Unlucky or Lucky ?

Psychologist Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire conducted a simple experiment to explore whether people's perceived luck was related to their ability to spot opportunities.

In the experiment, Wiseman gave both "lucky" and "unlucky" people a newspaper and asked them to count the number of photographs inside.

The lucky people were able to find the photographs much faster than the unlucky people. On average, the unlucky people took about two minutes to count the photographs whereas the lucky people took just seconds.

Why the difference?

The second page of the newspaper contained a large message that said "Stop counting - There are 43 photographs in this newspaper." The lucky people noticed this message right away, while the unlucky people tended to miss it.

Wiseman added a second message halfway through the newspaper that said "Stop counting, tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $250." Once again, the unlucky people failed to notice this opportunity, while the lucky people spotted it.

The key finding is that lucky people are better able to notice and take advantage of unexpected opportunities compared to unlucky people.

Wiseman explains that lucky people have four key principles that help them create their own good fortune:

1. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities
2. They make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition
3. They create self-fulfilling prophecies through positive expectations
4. They adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good

So in 2025 - be more aware and wishing you good luck.