How Luck Steers Your Life

April 13, 2012

Interview with Robin Hogarth, author of the book Dance with Chance: Making Luck Work for You

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Mike Carruthers:
Your life, my life, everyone's life is governed in large part by luck and chance.

Robin Hogarth:
Most people, however, underestimate the role of chance in life. And in particular we tend to think we can predict things that are unpredictable.

Robin Hogarth, author of the book Dance with Chance: Making Luck Work for You, says for example there are a lot of people who make a lot of money advising people where to invest as if they can predict the future.

In the financial market you can't predict the day-to-day changes in stocks. And yet people think that by thinking about it and putting in some effort they'll actually be able to predict these things - and it's a scam in the sense that they're not predictable.

It's comforting to think we can predict the future and control what will happen - Robin calls this the "illusion of control".

I think the reason for this is that in real life it's very difficult to understand whether something is due to your skill or due to luck. And we tend to (when things go well) think it's our skill. And when things go badly blame it on bad luck.

When you understand that much of your life is the result of luck and chance it creates opportunities.

Number one is I think that because there's so much luck in the world, going out and trying to make things happen for you by making lots of encounters is actually a very good strategy. And people who are lucky tend to be people who have made their luck by building up lots, and lots, and lots and lots of contacts with different people.