The Ideas Blog

By Jim Connolly
Have you ever noticed how some people are really ‘lucky’? These lucky people always seem to be in the right place at the right time and they attract great opportunities, as if they were a good luck magnet! Here in this free guide, I am going to show you how you too can become incredibly ‘lucky’ and benefit from endless outstanding opportunities!

Most people confuse ‘luck‘ with ‘chance’. Here’s the difference:

- Luck can be created deliberately using a simple formula.

- ‘Chance’ is random, like throwing a dice, and cannot.

It’s true - you make your own luck
Thankfully, the old saying really is true; you make your own luck. There is nothing random or mysterious about ‘being in the right place at the right time!’ Everything happens for a reason, something scientists refer to as ‘cause and effect’.

For example, I was recently called lucky, when I told someone how I made a 400% profit on a property I bought. However, the return I luckily made on that deal was the result of deliberate planning and not luck! The property had been on the market for 3 months when I first heard about it and had been advertised to thousands of people in the local press and via the Internet! None of these people invested in the house, but I did. I took an informed decision, based on lots of homework or preparation, and then backed that decision up with action.

There was nothing random or mysterious about it. I identified a superb opportunity, took action and made my own good luck. It was just a matter of strategy.

If an opportunity comes your way when you are prepared for it; and you then take action, you will generate what other people refer to as good luck. However, if an opportunity comes your way and you have not prepared for it - you will not even recognise it! Equally, if an opportunity comes your way and you are prepared for it, BUT you fail to take action, you will stay unlucky. This lack of action is always the result of fear; I will explain this in more detail in a moment.

Why are most people so unlucky then?
The main reason so many people miss out on the opportunities that surround them every moment of every day, is that they fail in at least one of the following four key luck factors. To attract what most people believe to be good luck, you need to use all four luck factors. I have outlined these for you below:

- Luck factor one: Recognise opportunities
Most people simply don’t recognise a great opportunity when it comes along! They assume that an opportunity is something that has a big, bright, sign above it and some kind of no-lose guarantee. I have never seen a genuine opportunity that looked anything like that; but it is still what most people are looking for.

That’s why conmen have filled the Internet with get rich quick schemes, which ‘guarantee’ you massive wealth if you just buy into their ‘wonder product’. Conmen know that people are looking for an easy way to make lots of money, with little if any risk. If the conman’s message claims to fulfil this need, their scam will attract legions of victims. According to John C Dvorak, police recently found around $2BILLION in the hands of one group of international Internet conmen!

Many genuine opportunities come disguised as a problem. For example, a secretary who kept making typing errors decided to do something about it; so she mixed a flower and water based solution together that could be painted, with a tiny brush, over her typing errors. In the process, she created typing correction fluid that started a multimillion industry.

- Luck factor two: Be prepared
In order to generate luck, you need to be prepared when opportunity comes knocking. In the example of my property investment, I had already researched the marketplace and knew what I could afford to pay. I took expert advice and studied the locations that were most likely to improve over the coming years. As a result, I was able to minimise my risk to a point where I was extremely confident that this property represented a genuine, great opportunity.

- Luck factor three: Take action
One of the best-known success stories in recent years is a perfect example of why action is essential in the ‘good luck’ process. When Simon Woodroffe created the internationally acclaimed ‘Yo! Sushi’ restaurant chain, he did so after acting on an idea that came to him from a friend; a person who had the vision to see a successful sushi restaurant but who did not act on it! The success that came from Simon’s venture made lots of restaurateurs ask themselves why THEY didn’t open a chain of suchi restaurants or bars. They could have, but just like the chap who had the original multimillion pound ‘Yo! Sushi’ idea, they did not. You simply cannot ‘get lucky’ in business if you fail to take action!

Just about everyone agrees that the biggest cause of all failure in life is the inability to take action; yet people will do anything to avoid it! I have seen countless examples where businesses have slowly gone broke, purely because they preferred to lose everything, rather than take action and do something about it.

I received an email recently from one of my newsletter subscribers; who told me that his business had folded, and that if he knew then what he knew now, he would have joined my 12 month marketing program. When I asked him why he didn’t join it, his answer was; “I just kept hoping things would just get better.”

Why would an intelligent person know that they had an opportunity to make things better - to transform their future - yet refuse to do anything about it? It’s all down to what I am about to cover in luck factor four.

- Luck factor four: Do not focus on fear - focus on outcomes
There are two distinct types of people:

The first group are fear-focused
These unlucky people look at every opportunity or deal based almost exclusively on what might go wrong. They make up the massive majority!

As a result, they fear doing anything different to what they are already comfortable with (even if it’s not working for them). For example, businesses in this group are always easy to spot, because they quickly reach a plateau or levelling point and then remain stuck there, until the owner retires broke and in many cases broken too! Fear-focused people like to complain about their lack of success, yet refuse to take the actions required to improve their situation. They keep repeating the same mistakes, because they are ‘comfortable’ screwing things up for themselves!

‘Fear-focused’ people live their lives focusing on what they want to avoid; loss, lack, pain, unhappiness and rejection. In doing this, they have set into play their very own self-fulfilling prophecy; because as we all know, we attract what we think about. Fear attracts bad luck like a magnet! Just as plants need the sun and the rain to grow and thrive, bad luck needs fear.

The second group of people are ‘outcome focused.’
These lucky people do their research and if everything stacks up, they take action. Do they get it right every time? NO - BUT THEY DON’T HAVE TO! You only have to benefit from one great opportunity to transform your entire future, so if they get it wrong occasionally, their successes massively overcompensate. Because they research everything before taking action, these people make very few mistakes and they minimise their risk at every turn; so any losses are minimal. They are risk reduction specialists.

They are not risk takers - they are risk minimisers!

Summing up
To attract the kind of great opportunities that will have others amazed at your extreme good luck, you simply need to adhere to the four luck factors mentioned above. By doing this, you can transform your fortunes (literally) and far, far faster than you ever imagined possible.

PS: If you found this useful, there are dozens of other free articles, guides and even a free audio program on my main website: www.jimconnolly.com