I got this friend.
Met him in college when we were getting our engineering degrees together.
Smart guy.
Always wore a suit. And lugged a briefcase around. While everyone else was wearing t-shirt and jeans. Never saw anything like it. But every time I saw him, it made me wonder if I was dressing too casual.
Like, are these cheap t-shirts dumbing me down?
One time:
I found out he was one of the Top 50 players in the world for this popular online strategy game we were all playin’. Along with millions of other people around the world.
Not sure if you know how hard it is to be one of the best in the world at something that millions of other people are doing.
But it’s like winning the lottery.
Maybe a little better.
Because people don’t come begging to borrow your money.
But I’ve never been really good at turn-based strategy games. There’s stuff I’m really good at. But this ain’t one of them.
And its always made me wonder if I should have worn a suit. You never know. Maybe dressing like a businessman would make you play like one.
But then:
One time… he really DID win the lottery.
He didn’t show up to class one day.
I asked some friends to see if they knew what happened to him. They said his family won the lottery. They were so rich now, they didn’t need no stinkin’ degree anymore. So he just quit. And I’m like:
“I need to go shopping for some of those suits.”
But we kept in touch.
Turns out being rich isn’t fun. I mean when you have nothing to do but mope around the beach all day, you get bored after a couple of months. I don’t care how much you love traveling. You just get depressed.
I’ve been there. I promise you, it ain’t fun.
So he starts this little business.
Selling engineering parts.
And one day, out of the blue, this pretty lady sends him a text message. Total stranger. Never met before. She doesn’t know him, he doesn’t know her. And it turns out she just messaged the wrong person.
But they get around to chatting.
Then all of a sudden, they’re dating.
Then all of a sudden, they’re married. And have kids.
Like something you’d read out of a romance novel. Except that there was no rival guy who was secretly a vampire pretending to be a human. It was smooth sailing all the way.
But then he gets bored of business…
… and goes and gets a job.
As a manager.
So he could learn stuff, he tells me.
But then he tells me his family just struck gold.
“Didn’t your family already strike gold?”
“No I mean real gold. We just found out that our land is located over a gold mine. We’re getting people to inspect it right now.”
I mean:
What gives?
How does one guy get lucky so many times in his life?
Did he throw his entire wallet into the wishing fountain when he was a kid while everyone else was throwing pennies? Is that how it works? Did his suit get splashed with some of the ‘holy water’ from the wishing pond? Maybe I need some of that stuff on me.
But:
It really got me curious.
‘Bout how luck works.
So one day, I picked up this book. It’s called The Luck Factor. By this brilliant psychology professor from the UK, Dr. Richard Wiseman (I would love to have his surname, by the way, imagine calling me Allen Wiseman like some James Bond villain). And it was about this in-depth study he did on what made the luckiest people different from the unluckiest people.
Some people just win lotteries and goldmines easy as winning a sticker from your teacher in kindergarten.
While others just win trips to the hospital after crashing their car every week.
So how does it all work?
Well, it turns out that…
You know what the biggest difference between lucky people and unlucky people is?
You don’t?
Ok, let me tell you. It ain’t some sort of magic.
It’s just that…
Lucky people slow down more. They observe more, they look around more, ‘cuz they’re constantly looking for lucky new opportunities! While unlucky people are constantly moping around, with their heads down, and just breezing through life like the sky’s gonna fall if they don’t. And they’re going so quick, they can’t even see the opportunities ’round them.
How did this Wiseman guy test all this?
Well, lots of ways.
But I think this was the most interesting:
He divided lucky and unlucky people into groups.
And gave them the same newspaper to read. And had them count the number of photos in the newspaper. You know, just like they get you to do in kindergarten. Probably.
And all the unlucky people got it right.
And they did it quick.
They found 43 photos in the newspaper.
Right answer. But they were doing it wrong!
Because for the lucky people, while they did go through the newspaper a tiny bit slower, all of them found a message in the middle of the paper. And it said, “Stop counting! There are 43 photographs in this newspaper!”
And he did this test in so many ways.
If there’s money on the floor, lucky people see it all the time. While unlucky people are going so fast and all depressed-like, they ain’t even paying attention to it.
But so it goes…
… for making maximum coin in minimum time.
Because a lot of it is luck.
But it’s not the type of luck you think. It’s more of the… “slow down a little or you’ll miss these opportunities and shortcuts” type of luck.
And it’s the exact same philosophy I learned from Toyota.
The Japanese company that makes your cars.
That last for decades without breaking down.
It ain’t luck. But they’re always getting people to slow down for a minute so you can see ‘shortcuts’ for getting stuff done faster, simpler, easier, and better. They’re always there. But you just gotta stop so you can see them. Or you’re gonna miss all the ‘money on the floor’. And they find so many of these tiny little ‘shortcuts’, they got their car-making time down from several weeks to doing it now in less than 8 minutes each.
But it’s the hardest thing in the world for most people to do.
Because they’ve been trained to ‘speed up or get fired’.
So when the American car company Ford was bleeding out of every orifice and begged Toyota for help, the hardest thing about helping them was getting their employees to ‘stop the line’. So they could see the ‘shortcuts’ they could fix into it.
Get it all working better and faster and easier. Instead of just ignoring stuff.
So they didn’t have to work so hard.
But they were scared to death to do it.
Until a Toyota manager did it himself to show them that there wasn’t a problem. They wouldn’t get thrown in the slammer just for stopping the line.
Anyways:
It ain’t hard.
It ain’t even rocket science.
Lucky people do it all the time. But I guess that’s why there’s less and less of them these days with how fast people are going with AI these days. But you can do it too. Like what Toyota does, what lucky people do, and like what my friend probably does too.
And I talk about the easiest, simplest ways to do it in my new work on how to “Scam Your Brain Productive”.
Because when your brain’s addicted to “the need for speed”?
Well, you better hope it gets scammed real good.
Or it ain’t listenin’ to ya.
Not promising you’ll find a goldmine under your house, or win the lottery, but if you wanna at least start getting a little luckier in your life and work, and seeing tiny little “shortcuts” you never saw before, here’s my personal shortcut for doing it:
https://themysteriousmarketer.com/scam-your-brain-productive/
But it’s closing up in a few, so check it out while you still can.
Allen Walker
The Mysterious “Lucky Wiseman” Marketer
P.S. Am I envious of my friend?
Naw…
… why would I?
Doesn’t matter how much you make, you gotta work anyway. He’s still working. And so am I. Because the sooner you retire, the sooner you die. Never seen any research that shows otherwise. Unless you absolutely hate your work. Then find a better job. Money’s got nothing to do with it.
But since you’re gonna be working anyway, might as well make your work so fun, simple, and easy to do everyday…
… you’d rather do it than moping around on the beach everyday reciting poetry on the shortness of life.
And yeah, I do talk about how to do that too inside my new work.
Have fun!
Allen Walker, the Mysterious Marketer, is the marketing genius who’s deleted more 6 & 7 figure businesses than anyone else on the planet (*all because he gets bored). He’s also known as the world’s most genius renaissance marketer. Visit his blog to read thousands of his ‘secret’ copywriting tips for getting paid to grow your email list.
This post (https://themysteriousmarketer.com/the-luckiest-man-on-the-planet) was originally published by Allen Walker, The Mysterious Marketer. And yes, you can click that link to read his newest secrets for free…