How to Get Lucky: 13 Techniques for Discovering and Taking Advantage of Life's Good Breaks: Gunther, Max: 9781906659981: Amazon.com: Books

3 min read Original article ↗

"How to get Lucky", yeah right, another book that can change my luck? Yes!

This book is written on the premise that luck, good and bad, exists. It also states that some people are luckier than others, and some are a lot less lucky than others. Is there anything we can do to bring more luck into our lives? Yes there is, and this book walks you through 13 techniques to help you "step in front of luck"

I was a little skeptical at the title, but once I saw the author was Max Gunther, I had to read this book. I read The Zurich Axioms a few years ago and it is now one of my favorite books. I highly recommend it. Max has a way of making concepts simple and obvious. He breaks topics down into techniques or axioms and thoroughly explains his reasoning for each. A few of my favorites from the Zurich Axioms are "Hope - When the ship starts to sink, don't pray, jump", "Religon and the occult - It is unlikely that Gods plan for the universe includes making you rich. (plus God must really love poor people, afterall he made so many of them)" and "Planning - Long-range plans engender the dangerous belief that the future is under control. It is important never to take your long-range plans, or others plans seriously." How can you argue with those statements? Makes a lot of sense to me.

How to get lucky walks you through these 13 techniques like "finding the fast flow." Get to know a lot of people because you increase your odds of being in the right place at the right time. Sounds pretty obvious, right? He also talks about the zigzag path. Bounce around, have multiple sticks in the fire because you never know which one is going to bring you luck. If you have tunnel vision and focus on only one thing, you will miss a lot of opportunity and luck on your way to your vision.

Max also talks about recognizing a non-lesson. Not everything in life is a gift for your benefit, some things are placed in your path as non-lessons. You need to recognize them as non-lessons, learn what you can, and move on. The technique of run cutting is another important lesson. To use a traders term, take your profits off the table. You can never run a trade for every last penny, you need to learn to take profits or you end up hanging on too long and the trade or opportunity window closes and you are left at a loss.

And the most important lesson in this book is that the universe is unfair. If you get nothing else out of this book, learn this lesson. Good people die. Little kids get cancer. Accidents happen. Evil people win the lottery. Suck it up and accept that the universe is unfair. Do not waste time trying to figure out why things happened. Just know they did happen. You do not deserve bad luck or good luck, but you can change the luck you get by changing some of your habits. Do less of the things that bring bad luck and do more of the things that bring good luck. The universe may not be fair, but it is pretty simple. Do the simple things and step in the way of good luck.

Good luck to you all!