Why do some people seem to have the odds always in their favor?

Some people have all the luck! Have you ever known someone who was extremely lucky? Someone who seems to not only have a silver lining to their clouds but the rain drops are also diamonds! I am not talking about someone who is by nature positive or optimistic, but I am referring to people who against all odds are very lucky. 
The Lucky Sister 
I have five sisters and each of them are great, but one of them is one of the luckiest people I have ever known when it comes to winning things in drawings. It all started when she was quite young-I would say 8 or 9 years old- and she along with the rest of our family attended a credit union banquet. There was a drawing and she entered and won the grand prize…a TV. None of us could believe it and I was particularly miffed because she was younger than me and was now able to have a TV in her room since she had won it. What the heck!?! I recently texted her for details and she told me that she has had an incredible run at winning things in drawings. She listed off 15 drawings she has won something in with winnings reaching over $1500 over the years. She actually has a sixth sense when she is going to win a drawing. Maybe she should try the lottery or something. 
The Car-Winning Friend 
I also spoke to a resident, Amber Stokes, who told me that she has a friend named Ashley who tends to win at raffles all the time as well. Her best win came one day when she was ordering office supplies on the Staples® website and she decided to enter the drawing they were running for a new car. She forgot all about it and one day she got a call on her cell phone from someone claiming to represent Staples® and they needed information from her. She didn’t believe them and actually hung up on them. They called back and persuaded her to stay on the line. It turned out that she had actually won the drawing and was being awarded a brand new Audi TT convertible!! A few weeks later a beautiful sports car was delivered to her door. Wow, that is lucky. Amber also said the last time she was with her at a drawing, Ashley won 9 times on a $20 donation. Some people just have a gift. Obviously Ashley is one of them. 
The Survivor/Lottery Winner 
A quick internet search reveals hundreds of stories and even some videos of some very lucky people. One told of an Australian man who was nearly killed in a car accident and was even taken off life support and yet still survived. When he awoke, he celebrated his unlikely survival by scratching off a lottery card on which he won about $12,000 US. A local news station thought that was fascinating and so they brought him on the news and purchased him an additional lottery card so he could reenact the moment when he won the money. He proceeded to scratch off and win an additional $180,000 US on live TV. That is a lucky man. I think the fact that he survived a major car accident was the luckiest part. 
The 4x Lottery Winner 
Another story told of Joan Ginther who has won the lottery 4 times. Did you know you are more likely to be struck by an asteroid than you are to win the lottery? Well Joan has defied that statistic by winning 4 times -and not small tickets either; she has won over $20mm. 
The “I Escaped Death 9 times” 
There was also the story of a man who had escaped death not one or two times but 9 times. In very dramatic accidents or health scares. He was pulled from a frozen river after his train derailed and crashed. 17 others lost their lives and Frane Selak only had a broken arm. As if that wasn’t lucky enough, a year later, he was on a private plane which started to lose altitude quickly. There was a malfunctioning door and Frane was blown out of that door when it opened. He then fell into a haystack (true story) and was the sole survivor of 20 people on that plane. The last time he defied death was when he swerved to miss a truck on a mountain road. His car struck the guard rail which threw him from his car (he must have had a thing about not wearing seatbelts!). He watched as his car careened 300 feet into the canyon below. To top all of this off, in 2003 Frane won $1.1 million from the lottery, making him a wealthy man. Now that is lucky! 
Lucky Symbols 
There are many symbols of luck that we as a society have developed. Ancient sailors viewed the albatross as a sign of luck; to the English, the horseshoe is a sign of luck; to the Native American the dreamcatcher is lucky; and Americans view the Rabbit’s Foot as lucky…well maybe not for the rabbit, but you know… for the guy who buys it. And what about 4 leaf clovers? 
So is being lucky a thing of chance? These examples would seem to suggest that some people are luckier than others. When I talked to my sister about her luck at winning things, she said she has always considered herself lucky. She read somewhere that you can envision yourself winning and it will happen. Maybe she simply benefited from “proof” in her own mind that she could win because of that early win at the credit union banquet and has thus always assumed that she would win in future drawings and attracted that success to herself. If you read the popular book or watch the movie titled The Secret, you will find conversations with many very successful people who believe and teach that the Law of Attraction is the key to luck. 
Born Lucky or Create Luck? 
The question many would pose; “Are some people just born lucky, or can one create luck?” I remember starting off really well at a job which was an exact alignment of my skill set which I had developed over a 20 year career. The supervisor said, wow you are doing really well at this, you’re like an overnight success! I responded, yeah anyone else can be an overnight success too, so long as they do what I have done for the previous 20 years before they start here. He laughed and agreed that my previous experience was the key. So can we really create our own luck or is it a simple math equation where we get a result in direct proportion to the effort we put in? 
The Parking Spot 
There are many philosophies of success and the art of creating luck. I believe that you can attract to you success but it does require a conscious effort. My kids and I have a running joke about my parking spot at our local Walmart®. The second stall was available a couple of times in a row after we had taken a few consecutive trips to the Wal. I jokingly told my kids that they saved that spot for me and that it had become my spot. I am 
Did you know you are more likely to be struck by an asteroid than you are to win the lottery? 
amazed now at how many times we pull into the parking lot and my spot is there waiting for me. It is an ongoing joke with my kids. The other day, someone was in my spot but the one next to it was open. My kids exclaimed “how could they let someone have your spot dad?” I figured one spot off wasn’t too bad.

5 Tricks and Tips to Help You Create Your Own Luck
1Pursue worthwhile things that matter to you: Decide what it is, and read, study and learn everything you can about the subject. Put one foot in front of the other. Start moving forward and start learning as you go. I have often taught a new sales person to go get their nose bloodied, or go make mistakes. I don’t think you even know what you don’t know until you make mistakes and learn from them. Also know in advance what you are willing to sacrifice to achieve what you want. 
2 Seek Expert Opinions: The junk dealer showed wisdom in seeking the advice of a successful person in his new field of pursuit. I have often had the chance to hire new sales people at various jobs I have had over the years. One of the most challenging things I experienced were sales people who, with all sorts of promise and potential, would listen to a negative family member or friend and remove themselves from the chance to succeed. I always say, if you want to learn something, don’t ask the guy on the couch with an opinion on everything, ask someone who is good at it. And if you want to be great at something, ask someone who is great at it and replicate their approach. 
3 Persevere: I have always loved the story of the man who dug to within 3 feet of gold in Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. The man in the story catches the gold fever and heads west to dig for gold. He staked a claim and began digging. He eventually found some gold and was excited to mine the vein. He would need to get some help and raise money to get the equipment he needed to mine the ore. He borrowed and enrolled family and friends in the cause and went back to the mines with the needed but expensive equipment. They pulled out the initial haul and were excited because they had found a rich vein that was sure to bring wealth and prosperity to the man and his family. Unfortunately the vein they had found soon ended and they began to only pull up rocks. They drilled and drilled hoping desperately to find again the vein but they were unsuccessful. They quit and gave up. They sold their equipment to a junk dealer and went back home to answer to unpaid debts. The junk dealer was an enterprising man and wondered about this mine. He decided to get the advice of a mining engineer to see if there was still a possibility of finding gold in the abandoned mine. The engineer surveyed the project and said that he believed the previous operation failed because they didn’t follow the fault line and that they were merely 3 feet from where gold would be found. He was right. The junk dealer found gold and pulled millions of dollars worth from the same mine that bankrupted the previous miners. 
4 Be flexible: I have often found that success looks different from what I had originally envisioned in my mind. My first job out of high school was what most would consider very successful. I made more money than I thought possible. I was a top performing district manager and had seen great success. The only problem was, I was working 60 hours a week in the off season and around 90 in the busy season. I am a huge fan of working hard but I was sacrificing something more important to me than money… my family. I made a change because I wanted something more than the money I was earning. I found success in other ways that weren’t so time consuming. They still took work, just not life consuming work. 
5 Count your blessings: I find that I feel much luckier when I acknowledge the blessings and beauty in my own life. It helps me to stop envying those around me who seem to have “all the luck!” It also gives me perspective. I once complained and worried to a business mentor about the struggles I was having in my business. He told me to stop for a minute and look back to a year ago and see where we were comparatively. By doing so, I was moved by the progress we had made and it helped me to realize that the problems we were having were natural and part of what we could overcome by continuing to move forward. It also made me grateful for where we had come from. 
In Conclusion
These tips might not help you win the lottery and definitely will not help you survive a plane, train or car crash, but I believe they can help you create some of your own luck in your life. I have also found that timing is everything. Sometimes the stars align yet at other times they do not. It takes wisdom to know when things aren’t aligning so you can adjust the set of your sails. Like the ocean the tide comes in at times and recedes at others. You can either be frustrated at the receding sea or you can grab a board and enjoy the waves.
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