Customer Reviews

How To Make Luck: Seven Secrets Lucky People Use To Succeed

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This book is great. The title can be a little misleading. The book is about behaviors you can adopt to influence things to go the way you want them to. It's not a new age hocus pocus book. It is a real world street smart book on a variety of ways to influence people and situations to go well for you.

There are a lot of suggestions on improving your luck in addition to the seven main methods that the author lists in the table of contents. Some of it is commonsense, but sometimes we need a reminder. Some of the advice is immeadiately applicable. Get this book!!

There are a lot of self-help books out there, and many of them just saying the same boring thing. This book, however, is really smart and practical. It should rank up there with Napolean Hill and Dale Carnegie as a classic book on creating success. I felt his strategies were very realistic, made a lot of sense, and are doable! Easy to read and very enjoyable. I'd definitely recommend it.

It's easy to credit the success of others to luck--just happening to be at the right place at the right time. Not so, says author Marc Myers. Successful people make their own luck, the author says, and he cites case studies to prove his point. What we see as luck is usually the product of lots of hard work, and a willing to take some chances. (I personally know how hard at least one of his subjects worked--which, to me, proves the author's thesis). Certainly worth reading for anyone who wants some clues on what "luck" is all about--and about how the harder you work, the luckier you are apt to be.

"Have you ever said, 'If it weren't for my bad luck, I'd have no luck at all?' According to Marc Myers, author of How to Make Luck, luck is not random at all. Here's how to do it, he claims:
1. Instead of envying other people's luck, make a list of what is positive in your life. Envy saps luck-attracting energy.
2. Really connect when you meet people: smile warmly, look in their eyes, remember their name. A chance meeting often brings luck.
3. Let go of mistakes quickly by focusing on the positive.
4. Write down your goals and the people who can help you make them happen.
5. Make time and space for opportunity to knock. If you're too busy running around distracted, you won't recognize a lucky break when it occurs." (review by M.J. Ryan, author of The Happiness Makeover)
I was pleased to find out about this book, as I do believe that laying the right groundwork and positioning yourself for good things to happen will certainly improve your "luck." When people call a good golf shot lucky, my husband says, "The more I practice, the luckier I get." (Virginia Allain)

If you have subscribed &/or read the series of Bottom Line/Personal newsletter, then you will not be disappointed by this book. The author of this book also happens to be the editor of the newsletter.
In the 80's as well as 90's, I pursued & applied many of the strategies outlined in the newsletter. Some of the strategies have been artfully captured in this wonderful book.
To a lot of people, writings about luck may seem to be hyperbolic stuff. From my personal experience, and I am sure most readers will concur with me, luck is, in reality, OPPORTUNITY + PREPARATION.
Always remember this, opportunity only knocks once at every man's door. So if it comes knocking at your door, & if you are not prepared to receive (in this case, hear) it, it's gone!
In a nut shell, this book shows you how to be prepared for luck. Are you ready?
I would like to say this, the strategies outlined in this book, when applied, will build & enhance your personal anticipatory management skills. Anticipation is a very important skill.

Just completed this book last night.
Being a reader and student of personal self improvement I saw the many similarities
to the other books I have read on the subject of self change. It is a great message that can't be heard too often. Repetition of those principles only ingrains the changes more deeply into your everyday practice.
If you daily live your life from a grateful mindset, be smart, honest, industrious, network with the right people, treat everyone with respect, and pass on what you learn to help others, your life will be exceptional.
It is a great book, with the exception of some area's that suggest that you make everything good that happens to you seem like a surprise to you in the face of everybody that witnesses your good fortune. I agree that you should not boast or brag about your luck, but to be deceptive to others about your successes goes against the principals of helping others. If you are fortunate to have gained from your diligence, why not share what you do to create that success with everyone that wants to benefit from this great experience. It can only increase the possibility that those people that Marc suggests you hide this information from, would help you someday for the great information you shared with them. Even though the intent should not be to be re-paid for this help. Just the fact that you helped someone and made their life a little easier and/or better should be enough reward.
In early chapters none of these negative suggestions from Marc were present, but in the last couple of chapters I was taken aback, by those suggestions for hiding your excitement and not sharing your secrets to being seemingly lucky.
I believe that the people that live their life coming from the mindset that there is an abundance of anything they desire, that it will be drawn to them.
Over-all a helpful book, but as in all things you read and hear, you use what makes sense to you and your own principals.