9 Ways to Win Without Talent or Luck

Odd ways to hack your life back on track

Luck is something that is not in your control: the country you were born in, your parents, and what is the colour of your skin. All these areas fall into the category of luck. Also, winning the lottery ticket is also luck.

You cannot control the magnitude of luck in your life. According to Lottery USA, the odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are 1 in 302.6 million and the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million.

These stats are nearly equal to having the chance to become the president of the USA, but how many of the US citizens can become president?. Only one.

But there are some other factors by which you can become lucky with your efforts and wise choices. In this way, you can be 100 percent lucky because putting effort and hard work is your choice, which falls under your control. The harder I work, the luckier I get, said Samuel Goldwyn.

Thomas Jefferson, also a staunch believer of the second form of luck, said “I’m a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it”.

Here are 9 ways you can become more lucky.

1. Operate in Your Zone of Genius.

Your Zone of Genius is where your interests, passions, and skills align.

When you play in your areas of interest and passion, which seems to work to others, but it plays for you.

When you enjoy the process and don’t get tired from your work, it means you put more hours into it with flow and energy, which is the primary factor for learning skill.

The more skilful you become, the odds of success become far better for you and new windows of opportunities will open for you.

2. Adopt a Positive Sum Mentality

Want to get ahead in life? Start genuinely rooting for others to succeed. When one of us wins, we all win — winning spreads. If you adopt that mentality, you’ll become a magnet for the highest quality people.

Cultivate the habit of gratitude in your life. With this simple habit, you will become unstoppable in all areas of life. The optimism and happiness can do wonder in your life.

Elon Musk, who considers himself a rational optimist, said I would like to fail as an optimist rather than being successful with a whining attitude.

Happiness expert and Harvard professor Shawn Achor,on jovial attitude, “that cheerful people far do better in life: They show great resilience against any adversity and perform well under pressure”.

Employees with cheerful mood have a 31% increase in productivity and a 44% rise in promotion. Voltaire said one of the best things you can do is to be consistent with good mood.

3. Speak up

Speak up because close mouths don’t get fed. A little push goes a long way. Don’t sit back and wait for good things to happen.

Start sharing what you know. This is an era of innovators and troubles makers not experts. Don’t hold yourself back and just start sharing your ideas and thoughts with others. You don’t know this simple habit can unlock unlimited opportunities for you.

How to think and speak well is an art which you can learn.

Remember, in the recorded human history, these two skills proved the most effective in the whole recorded human history

If you want to deep impact on the lives of others, than learn these two skills.

Jordan Peterson said, “if you want to become dangerous, and effective, then learn the art of writing and speaking”. Believe me, no one will catch you in no time. People will follow and pay you in countless ways.

You can start speaking well from anywhere: Write on Facebook, start tweeting, respond to the questions on Quora and Reddit. You can start YouTube streaming, too.

With time, people will start following you and will find many like-minded folks waiting for your ideas, knowledge, and experience.

Jordan Peterson started responding to the question on the Quora, which got viral and later ended with the deal of his bestselling book, The 12 Rules of Life. Which sold millions of copies and made his world tour of speaking.

Just speak up and wait for wonders.

4. Play Long-Term games.

In the era of social media and unlimited pings and dings, people are addicted to instant gratification and dopamine hit made them zombies. They cannot wait and focus for long and their attention span is too much low for any worthwhile achievement.

A recent study found the average human attention span has fallen from 12 seconds in 2000 to eight seconds today. It is reported that goldfish have a 9-second attention span.

So if you can stay offline longer and play a long-term game, you can have an unfair advantage in the era of distraction and short attention span. Finally, long-term consistency is more important than short-term gains.

5. Have a High Tolerance for Failure.

In 2008, Elon Musk had already two failed rocket attempts in his company SpaceX, only 10% of success with Tesla and 41 million remaining in the stock. He has two choices: either to shut down one of his companies and succeed with second but he took a chance with the both. With the former choice, the stakes of failures were too much high and he could have been wiped out with the both and become bank corrupt, because he already took a loan for his living expenses.

But today these two companies made him the world's richest man.

Embracing failure, implying mean, you are trying more and taking chances in all directions which ultimately increases the likelihood of winning.

In facing failure, one thing to keep in mind is that you don’t need to get discouraged and think about giving up instead stay strong because, according to Churchill, success is nothing more than moving from rejection to rejection without giving up.

6. Follow Your Curiosity.

We all know the old manta “fortune favours the brave” but in the era of information, we need to change it to “fortune favours the Curious”. Because in the era of information, the individual with the curiosity and quest for deep learning will outperform everyone. Albert Einstein explained his genius when he famously said, “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”

Curiosity provides firm bases to the imagination which is vitally important for creativity and innovation. Therefore, Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination circles the world.”

In the 21st century, the king would be the individual with the specific knowledge, and the authentic knowledge always develops when you have a deep curiosity for any subject.

Push back. Learn to follow your curiosity — trust it. For the curious mind, anything is possible. Fortune favours the curious.

6. Become Anti-fragile.

Author and philosopher, Nassim Taleb tells a mythological tale in his best-selling book; Anti fragile: Things that Gain from Disorder.

He writes, in Greek mythology, the Hydra is a creature that has multiple heads. When 1 head is cut off, 2 grow back in its place. Life is random and chaotic. Don’t be broken by the chaos — rather, adopt a mentality and build structure which allows you to survive in the most uncomfortable circumstances.

What is being anti-fragile?.

Anti fragility is a property of systems in which they develop in potential to flourish because of pressures, adversities, instabilities, noise, errors, defects, attacks, or defects. Likewise, fragility is defined as a concave sensitivity to stressors, leading to a negative response to increase volatility.

Anti fragility mindset basically means that instead of being resilient or adaptive, you actually get stronger in the face of extreme stressors, chaos, and disorder. Rather than just dealing with it, you actually use the experience to improve. An anti-fragile mindset goes far beyond practising resilience.

6. Be Comfortable with Discomfort.

We are taught to avoid discomfort, so most of us do. The problem?, Discomfort is a precursor to progress — it is an unabridged inescapable. Steel your mind and body — endure and embrace discomfort. Those that do,have the ultimate competitive edge. As Nietzsche put it, impressively, “what doesn’t kill us strengthens us”.

As Steve Job said, think differently and discover new territories for yourself because what you see in the world develops by the people, not smarter than you.

To think differently and discover something new always comes with asking different questions and having the courage to follow the answers.

7. Give More than You Receive.

Give More than You Receive Focus on what you can do for others, not what they can do for you. Focus first on the amount of worth you create — not the quantity that you gain. This approach will prompt to more prosperity and growth, but also to more satisfaction and pleasure.

Your actions must:

add Value,

inspire,

educate,

and improve the life of others no matter what.

Author and Wharton school’s business’ professor, Adam Grant, wrote in his best-selling book; Give and Take “that those who give and contribute to the life of others, get faster advancement and career progress than takers and matchers”.

8. Learn to Compartmentalize your life.

The most successful people in the world possess one quality in common: an almost mystical capacity to compartmentalize. Set boundaries across your work and personal endeavours. When you focus on one, close the others and really focus on it.

Elon Musk runs the world's most innovative companies: Tesla, SpaceX and Solar City, and he is also vigorously active on Twitter with 60+million followers. The most important aspect to keep in mind is that, he has the same 24 hours in a single day, like all of us but he is far more productive than many of us because he has the skill to effectively distribute his time to different compartments and execute the plans according to the needs of the tasks.

You can make life more advanced and effective if you master how to set an obvious target and how much time to allocate to each one of them because it is a skill which you can learn too.

You don’t have low motivations, but lack clear goals.

Get clarity, set goals, and focus.

Then be prepared to embrace wonder.

9. Be Present With the expansion of technology.

Be Present With the expansion of technology — and the immediate accessibility to millions of people and things that it has provided — the ability to be truly present has become rarefied. When you’re with someone — whether a business contact, friend, or partner — be with them. Put the phone down.

You will never regret if you spend time: walk without a phone, talk to your parents daily, eating dinner with your spouse and engaging in any social work in the community.

I shared with you the 9 simple steps; how to achieve and take control of your luck with your wise choices. If you practice it daily and carry it for the long-term, I believe it will transform your life in all aspects: wealth, health, learning and relationships.

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