Can You Learn To Be Lucky?: Why Some People Seem To Win More Often Than Others

Source: Amazon

What is it?

The 2018 book Can You Learn To Be Lucky?: Why Some People Seem To Win More Often Than Others by Karla Starr.

What is it about?

This is how Goodreads describes this book:

“I don’t know when I’ve been so wowed by a new author”
-Chip Health, co-author of The Power of Moments and Switch

A talented journalist reveals the hidden patterns behind what we call “luck” — and shows us how we can all improve outcomes despite life’s inevitable randomness.

“Do you believe in luck?” is a polarizing question, one you might ask on a first date.

Some of us believe that we make our own luck.

Others see inequality everywhere and think that everyone’s fate is at the whim of the cosmos.

Karla Starr has a third answer: unlucky, “random” outcomes have predictable effects on our behavior that often make us act in self-defeating ways without even realizing it.

In this groundbreaking book, Starr traces wealth, health, and happiness back to subconscious neurological processes, blind cultural assumptions, and tiny details you’re in the habit of overlooking.

Each chapter reveals how we can cultivate personal strengths to overcome life’s unlucky patterns.

For instance:

Everyone has free access to that magic productivity app–motivation.

The problem?

It isn’t evenly distributed.

What lucky accidents of history explain patterns behind why certain groups of people are more motivated in some situations than others?

If you look like an underperforming employee, your resume can’t override the gut-level assumptions that a potential boss will make from your LinkedIn photo.

How can we make sure that someone’s first impression is favorable?

Just as people use irrelevant traits to make assumptions about your intelligence, kindness, and trustworthiness, we also make inaccurate snap judgments.

How do these judgments affect our interactions, and what should we assume about others to maximize our odds of having lucky encounters?

We don’t always realize when the world’s invisible biases work to our advantage or recognize how much of a role we play in our own lack of luck.

By ending the guessing game about how luck works, Starr allows you to improve your fortunes while expending minimal effort.

Final Thoughts

I was working one Saturday in December 2018 at my job at The BP Library at the very end of the work day when a book flew off the shelf from being on display in the beginning of the adult non-fiction section after I had already passed by on my way back to the shelving room because it was about time to go.

I was confused by how this book had flown / flew off the shelf like that, I picked the book up and it was the book Can You Learn To Be Lucky?: Why Some People Seem To Win More Often Than Others (which I did not bother even looking at the title of at the time), and I put the book back on display when I noticed the book next to it on display which was the book Mastering Fear: A Navy SEAL’s Guide.

The book Mastering Fear: A Navy SEAL’s Guide caught my attention even though it was not the book that flew from the self, I did not even bother looking at the title for that book, and I decided to check out Mastering Fear: A Navy SEAL’s Guide because the topic seemed like something that could help me and the other book flying from the shelf was almost like a sign.

My female coworker JB checked the book Mastering Fear: A Navy SEAL’s Guide out for me at the front desk, I told her about how the other book had flew off the shelf but it was the book on display next to it that caught my attention, and she suggested that I go back and get the book that flew off the shelf like it was some kind of sign (which was the book Can You Learn To Be Lucky?: Why Some People Seem To Win More Often Than Others) so I did.

I checked out both books, I finished reading the book Eye that my male coworker Mr. JF let me borrow, then I read the book Mastering Fear: A Navy SEAL’s Guide, and then I read the book Can You Learn To Be Lucky?: Why Some People Seem To Win More Often Than Others.

This book Can You Learn To Be Lucky?: Why Some People Seem To Win More Often Than Others started as an easy read and it covered more topics in relation to luck than I had expected, which was nice and it reminded me of a more entertaining Sociology lecture from my college days when my favorite college professor Mrs. C taught the Sociology classes that I attended, but near the end this book got a bit repetitive and it felt like it was padded out a bit to make it a bit longer than it should have been.

Even with it becoming more difficult to read at the end, it was still a short book, and overall it was still a pretty easy read with some helpful mentions of some scientific research along with some helpful life advice.

This book basically gives you some life advice that anyone can apply to their lives to increase their luck / chances et cetera in life, and Ms. Starr added a bit of her own personality and style to it.

I am glad that I read this book too like my coworker JB suggested, and so thank you JB for the advice.

The end,

-John Jr

Dreams About Traveling

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Lazy Overview:

I had a dream about riding a bicycle on a country road with trees on both sides in the daytime, in a fictional version of my birth state with, I have dreamed this exact route several times before.

I passed a racist neighborhood in the country and one of the houses had a father & son on the porch staring meanly at me and they had several loose dogs on their street, I have seen this father & son & the dogs before in another dream(s).

I reached a restaurant near a gas station, which I have dreamed about before.

The dream re-starts with my cousin DE and I riding bicycles & racing each other up this same country road, and at one point we were going 70 mph 😀 ; I guess we had speed-o-meters or something, because I remember being able to see how fast I was going. 😀

We stopped at the restaurant by a gas station for the breakfast buffet, which I have been to in another dream(s) before.

While we are inside eating, oddly the tables are connected so you eat next to people who you do not know, many people are staring at us; many of them seem to be from the racist neighborhood.

I remember eating cherry pie or something like that and it was good, then I woke up.

I dreamed that I was in a fictional version of LC on a nice day at the boardwalk, which was bigger than in real life, the city seemed bigger & nicer.

There were people around having a good time, I walked enjoying the view of the water & people & etc, and I saw MT; he lived in an apartment on the dock, there were a few apartment rooms at the end of the dock next to two bathrooms.

I met a woman & her friend, after I stopped to talk to them after hearing the woman complaining about a bad date she had, and she seemed nice enough so we both decided to go on a date.

The woman and I went on a date around the boardwalk, then we went to China and walked on the Great Wall Of China, and we snuck off the wall to a construction site that might have been for a semi-secret nuclear site. 😀

We tried to sneak through the construction site wearing some workers clothes that we found on the ground but some guards saw us, and they chased us.

We ran to a field and reached a road, which was in France, so the guards could not chase us; but they called the French police. 😀

The neighborhood had a European style to it and an European style automobile passed us with two people speaking French and listening to music in French.

We heard police sirens, so the woman & I ran into a trail in the woods, and the woman said that we should split up & meet back in the field later.

We split up, but when I returned later to the field, she was not there; I searched for her without luck in the neighborhood in France, near the construction site in China, and then I returned to the boardwalk in LC. 😀

The woman lived in one of the apartments near MT with her roommates, so I stopped there to see if she was there, but no one was there when I got to the apartment; so I waited and then her roommates came, some of which were former classmates of mine.

They tell me that the woman was mad & thought I had left her, so I explained what happened, but during this conversation I realized that the woman had a crazy personality & she always seemed to miss-interpret things & look for the worst in people; even her friends knew that.

I saw that as my chance to escape so when the woman came back to their apartment, I told her thank you and I apologized, and I wished her good luck in finding another date & I left.

On the boardwalk I meet a former classmate MJ and he was with some gang, I accidentally bumped into the leader while walking and I apologized, but he got mad & somehow hurt my arm; MJ apologized after leader walked off, then he left too.

I came across some family members & others about to go to a wedding across town and I followed them, but I woke up.

The end,

-John Jr 🙂