If you’ve followed me for a while, you know that I like to listen to audiobooks while running, and then share what I learned with you. I’m currently listening to a couple of books by Denise Duffield-Thomas – she’s an Australian wife, mother and entrepreneur, and her brand is Lucky B (yes, the B stands for what you think it does – she’s an Australian, after all). 

Denise and her husband, Mark, manifested and enjoyed a six-month all-expenses-paid around-the-world vacation, staying in luxury hotels and writing reviews of their amenities for a honeymoon company. She wrote a book explaining how they won this competition – what, after all, is luck?

There is a saying that Denise quotes in the book and is attributed to the Roman philosopher Seneca, that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Denise and Mark were extremely prepared and worked very hard – not only on the actions they were required to take, but especially on their mindset and belief. As Ray Higdon says, why not you? But most of us assume good things will not happen to us, and that we will not be lucky. Why do we think this?

We have evolved with what is called a negative bias – always assume the worst. That served us well when we were hunter-gatherers, poised to protect our tribe from predators at any moment. If you assumed that the noise you heard outside the cave was a saber-toothed tiger about to attack, you could prepare for it, and if you were wrong, no harm was done. Pessimism and alarmism are built into our cognitive system for a reason.

Taken too far, however, constant vigilance affects both our mental and physical health, and also makes it harder to trust – whether it’s in other people or in our own luck. As the saying goes, what you believe you perceive – so if you think you are going to be unlucky and unhappy, that’s what you will see in your life. But is the opposite true? Can people manifest good luck in their lives?

I’m inclined to side with Denise, who believes that mindset played a huge part in team DT’s ability to bring forth an amazing travel holiday (and a thriving coaching business afterwards). Yes, hard work and preparation are definitely part of the package – if you aren’t ready to seize the opportunity that appears before you, it will move on to someone else. But you also have to trust that you are worthy of the opportunity in the first place. 

What do you think? Are some people just luckier than others, or is it something we can influence? I’d love to know!