How To Be Lucky (Tom Morgan Edition)

Tom Morgan made a comment about the connection between play and luck, and I just can’t stop thinking of it. The money quote is in bold below, but the text before helps frame it. It’s extra powerful because he’s taking the idea of manifesting and re-emphasizing the necessity of keeping your eyes all the way open:

Another one of my strongest-held beliefs is that your flourishing is directly proportional to the amount of intelligence you attribute to things outside of yourself. Lucky people expect positive opportunities from the world, and are responsive to them. In contrast, manifesters make the locus of control their own limited willpower and thoughts. Manifesters often ignore essential external feedback, especially if it conflicts with their internal goals.

How is luck trainable? Wiseman believes meditation can enhance intuition as well as relaxation. When we are anxious, our vision literally narrows. Lucky people vary their routines and seek novelty. They also maximize the number of people they interact with (I have benefitted immensely from approaching people I resonate with online).

It’s nothing short of stunning how often openness comes up as one of life’s most desirable traits. Wiseman found that lucky people scored particularly high on openness in the “Big 5” personality tests. Unsurprisingly, the foundation of luck appears to be being more open to your environment, both physically and emotionally.

Specifically, pursuit of novelty creates “luck”, and curiosity is the emotional manifestation of novelty. If we’re more open to what attracts our attention, we’ll get a lot luckier.

Read his whole piece, “How To Be Lucky,” it’s been on my brain for over a week now. Then read some of my other comments on his work here if interested. And, really think about how this loops – how play feeds curiosity feeds time spent exploring/exploiting feeds the luck lottery occasionally hitting pay dirt. Poetry.