A recent episode of Derren Brown's 'The Experiments' delved into the wonderful world of 'luck'. Are some people just born lucky? Derren doesn't think so. In fact he believes that people make their own luck by accepting opportunities and being open to 'winning' - that luck is merely a state of mind.
I have to agree. If you were to ask the people around me, I'd imagine most of them would tell you that I'm a disproportionately lucky person. Not because I have a particularly charmed life, but simply because I've won lots of competitions. And possibly a few hundred pounds at an online casino (shhhhh).
But I don't think it's as simple as being 'lucky'. As Brown says, "lucky people are good at creating and finding opportunities."
Yes, I win a lot of competitions, but that's because I enter them in the first place. People who say "Oh, I never win anything" are inevitably the ones who don't enter in the first place because they're convinced they don't stand a chance. My belief in the contrary - that someone has to win and it might just be me - has led to me pocketing everything from tickets to a film premiere to £100 in shopping vouchers.
But I don't win everything. I'd say on average I enter about 5 or 6 competitions a month, and I probably win one a year if I'm lucky. That's a success rate of about 1.5%. Not so lucky now, eh?
But to someone who's never won anything, it probably does seem unfair that I have a clutch of wins under my belt. So does this mean that 'unlucky' people are their own worst enemies? That by believing you'll never win you're sealing your fate?
What do you think, are you feeling lucky today?