What's Luck Got to Do with It?
What's Luck Got to Do with It?

Author: Joseph Mazur

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2010-05-17

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1400834457

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The hazards of feeling lucky in gambling Why do so many gamblers risk it all when they know the odds of winning are against them? Why do they believe dice are "hot" in a winning streak? Why do we expect heads on a coin toss after several flips have turned up tails? What's Luck Got to Do with It? takes a lively and eye-opening look at the mathematics, history, and psychology of gambling to reveal the most widely held misconceptions about luck. It exposes the hazards of feeling lucky, and uses the mathematics of predictable outcomes to show when our chances of winning are actually good. Mathematician Joseph Mazur traces the history of gambling from the earliest known archaeological evidence of dice playing among Neolithic peoples to the first systematic mathematical studies of games of chance during the Renaissance, from government-administered lotteries to the glittering seductions of grand casinos, and on to the global economic crisis brought on by financiers' trillion-dollar bets. Using plenty of engaging anecdotes, Mazur explains the mathematics behind gambling—including the laws of probability, statistics, betting against expectations, and the law of large numbers—and describes the psychological and emotional factors that entice people to put their faith in winning that ever-elusive jackpot despite its mathematical improbability. As entertaining as it is informative, What's Luck Got to Do with It? demonstrates the pervasive nature of our belief in luck and the deceptive psychology of winning and losing. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.

The Success Equation
The Success Equation

Author: Michael J. Mauboussin

Publisher: Harvard Business Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 1422184234

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In this provocative book, Michael Mauboussin offers the structure needed to analyze the relative importance of skill and luck, offering concrete suggestions for making these insights work to your advantage by making better decisions.

The Luck Factor
The Luck Factor

Author: Richard Wiseman

Publisher: Miramax Books

Published: 2004-08-18

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781401359416

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Is luck just fate, or can you change it? A groundbreaking new scientific study of the phenomenon of luckand the ways we can bring good luck into our lives. What is luck? A psychic gift or a question of intelligence? And what is it that lucky people have that unlucky people lack? Psychologist Dr. Richard Wiseman put luck under a scientific microscope for the very first time, examining the different ways in which lucky and unlucky people think and behave. After three years of intensive interviews and experiments with over 400 volunteers, Wiseman arrived at an astonishing conclusion: Luck is something that can be learned. It is available to anyone willing to pay attention to the Four Essential Principles: . Creating Chance Opportunities . Thinking Lucky . Feeling Lucky . Denying Fate Readers can determine their capacity for luck as well as learn to change their luck through helpful exercises that appear throughout the book. Illustrated with anecdotes from the lives of the famous such as Harry Truman and Warren Buffett, The Luck Factor also richly portrays the lives of ordinary people who have been extraordinarily lucky or unlucky. Finally Dr. Wiseman gives us a look into "The Luck School" where he instructs unlucky people and also teaches lucky people how to further enhance their luck. Smart, enlightening, fun to read, and easy to follow, The Luck Factor will give you revolutionary insight into the lucky mind and could, quite simply, change your life.

Conscious Luck
Conscious Luck

Author: Gay Hendricks, PH.D.

Publisher: St. Martin's Essentials

Published: 2020-05-12

Total Pages: 145

ISBN-13: 1250622956

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Change Your Luck and Live a Charmed Life! What if you could create your own luck? What if living a charmed life—being lucky in love, lucky in money, lucky in your chosen work—was within your control? The good news is that it’s all entirely possible...when you know how! In Conscious Luck, New York Times bestselling authors Gay Hendricks and Carol Kline share eight Secrets that will allow you to intentionally change your fortune. Instead of hoping and wishing that luck will come your way, let Conscious Luck show you how to seize control of your destiny and create the dazzling life of your dreams. This powerful step-by-step program, which includes practical techniques, inspiring true stories, and the authors’ personal journeys, will lead you to greater freedom and abundance. The Secrets—four core shifts and four daily practices—teach you how to: · plant the seeds of luck in your own psyche · remove unlucky programming (including lifting “curses”) · move at your Essence Pace · practice Radical Gratitude, and much more. Based on decades of the authors’ trailblazing work, this unique and highly effective toolkit offers a surefire way to transform your life.

Great by Choice
Great by Choice

Author: Jim Collins

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2011-10-11

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 0062121006

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Ten years after the worldwide bestseller Good to Great, Jim Collins returns withanother groundbreaking work, this time to ask: why do some companies thrive inuncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? Based on nine years of research,buttressed by rigorous analysis and infused with engaging stories, Collins andhis colleague Morten Hansen enumerate the principles for building a truly greatenterprise in unpredictable, tumultuous and fast-moving times. This book isclassic Collins: contrarian, data-driven and uplifting.

The Thing About Luck
The Thing About Luck

Author: Cynthia Kadohata

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2013-06-04

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 1416918825

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Just when 12-year-old Summer thinks nothing else can possibly go wrong in a year of bad luck, an emergency takes her parents to Japan, leaving Summer to care for her little brother while helping her grandmother cook and do laundry for harvest workers. Illustrations.

Luck
Luck

Author: Barrie Dolnick

Publisher: Harmony

Published: 2007-11-06

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0307405303

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Have you ever noticed that you talk about luck every day of your life? Luck is your silent companion, sometimes bringing awesome parking spaces, a chance meeting with a new love interest, or a small windfall. Most of the time you probably don’t even pay attention to luck. Chances are, you only really think about luck when you buy a lottery ticket or participate in a contest. Luck is so much more than that. If you take steps to live longer by eating right and exercising, why wouldn’t you also take similar steps to improve your good fortune? Barrie Dolnick and Anthony Davidson asked themselves this very question, and set out to study luck and decipher how it works. In this insightful and engaging book, they share the secrets they’ve uncovered so you can use luck more effectively in your day-to-day life. Where does luck originate? Does one need to be “born lucky” in order to be lucky? Answering these and many other pressing questions, Dolnick and Davidson investigate both ancient and scientific approaches to luck. From early man to famous rationalists, luck has been prayed for, played with, and courted. You’ll learn how ancient practices such as the I Ching, astrology, tarot, and numerology have been used to understand luck, and how great mathematicians studied luck–some guided by their own interest in gambling. Every- one wants to be lucky. Once you know the fundamentals of luck, the authors take you through your own Personal Luck Profile so that you can use this wisdom and try your luck. People do a lot of weird things to improve their luck–and now you can make smart choices and informed decisions about how to play with yours.

Luck
Luck

Author: Ed Smith

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2013-04-01

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1408830604

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For aspiring cricketer Ed Smith, luck was for other people. Ed believed that the successful cricketer made his own luck by an application of will power, elimination of error, and the relentless pursuit of excellence. But when a freak accident at the crease at Lords prematurely ended Ed Smith's international cricketing career, it changed everything - and prompted him to look anew at his own life through the prism of luck.Tracing the history of the concepts of luck and fortune, destiny and fate, from the ancient Greeks to the present day - in religion, in banking, in politics - Ed Smith argues that the question of luck versus skill is as pertinent today as it ever has been. He challenges us to think again about privilege and opportunity, to re-examine the question of innate ability and of gifts and talents accidentally conferred at birth. Weaving in his personal stories - notably the chance meeting of a beautiful stranger who would become his wife on a train he seemed fated to miss - he puts to us the idea that in life, luck cannot be underestimated: without any means of explaining our differing lots in life, the world without luck is one in which you deserve every ill that befalls you, where envy dominates and averageness is the stifling ideal. Embracing luck leads us to a fresh reappraisal of the nature of success, opportunity and fairness.

How Luck Happens
How Luck Happens

Author: Janice Kaplan

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2018-03-06

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 1101986395

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Creator and host of the podcast The Gratitude Diaries and New York Times bestselling author Janice Kaplan examines the phenomenon of luck--and discovers the exciting ways you can grab opportunities and make luck for yourself every day. After spending a year researching and experiencing gratitude for The Gratitude Diaries, Janice Kaplan is back to tackle another big, mysterious influence in all our lives: luck. And this time she's joined on her journey by coauthor Dr. Barnaby Marsh, a renowned academic who guides her exploration. Together they uncover the unexpected, little-understood science behind what we call "luck," proving that many seemingly random events are actually under your--and everyone's--control. They examine the factors that made stars like Harrison Ford and Jonathan Groff so successful, and learn the real secrets that made Kate Spade and Warby Parker into global brands. Using original research, fascinating studies, and engaging interviews, Kaplan and Marsh reveal the simple techniques to create luck in love and marriage, business and career, and health, happiness, and family relationships. Their breakthrough insights prove that all of us--from CEOs to stay-at-home moms--can tip the scales of fortune in our favor. Through a mix of scientific research, conversations with famous and successful people--from academics like Dan Ariely and Leonard Mlodinow to actor Josh Groban--and powerful narrative, How Luck Happens uncovers a fascinating subject in accessible and entertaining style.

What Are the Chances?
What Are the Chances?

Author: Barbara Blatchley

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2021-08-03

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0231552750

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Winner, 2023 William James Book Award, American Psychological Association Division 1 in General Psychology Most of us, no matter how rational we think we are, have a lucky charm, a good-luck ritual, or some other custom we follow in the hope that it will lead to a good result. Is the idea of luckiness just a way in which we try to impose order on chaos? Do we live in a world of flukes and coincidences, good and bad breaks, with outcomes as random as a roll of the dice—or can our beliefs help change our luck? What Are the Chances? reveals how psychology and neuroscience explain the significance of the idea of luck. Barbara Blatchley explores how people react to random events in a range of circumstances, examining the evidence that the belief in luck helps us cope with a lack of control. She tells the stories of lucky and unlucky people—who won the lottery multiple times, survived seven brushes with death, or found an apparently cursed Neanderthal mummy—as well as the accidental discoveries that fundamentally changed what we know about the brain. Blatchley considers our frequent misunderstanding of randomness, the history of luckiness in different cultures and religions, the surprising benefits of magical thinking, and many other topics. Offering a new view of how the brain handles the unexpected, What Are the Chances? shows why an arguably irrational belief can—fingers crossed—help us as we struggle with an unpredictable world.