Download or read book Luck written by Nicholas Rescher and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2001-03-15 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Luck touches us all. "Why me?" we complain when things go wrong—though seldom when things go right. But although luck has a firm hold on all our lives, we seldom reflect on it in a cogent, concerted way. In Luck, one of our most eminent philosophers offers a realistic view of the nature and operation of luck to help us come to sensible terms with life in a chaotic world. Differentiating luck from fate (inexorable destiny) and fortune (mere chance), Nicholas Rescher weaves a colorful tapestry of historical examples, from the use of lots in the Old and New Testaments to Thomas Gataker’s treatise of 1619 on the great English lottery of 1612, from casino gambling to playing the stock market. Because we are creatures of limited knowledge who do and must make decisions in the light of incomplete information, Rescher argues, we are inevitably at the mercy of luck. It behooves us to learn more about it.
Download or read book The Indian Luck Book written by Monisha Bharadwaj and published by Kyle Cathie Limited. This book was released on 2001 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on ancient Sanskrit text, science and eastern wisdom, this title reveals traditional cultural practices that can become part of the readers personal philosophy. Readers can discover which colours, symbols, stones and gems have a significant impact on their moods and outlook. Readers may also increase their awareness of the events and relationships that promote optimum performance, and understand how these relate to the Sun and moon cycles that affect the course of events.
Download or read book The Luck Factor written by Richard Wiseman and published by Miramax Books. This book was released on 2004-08-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is luck just fate, or can you change it? A groundbreaking new scientific study of the phenomenon of luckand the ways we can bring good luck into our lives. What is luck? A psychic gift or a question of intelligence? And what is it that lucky people have that unlucky people lack? Psychologist Dr. Richard Wiseman put luck under a scientific microscope for the very first time, examining the different ways in which lucky and unlucky people think and behave. After three years of intensive interviews and experiments with over 400 volunteers, Wiseman arrived at an astonishing conclusion: Luck is something that can be learned. It is available to anyone willing to pay attention to the Four Essential Principles: . Creating Chance Opportunities . Thinking Lucky . Feeling Lucky . Denying Fate Readers can determine their capacity for luck as well as learn to change their luck through helpful exercises that appear throughout the book. Illustrated with anecdotes from the lives of the famous such as Harry Truman and Warren Buffett, The Luck Factor also richly portrays the lives of ordinary people who have been extraordinarily lucky or unlucky. Finally Dr. Wiseman gives us a look into "The Luck School" where he instructs unlucky people and also teaches lucky people how to further enhance their luck. Smart, enlightening, fun to read, and easy to follow, The Luck Factor will give you revolutionary insight into the lucky mind and could, quite simply, change your life.
Download or read book Luck written by Ed Smith and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-04-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For aspiring cricketer Ed Smith, luck was for other people. Ed believed that the successful cricketer made his own luck by an application of will power, elimination of error, and the relentless pursuit of excellence. But when a freak accident at the crease at Lords prematurely ended Ed Smith's international cricketing career, it changed everything - and prompted him to look anew at his own life through the prism of luck.Tracing the history of the concepts of luck and fortune, destiny and fate, from the ancient Greeks to the present day - in religion, in banking, in politics - Ed Smith argues that the question of luck versus skill is as pertinent today as it ever has been. He challenges us to think again about privilege and opportunity, to re-examine the question of innate ability and of gifts and talents accidentally conferred at birth. Weaving in his personal stories - notably the chance meeting of a beautiful stranger who would become his wife on a train he seemed fated to miss - he puts to us the idea that in life, luck cannot be underestimated: without any means of explaining our differing lots in life, the world without luck is one in which you deserve every ill that befalls you, where envy dominates and averageness is the stifling ideal. Embracing luck leads us to a fresh reappraisal of the nature of success, opportunity and fairness.
Download or read book The Success Equation written by Michael J. Mauboussin and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this provocative book, Michael Mauboussin offers the structure needed to analyze the relative importance of skill and luck, offering concrete suggestions for making these insights work to your advantage by making better decisions.
Download or read book The Hot Hand written by Ben Cohen and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can you maximize success—and limit failure? Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Cohen brilliantly investigates the mystery and science of streaks, from basketball to business. "A feast for anyone interested in the secrets of excellence." —Andre Agassi For decades, statisticians, social scientists, psychologists, and economists (among them Nobel Prize winners) have spent massive amounts of precious time thinking about whether streaks actually exist. After all, a substantial number of decisions that we make in our everyday lives are quietly rooted in this one question: If something happened before, will it happen again? Is there such a thing as being in the zone? Can someone have a “hot hand”? Or is it simply a case of seeing patterns in randomness? Or, if streaks are possible, where can they be found? In The Hot Hand, Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Cohen offers an unfailingly entertaining and provocative investigation into these questions. He begins with how a $35,000 fine and a wild night in New York revived a debate about the existence of streaks that was several generations in the making. We learn how the ability to recognize and then bet against streaks turned a business school dropout named David Booth into a billionaire, and how the subconscious nature of streak-related bias can make the difference between life and death for asylum seekers. We see how previously unrecognized streaks hidden amidst archival data helped solve one of the most haunting mysteries of the twentieth century, the disappearance of Raoul Wallenberg. Cohen also exposes how streak-related incentives can be manipulated, from the five-syllable word that helped break arcade profit records to an arc of black paint that allowed Stephen Curry to transform from future junior high coach into the greatest three-point shooter in NBA history. Crucially, Cohen also explores why false recognition of nonexistent streaks can have cataclysmic results, particularly if you are a sugar beet farmer or the sort of gambler who likes to switch to black on the ninth spin of the roulette wheel.
Download or read book Luck written by Barrie Dolnick and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2007-11-06 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever noticed that you talk about luck every day of your life? Luck is your silent companion, sometimes bringing awesome parking spaces, a chance meeting with a new love interest, or a small windfall. Most of the time you probably don’t even pay attention to luck. Chances are, you only really think about luck when you buy a lottery ticket or participate in a contest. Luck is so much more than that. If you take steps to live longer by eating right and exercising, why wouldn’t you also take similar steps to improve your good fortune? Barrie Dolnick and Anthony Davidson asked themselves this very question, and set out to study luck and decipher how it works. In this insightful and engaging book, they share the secrets they’ve uncovered so you can use luck more effectively in your day-to-day life. Where does luck originate? Does one need to be “born lucky” in order to be lucky? Answering these and many other pressing questions, Dolnick and Davidson investigate both ancient and scientific approaches to luck. From early man to famous rationalists, luck has been prayed for, played with, and courted. You’ll learn how ancient practices such as the I Ching, astrology, tarot, and numerology have been used to understand luck, and how great mathematicians studied luck–some guided by their own interest in gambling. Every- one wants to be lucky. Once you know the fundamentals of luck, the authors take you through your own Personal Luck Profile so that you can use this wisdom and try your luck. People do a lot of weird things to improve their luck–and now you can make smart choices and informed decisions about how to play with yours.
Download or read book Great by Choice written by Jim Collins and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-10-11 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten years after the worldwide bestseller Good to Great, Jim Collins returns withanother groundbreaking work, this time to ask: why do some companies thrive inuncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? Based on nine years of research,buttressed by rigorous analysis and infused with engaging stories, Collins andhis colleague Morten Hansen enumerate the principles for building a truly greatenterprise in unpredictable, tumultuous and fast-moving times. This book isclassic Collins: contrarian, data-driven and uplifting.
Download or read book The Good Luck Book written by Stefan Bechtel and published by Workman Publishing. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of "luck" trivia provides the history of certain good luck rituals and objects, such as charms, knocking on wood, and wishbones, includes quotations about luck, and suggests ways to change one's luck from bad to good
Download or read book Natalie Tan s Book of Luck and Fortune written by Roselle Lim and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-06-11 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lush and visual, chock-full of delicious recipes, Roselle Lim’s magical debut novel is about food, heritage, and finding family in the most unexpected places. At the news of her mother’s death, Natalie Tan returns home. The two women hadn’t spoken since Natalie left in anger seven years ago, when her mother refused to support her chosen career as a chef. Natalie is shocked to discover the vibrant neighborhood of San Francisco’s Chinatown that she remembers from her childhood is fading, with businesses failing and families moving out. She’s even more surprised to learn she has inherited her grandmother’s restaurant. The neighborhood seer reads the restaurant’s fortune in the leaves: Natalie must cook three recipes from her grandmother’s cookbook to aid her struggling neighbors before the restaurant will succeed. Unfortunately, Natalie has no desire to help them try to turn things around—she resents the local shopkeepers for leaving her alone to take care of her agoraphobic mother when she was growing up. But with the support of a surprising new friend and a budding romance, Natalie starts to realize that maybe her neighbors really have been there for her all along.
Download or read book Down on Their Luck written by David A. Snow and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1993-02-12 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Snow and Leon Anderson show us the wretched face of homelessness in late twentieth-century America in countless cities across the nation. Through hundreds of hours of interviews, participant observation, and random tracking of homeless people through social service agencies in Austin, Texas. Snow and Anderson reveal who the homeless are, how they live, and why they have ended up on the streets. Debunking current stereotypes of the homeless. Down on Their Luck sketches a portrait of men and women who are highly adaptive, resourceful, and pragmatic. Their survival is a tale of human resilience and determination, not one of frailty and disability.
Download or read book Success and Luck written by Robert H. Frank and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-19 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From New York Times bestselling author and economics columnist Robert Frank, a compelling book that explains why the rich underestimate the importance of luck in their success, why that hurts everyone, and what we can do about it How important is luck in economic success? No question more reliably divides conservatives from liberals. As conservatives correctly observe, people who amass great fortunes are almost always talented and hardworking. But liberals are also correct to note that countless others have those same qualities yet never earn much. In recent years, social scientists have discovered that chance plays a much larger role in important life outcomes than most people imagine. In Success and Luck, bestselling author and New York Times economics columnist Robert Frank explores the surprising implications of those findings to show why the rich underestimate the importance of luck in success—and why that hurts everyone, even the wealthy. Frank describes how, in a world increasingly dominated by winner-take-all markets, chance opportunities and trivial initial advantages often translate into much larger ones—and enormous income differences—over time; how false beliefs about luck persist, despite compelling evidence against them; and how myths about personal success and luck shape individual and political choices in harmful ways. But, Frank argues, we could decrease the inequality driven by sheer luck by adopting simple, unintrusive policies that would free up trillions of dollars each year—more than enough to fix our crumbling infrastructure, expand healthcare coverage, fight global warming, and reduce poverty, all without requiring painful sacrifices from anyone. If this sounds implausible, you'll be surprised to discover that the solution requires only a few, noncontroversial steps. Compellingly readable, Success and Luck shows how a more accurate understanding of the role of chance in life could lead to better, richer, and fairer economies and societies.
Download or read book What the Luck written by Gary Smith and published by Duckworth. This book was released on 2018-02-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We underestimate the importance of luck in our lives. We think too highly of the golfer who wins the British Open and, if he loses the next tournament, we speculate that he slacked off. Although the winner is surely an excellent golfer, good luck in how the ball bounced and how it rolled afterwards outside of the golfer's control also played an important role. An insufficient appreciation of chance can wreak all kinds of mischief not only in sports, but also education, medicine, business, politics and elsewhere. Perfectly natural, random variation can lead us to attach meaning to the meaningless. Freakonomics showed how economic calculations can explain seemingly counter-intuitive decision-making. Thinking, Fast and Slow, helped readers identify a host of small cognitive errors that can lead to miscalculations and irrational thought. In What the Luck? statistician and author, Gary Smith, sets himself a similar goal, and explains - in clear, understandable, and witty prose - how a statistical understanding of luck can change the way we see just about every aspect of our lives.
Download or read book The Luck Factor written by Richard Wiseman and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-01-25 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: IS LUCK REAL? Why do some people lead happy successful lives whilst other face repeated failure and sadness? Why do some find their perfect partner whilst others stagger from one broken relationship to the next? What enables some people to have successful careers whilst others find themselves trapped in jobs they detest? And can unlucky people do anything to improve their luck - and lives? Ten years ago, Professor Richard Wiseman decided to search for the elusive luck factor by investigating the actual beliefs and experiences of lucky and unlucky people. The results reveal a radical new way of looking at luck: in many important ways, we make our own luck. If you think you're unlucky, that bad luck may be the direct result of you believing you're unlucky. Wiseman identifies the four simple behavioural techniques that have been scientifically proven to help you attract good fortune. He then shows how you can use these methods to revolutionise every area of your life - including your relationships, personal finances and career.
Download or read book Without Luck written by David Hoyt and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-10-21 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Good strategy looks like good luck to the outsider.Bad strategy looks like bad luck to the insider. Without Luck gives you the tools to craft good innovation strategy. Every team asks themselves: How do we know if our innovative idea is really any good? Are we prepared for the delicate decisions that will eventually kill even good ideas? Are we hoping luck will save us? After reading Without Luck, you will know: + How to tell which start-ups will fail, even before they launch. + How to evaluate if your own idea is as good as you think it is. + Who you need on your founding team to succeed. + What you can do to make any product easier for the customer to buy. + How you communicate with customers is different in each of the four phases of product/market fit.
Download or read book As Luck Would Have It written by Joshua Piven and published by Villard. This book was released on 2003-10-07 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I felt, intuitively, that luck exists. It’s like capitalism: For better or for worse, and whether you believe in it or not, luck is inescapable. —from As Luck Would Have It While cowriting the books in the Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook series, Joshua Piven came across dozens of people with tremendously compelling stories of triumph (or misfortune), seemingly against all odds and logic. When they were asked what they had in common, invariably their answer was: good luck, or not enough of it. The beneficiary of his own brand of extraordinary luck in publishing, Piven decided to take a closer look at how this phenomenon plays a part in success and survival. As Luck Would Have It offers a fascinating survey of the phenomenon, presented through incredible first- person stories: the swimming pool repairman who had only a hundred-dollar bill to pay for his hot dog, asked for his change in lottery tickets, and won $180 million; the woman who survived a plane crash at sea; the teller who was struck by lightning while at his window inside the bank; the guy who invented the Pet Rock. Weaving the subjects’ own beliefs about their experiences with compelling research on chance, probability, and luck psychology, As Luck Would Have It also includes research on how to prepare for luck, how to deal with it when it arrives, and how to make the choices that will help us benefit from luck. Mesmerizing, by turns hilarious and harrowing, As Luck Would Have It offers a series of scenarios that are at once unimaginable and vividly real.
Download or read book The Myth of Luck written by Steven D. Hales and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-07-23 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humanity has thrown everything we have at implacable luck-novel theologies, entire philosophical movements, fresh branches of mathematics-and yet we seem to have gained only the smallest edge on the power of fortune. The Myth of Luck tells us why we have been fighting an unconquerable foe. Taking us on a guided tour of one of our oldest concepts, we begin in ancient Greece and Rome, considering how Plato, Plutarch, and the Stoics understood luck, before entering the theoretical world of probability and exploring how luck relates to theology, sports, ethics, gambling, knowledge, and present-day psychology. As we travel across traditions, times and cultures, we come to realize that it's not that as soon as we solve one philosophical problem with luck that two more appear, like heads on a hydra, but rather that the monster is altogether mythological. We cannot master luck because there is nothing to defeat: luck is no more than a persistent and troubling illusion. By introducing us to compelling arguments and convincing reasons that explain why there is no such thing as luck, we finally see why in a very real sense we make our own luck, that luck is our own doing. The Myth of Luck helps us to regain our own agency in the world - telling the entertaining story of the philosophy and history of luck along the way.
