WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW BY SOLA BODUNRIN

HOW TO BE LUCKY

Learn how to be luckier.

For the next few weeks, we'll be focusing on an aspect that is of utmost importance in our daily lives. How to receive favor anywhere you go, how to have any door open to you.

Life is full of lucky happenstance. Maybe you attend a concert, strike up a conversation with a fellow fan, discover he’s an entrepreneur and, months later, find yourself working for his start-up. Or perhaps you feel exceedingly lucky to have sat next to Tobi or Tonia in lectures because he/she's turned out to be the man/woman of your dreams. But, in reality, a lot of these apparently lucky outcomes have totally predictable causes. For instance, sociability is a predictor of opportunity (you wouldn’t have landed that job if you been too shy to talk). Similarly, proximity is a predictor of acquaintanceship (you fell for Tobi because you met him, not because he was the dreamiest guy in the lecture hall).

Obviously, you can’t control everything in life but luck is often more predictable than you might think, and we can all adapt our behavior, prepare for randomness and nudge the system so it works in our favor. So let’s dive in and find out why lucky people are lucky, and how you can learn to be lucky yourself. In these series we're about to start, you’ll learn;

      I.        How looking the part and making a good first impression will increase your luck;

    II.        Why people who perform last are more likely to win; and

   III.        How to overcome your natural inhibition and be more confident and curious.

v  Appearing last could help your chances of being lucky.

You’ve doubtless heard someone account for a serendipitous event – be it a job opportunity, a promotion or a romantic encounter – by saying, “I was just in the right place at the right time.” Well, it turns out there is a lot of truth to this cliché. At the very least, the “right time” part is crucial.

Counter-intuitive as it might seem, luck often depends on coming last. In any situation where a number of people, objects or performances are judged against each other, being among the last to be judged increases your chances of success.

For example, an analysis of European figure-skating championships between 1994 and 2004 found that the first skater to perform had a 3% chance of winning, whereas the final performer had a 14% chance. The same pattern has been found in everything from synchronized-swimming championships to the Euro-vision Song Contest.

Why is this? Well, the human brain is wired to work this way. It relies on context, on the information and emotions that are currently available to it. Just consider house hunting. The first properties you view will be judged against your ideals because your mind isn’t yet stocked with real-life examples of real estate to compare them to. But, over time, as you see more properties, your brain will receive information about what is actually out there. You’ll start to think, “Well, this house seems pretty good compared to the first nine I looked at.” House hunters viewing their first property never say, “This house is perfect! We’ll take it!” They wait until they’ve seen a number of houses before settling on one they like.

Take Away: So going last is lucky. If you can choose a job interview slot, go last.

v  Look the part.

Humans like familiar things, so looking the part and being in the right place will increase your luck. A social psychologist named Robert Zajonc once ran an experiment in which he exposed Westerners to foreign characters – Chinese logo-grams, for example – and then asked them how much they liked each character. Overall, the participants favored those characters that they had seen most frequently. This experiment is a demonstration of the exposure effect, which predicts that people will like things they’re familiar with. This effect has an obvious evolutionary explanation. As Zajonc put it, “If it’s familiar, it hasn’t eaten you yet.”

So we tend to like what we know, and, in general, we’re most familiar with whatever we regularly get physically close to. For instance, one classic study shows that the physical proximity of two police recruits during training classes is positively correlated with the likelihood of their later becoming friends. Another study reveals that school children sitting in the center of a classroom make more friends than those on the edges because their central location makes it easier for other students to talk to them. So if making connections doesn’t come easily to you, don’t linger on the edges of that party or networking event. Get into the thick of it!

But merely being around other people isn’t sufficient to spark friendships or profitable business connections. You also need to look the part. That’s because people instinctively use first impressions as a guide to decision-making.

A study once examined whether musicians’ appearances affected how they were assessed. Judges were shown a series of videotaped violin performances, each by a female artist. Some of the violinists wore short skirts and tight tops, while others wore formal concert dress. The trick was that each performance was dubbed with the same musical recording. Nonetheless, judges consistently rated those in formal concert dress to be more technically proficient.

Other studies show that doctors can increase their trustworthiness ratings simply by putting on a white coat over their suit. We can’t help but use our gut feelings to guide our decision-making. Thanks to years of observation, we simply feel that doctors wearing white coats can be trusted and that violinists in formal concert dress are the real deal. More often than not, our estimation of a person’s trustworthiness is based on a lightning-fast mental assessment – a first impression.

Take Away: So, whether with your LinkedIn profile, your clothes or the strength of your handshake, try to make that first impression a good one. It really does matter.

To be continued....

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Have a fruitful day!

Olusola Bodunrin is a graduate of Philosophy from the University of Ado-Ekiti. He is a professional writer, he writes articles for publication and he anchors – ‘What You Should Know’ on SHEGZSABLEZS’ blog.

‘What You Should Know’ is a column that offers to educate and enlighten the public on general falsehood and myths.