What's Luck Got to Do with It?

Author: Joseph Mazur
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400834457
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Book Description
The hazards of feeling lucky in gambling Why do so many gamblers risk it all when they know the odds of winning are against them? Why do they believe dice are "hot" in a winning streak? Why do we expect heads on a coin toss after several flips have turned up tails? What's Luck Got to Do with It? takes a lively and eye-opening look at the mathematics, history, and psychology of gambling to reveal the most widely held misconceptions about luck. It exposes the hazards of feeling lucky, and uses the mathematics of predictable outcomes to show when our chances of winning are actually good. Mathematician Joseph Mazur traces the history of gambling from the earliest known archaeological evidence of dice playing among Neolithic peoples to the first systematic mathematical studies of games of chance during the Renaissance, from government-administered lotteries to the glittering seductions of grand casinos, and on to the global economic crisis brought on by financiers' trillion-dollar bets. Using plenty of engaging anecdotes, Mazur explains the mathematics behind gambling—including the laws of probability, statistics, betting against expectations, and the law of large numbers—and describes the psychological and emotional factors that entice people to put their faith in winning that ever-elusive jackpot despite its mathematical improbability. As entertaining as it is informative, What's Luck Got to Do with It? demonstrates the pervasive nature of our belief in luck and the deceptive psychology of winning and losing. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.

What's Luck Got to Do with It?

Author: Edward D. Kleinbard
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190943580
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
The American dream of equal opportunity is in peril. America's economic inequality is shocking, poverty threatens to become a heritable condition, and our healthcare system is crumbling despite ever increasing costs. In this thought-provoking book, Edward D. Kleinbard demonstrates how the failure to acknowledge the force of brute luck in our material lives exacerbates these crises leading to warped policy choices that impede genuine equality of opportunity for many Americans. What's Luck Got to Do with It? combines insights from economics, philosophy, and social psychology to argue for government's proper role in addressing the inequity of brute luck. Kleinbard shows how well-designed public investment can blunt the worst effects of existential bad luck that private insurance cannot reach and mitigate inequality by sharing the costs across the entire risk pool, which is to say, all of us. The benefits, as Kleinbard shares in a wealth of data, are economic as well as social a more inclusive economy, higher national income, and greater life satisfaction for millions of Americans. Like it or not, our lives and opportunities are determined largely by luck. Kleinbard shows that while we can't undo every instance of misfortune, we can offer a path to not just a fairer America, but greater economic growth, more broadly shared.

Conscious Luck

Author: Gay Hendricks, PH.D.
Publisher: St. Martin's Essentials
ISBN: 1250622956
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 145

Book Description
Change Your Luck and Live a Charmed Life! What if you could create your own luck? What if living a charmed life—being lucky in love, lucky in money, lucky in your chosen work—was within your control? The good news is that it’s all entirely possible...when you know how! In Conscious Luck, New York Times bestselling authors Gay Hendricks and Carol Kline share eight Secrets that will allow you to intentionally change your fortune. Instead of hoping and wishing that luck will come your way, let Conscious Luck show you how to seize control of your destiny and create the dazzling life of your dreams. This powerful step-by-step program, which includes practical techniques, inspiring true stories, and the authors’ personal journeys, will lead you to greater freedom and abundance. The Secrets—four core shifts and four daily practices—teach you how to: · plant the seeds of luck in your own psyche · remove unlucky programming (including lifting “curses”) · move at your Essence Pace · practice Radical Gratitude, and much more. Based on decades of the authors’ trailblazing work, this unique and highly effective toolkit offers a surefire way to transform your life.

Go Luck Yourself

Author: Andy Nairn
Publisher: Harriman House Limited
ISBN: 0857198890
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 221

Book Description
Luck is a four-letter-word in business circles. But the truth is that fortune plays a part in every success story – and every failure. In Go Luck Yourself, one of the world’s leading brand strategists explains how a hunting trip led to the invention of VELCRO®. How a little mermaid inspired a famous campaign for Amazon. How a stolen rabbit spurred on Walt Disney. And more importantly, how you can stack the odds in your brand’s favour. Andy Nairn draws on everything from architecture to zoology, as well as almost 30 years working with some of the most successful companies on the planet, to provide a series of thought-provoking strategies that will help anyone responsible for building a brand. He’ll show you how to uncover your organisation’s hidden treasures. How to spot opportunities in unexpected places. How to turn misfortune into good fortune. And how to practise being lucky, every day. Written in a very accessible and entertaining style, this is the book you need to improve your brand’s fortunes, in these turbulent times. Now Go Luck Yourself…

The Luck Factor

Author: Richard Wiseman
Publisher: Miramax Books
ISBN: 9781401359416
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
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.

What's Luck Got to Do with It?.

Author: Rex Beavan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Hervey Bay (Qld.)
Languages : en
Pages : 80

Book Description

The Success Equation

Author: Michael J. Mauboussin
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 1422184234
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Book Description
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.

Luck

Author: Ed Smith
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408830604
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
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.

Luck is No Accident

Author: John D. Krumboltz
Publisher: Impact Publishers
ISBN: 188623003X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 171

Book Description
Unplanned events--chance occurrences--more often determine life and career choices than all the careful planning we do. A chance meeting, a broken appointment, a spontaneous vacation trip, a "fill-in" job, a hobby--these are the kinds of experiences that lead to unexpected life directions and career choices. Newly revised and updated with fresh examples and current issues for today's challenging times, Luck is No Accident actively encourages readers to create their own unplanned events, to anticipate changing their plans frequently, to take advantage of chance events when they happen, and to make the most of what life offers. The book has a friendly, easy style about it, and is packed with personal stories that really bring the ideas into focus.

Good Luck with That

Author: Kristan Higgins
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 045148939X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 481

Book Description
One of Purewow’s “Best Beach Reads of Summer 2018” Winner for Best Book of 2018 of the Fresh Fiction Awards! New York Times bestselling author Kristan Higgins is beloved for her heartfelt novels filled with humor and wisdom. Now, she tackles an issue every woman deals with: body image and self-acceptance. Emerson, Georgia, and Marley have been best friends ever since they met at a weight-loss camp as teens. When Emerson tragically passes away, she leaves one final wish for her best friends: to conquer the fears they still carry as adults. For each of them, that means something different. For Marley, it's coming to terms with the survivor's guilt she's carried around since her twin sister's death, which has left her blind to the real chance for romance in her life. For Georgia, it's about learning to stop trying to live up to her mother's and brother's ridiculous standards, and learning to accept the love her ex-husband has tried to give her. But as Marley and Georgia grow stronger, the real meaning of Emerson's dying wish becomes truly clear: more than anything, she wanted her friends to love themselves. A novel of compassion and insight, Good Luck With That tells the story of two women who learn to embrace themselves just the way they are.