The Luck Factor

Do you consider yourself lucky?

When you look at success you have had, or are having, do you think of it as lucky? Were you in the right place at the right time? What do you really believe about luck, rather than what you say out of modesty when someone compliments you?

I say this because, as with many things, thinking about luck can be a two edged sword. Let me explain my thinking:

• You think of yourself as a lucky person. You approach situations thinking that you will have good luck and it always seems to happen. This is a positive thing
• If you look back on success and consider that it was just lucky, you are actually minimizing your contribution and setting yourself up to expect a different result next time. Not so positive
• “I am unlucky” – the reverse of the first feeling. You expect the worst, eliminate the good that happens and focus on the bad. Guess what? You make the bad happen

When we get into the negative we tend to filter things accordingly. Use the concept of luck positively – remember what Gary Player the famous golfer sais about luck: “The more I practice, the luckier I get” You can affect luck by the amount you work at something, and thinking of the lucky things that have happened to you can help you have a more positive attitude generally.

Sporting life lessons

As you may know I take an active interest in sports. I see a lot of parallels for life within a sporting context, specifically: triumph over adversity, conquering self-doubt, competitive performance, graciousness in defeat and victory, sportsmanship and many others. Of course there is a flip side to all the above and there are ample opportunites for sports to bring out the worst in us, but I wont dwell on that here!

The Kansas City Royals baseball team are an interesting case study at the moment. They started badly and are steadily getting better but are still complaining of a lack of “situational hitting”. For an uninitiated Brit this means to me a lack of key hits when they really count – in other words when there are runners in scoring position i.e. when you actually score. This is the hardest time to hit I guess – when there is pressure, when the pitcher knows he cannot afford a mistake, when the crowd is yelling and so on.

The best players hit their best in these situations, or are able to come up with the key hit when it matters – clutch hitting if you will. What makes this so?

I was reading an interview transcript with Mark Teahen, KCs 3rd baseman turned Right Fielder (and occasional 1st baseman too) and he is hitting well this season, but with less power than last year (less home runs). He was asked about this and he is very confident that he will hit that way again – no doubts. I am sure he will too, but in the meantime he continues playing all other facets of the game really well.

So, why does this matter and what can we learn?

1. Positive thinking – not blue sky thinking with no basis but drawing on what we have done before. Teahen knows he can hit for power, he has done before. Therefore he knows he has the skill and can repeat it. Therefore even if the results don’t come immediately, he isn’t worried about it. As a result he continues to play the other aspects of the game very well.

2. Situational hitters who can come through in the clutch KNOW they can hit generally. They also have evidence that they have hit in similar situations in the past. I am sure they therefore expect to do so again and this aids performance

3. Belief will take you a long way. This is different from just telling yourself something – REALLY believe it!

In our day to day lives we can look for evidence of success in our past and apply it to the present. There are always examples of things going well even if we dismiss them as something else……

More of this in my next post