Productivity Coach, Workshop Leader, and Author

I have been looking for this citation, on and off, for months. Thought it was either from the New York Times or Wall Street Journal, but can’t find it, so maybe I’m wrong. If one of you have it, please share!

It was an article about luck. It said that people who believe themselves to be lucky often do wind up lucky, in part because they keep looking for solutions to problems long after the people who believe themselves to be unlucky give up. In other words, optimism yields luck.

Here’s an example of this phenomenon from my own life. Years ago, when I lived in the suburbs, I used to do the suburban thing and park at a train station and take the train into Boston. Like most writers, I’m a late riser and so by the time I got to the commuter garage it was invariably full. Believing myself to be lucky, though, I would drive around a bit longer believing that something would turn up – and it often did. I’d either catch someone leaving a space, or a few times the garage attendant let me park in an unused e-car space, or there were little unofficial niches on the property where i could squeeze my Corolla in and park without getting a ticket.

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