How to be luckier by taking risks: 3 easy steps

1. Leave your comfort zone and take small risks

Change your relationship with yourself. Don't be afraid to take risks outside your comfort zone. This behavior is typical of children who learn about the world and learn new skills. With age, we stop doing this and freeze in place.

To be successful, you need to constantly take small risks: intellectual, financial, emotional, social. Solving a new problem is an intellectual risk, talking to a stranger is social, expressing feelings to a loved one is emotional.

The thing is that even minor risks add up to great luck, if not immediately, then in the future. You don't lose anything, but you get a potential opportunity.

In support of this, Tina cites a story from her own life. Instead of the usual sleep on the plane, she decided to talk to a neighbor who turned out to be a publisher. Seelig dared to take another chance and showed him the application to publish the book. The fellow traveler read it, but politely refused.

Nevertheless, they exchanged contacts, and after a couple of months, Tina invited him to a class on the future of the publishing business.

A few months later, she sent him videos of the student project, which the casual fellow traveler liked so much that he wanted to meet with the authors and invited them to write a book.

One of the publisher's editors asked if Tina wanted to write the book herself, and she showed him the same application that his boss had recently rejected. Less than two weeks later, a contract was signed, and subsequently the book sold in a million copies.

2. Thank others and value relationships

The second step is to change your relationship with others. All the people who help you in life play a big role in achieving your goals. If you do not thank the person, you will not close the circle and miss a new opportunity. People are wasting their time and energy doing something for you, so it’s important to thank them for that.

Tina explains this thesis with the help of another story. She heads three scholarship programs and often receives responses from unsuccessful students. Some complain, others ask how to improve, and some simply thank.

This is exactly what a guy named Brian did, who wrote that he was turned down twice, but still happy with the experience and grateful for the opportunity.

His letter touched Tina, and she met with the student in person. After talking, they decided to start a joint project, which later grew into an independent research and helped Brian start his own company. None of them expected such a success, and it all happened because of the usual letter of gratitude.

Seelig has developed several tactical ways of expressing appreciation to others. Her favorite trick is to revise the meeting schedule at the end of each day and send thanks to all the people she met. The peculiar ritual takes only a few minutes, and Tina is sure that this makes her luckier.

3. Change your attitude towards ideas

Many of us divide ideas into good and bad. However, these two estimates are not enough. Moreover, even the most failed ideas can become outstanding when viewed from a different angle.

To develop creativity, Tina teaches students to see potential opportunities in bad ideas. One such challenge is to come up with some of the best and worst restaurant concepts.

The first category offered restaurants on the top of a mountain or ship with great views, the second - a junkyard establishment, a filthy pub with disgusting service, and a diner serving cockroach sushi.

To the surprise of the students, the teacher discarded all the best ideas and forced them to work with the worst ones. Within minutes, the concept of a junkyard café morphed into an establishment offering affordable surplus from gourmet restaurants that would normally be thrown away.

The poorly maintained diner has become a training ground for future managers. And the cockroach restaurant has transformed into a sushi bar with dishes made from unusual, exotic ingredients.

All the innovative companies that have turned our lives upside down and made incredible things common, once upon a time started with crazy ideas. Although at one time everyone around them considered them ridiculous and disastrous.

Summary

Sometimes people are born in terrible conditions, and luck overtakes them like a bolt of lightning. However, most often the wind of luck blows incessantly. If you are willing to take a little risk, be grateful and not afraid to look at the craziest ideas through the prism of possibilities, luck will certainly smile on you.