Conscious Luck

Gay Hendricks was professor of counseling psychology at the University of Colorado for 21 years, before founding the Hendricks Institute, a business consulting firm. Throughout his career he has worked with more than eight hundred business executives, including top management teams at Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, and KLM. He is a graduate of Stanford University, a consultant to yoga and fitness brand Gaiam, and the founder of Cinema Circle Inc. which works in the movie and digital entertainment industries. Dr. Hendricks is the author of more than forty books including Best Wishes, The Big Leap and Conscious Living.

Carol Kline has been an author, ghostwriter, and editor for more than twenty-five years. She has co-written six books in the bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul series with Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, and has also worked with Marci Shimoff and Lisa Nichols. Five of her co-authored books have become New York Times bestsellers. She is deeply involved in animal rescue work and other business and service projects.

Can you change your luck?

It might seem like a radical notion, but the reality is successful people are often uncommonly lucky. They invite more success into their lives by making a conscious decision to be luckier.

You can do the same by applying the eight secrets of changing your luck:

1. Secret #1 — Commit to being a VLP — Very Lucky Person. You can change your luck for the better just by making a conscious decision to being luckier in the future. It's up to you to take the first step and change your luck.

2. Secret #2 — Release your personal barriers. To become luckier, you've got to break the barriers of the past. Have the mindset, "That was then, this is now". Dissolve your personal barriers and give yourself permission to be lucky.

3. Secret #3 — Become a magnet for abundance. As counterintuitive as it may sound, the best way to pull more good luck into your life is to transform any shame you have felt in the past into an attractor of good luck. Put the power of your own shame machinery to work for you as a luck magnet.

4. Secret #4 — Have luck-worthy goals. Luck has a way of chasing worthy goals. If you want to attract more luck into your life or career, go after some big and audacious goals.

5. Secret #5 — Take consistent bold action. One of the best ways to get luckier is to be taking daily action on your goals. The more you do, the more opportunities you create for luck to visit you. Get busy and stay busy to spark a lucky streak.

6. Secret #6 — Find your lucky tribe. To change your luck, stop hanging around with unlucky people. Spend more time working alongside lucky people. This will significantly boost your ability to be lucky in the future.

7. Secret #7 — Learn the right place & time. A big part of luck is to be at the right place at the right time, but that's not random. You have control over this. Do all you can to tune in to your own internal GPS, to listen to your intuition, and to stay true to your values, your passions, and your priorities.

8. Secret #8 — Practice radical gratitude. The more grateful you are, the greater your luck will become. If you want to improve your luck, find something to appreciate and be grateful for in every situation.

It might seem like a radical notion, but you can invite more success into your life. Make a conscious decision to be luckier, and then work like crazy to make it happen.

At first glance, I thought the idea of this book was crazy. Luck and good fortune are totally random, so how could you possibly change your luck? However, when I read more, I realized that what psychology professor Gay Hendricks and ghostwriter Carol Kline were really suggesting is that you should make a consistent and conscious decision to position yourself to allow for more lucky breaks to happen. Now that makes sense.

Specifically, they talk about having luck-worthy goals, and committing to being more lucky. I also liked where they speak about becoming a magnet for future lucky breaks, and making sure you're in the right place and right time for luck to surface. They also make the point that you can't just sit back and wait for luck to come along, but you have to hustle and take consistent bold action in the direction you want to head as well.

Now that kind of luck makes sense to me. Or as Samuel Goldwyn famously noted, "The harder I work, the luckier I get". Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonalds, said something similar: "Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get". Successful people are uncommonly lucky. I think the 8 conscious luck secrets outlined in this book will help you invite more success into your life and career. Can you change your luck for the better? I think you can.