set of simple techniques and exercises. And this is what you will learn throughout this book and all the techniques have been summarized in chapter eight according to the four principles mentioned by Dr. Wiseman.

Chapter 8: Learning to be Lucky

Principle 1

You can maximize and boost your luck by building and maintaining a strong network of luck. When you increase your attempts, you will become better at it and thus, become luckier. Plus, practice a relaxed attitude of life and open to new experience and always expose yourself to new things.

Principle 2

You have to believe in your gut instinct and follow your intuition. Sometimes facts and figures may show you otherwise, but never to forget that it is your gut feeling that has brought you this far. And lucky people will build their intuition by being calm and listening to their inner voices.

Principle 3

If you want to have good luck, you must first expect it and choose to persevere in the hard times because luck is on your side. The better you prepare yourself for what is coming, the better you can seize the opportunity when it arrives.

Principle 4

Lucky people believe that every cloud has a silver lining and they do not dwell on problems and ill fortune. They choose to let go of the past and focus on the future.

Chapter 9: Graduation Day

Dr. Wiseman writes about case studies of people who have used and applied the techniques and principles presented in this book and he also shows their results. Dr. Wiseman shows that those who practiced the techniques in this book tend to show significant improvement in their lives. Although some case studies have differing results, the assessment criteria show that there is a huge improvement in the quality of each individual’s life. He also says that even if you do not become luckier after implementing these techniques, they are still a set of better values and mindset to adopt.

Chapter 10: Beyond the Luck Factor

In this final chapter, Dr. Wiseman continues with his research about lucky and unlucky people. And he also shares his website for more information and how one can further study to get lucky.