How To Boost Your Luck, by Bayo Ogunmupe

 MY inquiry into luck had involved a large number of experiments, pages of interviews and thousands of testimonials. I managed to uncover the true secrets of luck. Luck was not a magical ability or a gift from the gods. Instead, it was a state of mind: a way of thinking and behaving. People are not born lucky or unlucky. They create much of their own good and bad luck through their thoughts, feelings and actions. The revelation was that a lucky life could be explained via four psychological principles.

The first principle explained how lucky people’s personalities help them create, notice and act upon chance opportunities. Principle two revealed how their successful decisions revolve around a willingness to listen to their intuition and trust their lucky hunches.

The third principle explained how lucky people’s expectations about the future posses the power to become self-fulfilling prophecies and make their dreams come true. The fourth and final principle concerned how lucky people’s resilient attitude and behaviour can change bad luck into good.

According to Richard Wiseman in his book, The Luck Factor, research revealed that there are four main differences between the lives of lucky and unlucky people.

One, lucky people constantly encounter chance opportunities. They accidentally meet people who have a beneficial effect on their lives. They come across opportunities in newspapers and magazines.

Two, lucky people make good decisions without knowing why. They just seem to know when a business decision is sound or someone shouldn’t be trusted. Whereas, unlucky people’s decisions tend to result in failure and despair. Three, lucky people’s dreams, ambitions and goals have an uncanny knack of coming true. However, unlucky people are the exact opposite, theirs remain little more than an elusive fantasy. Four, lucky people also have an ability to turn their bad luck into good fortune. Unlucky people lack this ability with their bad luck causing them ruin.

Some writers have speculated that perhaps lucky people might be using psychic ability to create good fortune for themselves. However, after painstaking experiments, results affirm that luck wasn’t due to psychic ability. Other researches also showed that being lucky or unlucky isn’t related to intelligence.

Here is a summary of the four principles and twelve sub-principles of luck:

One, maximize your chance opportunities whereby lucky people create, notice and act upon opportunities in their life. Its sub-principles are that lucky people build and maintain a strong network of luck.

Lucky people have a relaxed attitude towards life. And thirdly, lucky people are open to new experiences in their life.

Principle two: Listen to your hunches, culminating in lucky people making good decisions by using their intuition and gut feelings.

The sub themes of principle two are that lucky people take steps to boost their intuition. Lucky people’s expectations of the future help them fulfill their dreams and ambitions. Lucky people expect their good luck to continue in the future. Lucky people attempt to achieve their goals if even their chances of success seem slim. They persevere in the face of odds. Lucky people expect their interaction with others to be lucky and successful.

Principle four: Turn your bad luck into good, wherefore, lucky people are able to transform their bad luck into good fortune. Through this principle it was discovered that lucky people see the positive side of their bad luck. They are convinced that any ill fortune in their life will, ultimately work out for the best. Which is why lucky people do not dwell on their ill-fortune. Lucky people take constructive steps to prevent more bad luck in the future.

Here are some tablets for your consideration.

One, a vision is God given, no person can give you your vision. Two, every person was created to accomplish a goal that no one else can accomplish.

Three, your gift will make a way for you, enabling you to fulfill your vision. Four, vision is foresight with insight based on hindsight. Five, if you have no dream, the people who are supposed to help you won’t know where to find you. Six, when you begin to act on your dream, it will stir up both your helpers and those who want to hinder you.

Seven, the law of association says that you become like those with whom you spend time. Eight, choose friends who are going in the same direction as you. Nine, vision wakes up opposition. 10, opposition often proves you are doing something significant with your life, 11, marry a spouse that supports your life goals. 12, get to know those whom you want to emulate. 13, prosperity does not mean tomorrow’s need is met today. But today’s need is met today. This concept is in the Lord’s prayer: Give us today our daily bread. 14, those who are willing to work hard, to go the extra mile, are those who get deep into wealth.

Our champion for today is Diosdado Macapagal, the Filipino reformist president of the Republic of the Philippines from 1961 to 1965. Born in September 1910 at Lubao, Philippines, Macapagal died in April 1997.

After receiving his law degree, he was admitted to the bar in 1936. During World War II, he practised law in Manila and aided the anti-Japanese resistance. He continued to practice law after the war. In 1948 he served as the Second Secretary at the Philippine Embassy in Washington D.C. United States. The following year, he was elected member of the Philippine House of Representatives. He served there until 1956. Thereafter, Macapagal became the Philippine representative to the United Nations. From 1957 to 1961 Macapagal was a member of the Liberal Party and vice president under President Carlos Garcia.

In the 1961 general election, he ran against Garcia, forging a coalition of the Liberal and Progressive parties. Making a crusade against corruption as the principal element of his platform, Macapagal was elected President by a wide margin.

While president, he worked to suppress graft and corruption. He stimulated the economy of the Philippines. He placed the peso on the free currency exchange market, encouraged exports and sought to curb tax evasion. He forced the wealthy to pay tax, the evasion of which cost the treasury millions of pesos yearly. Macapagal’s reforms however, were crippled by a parliament dominated by the Philippine Nationalist Party. And he was defeated in the 1965 elections by Ferdinand Marcos. In 1972, he chaired the convention that drafted the 1973 constitution only to question in 1981 the validity of its ratification. In 1979, he organized the National Union for Liberation as an opposition party to the Marcos dictatorship. He died in 1997.