The Sure-Fire Way To Be Luckier In Life - Advice From Psychology Professor Richard Wiseman

Wiseman says lucky people are open to opportunities, trust intuition, are optimistic, and are resilient, with resilience probably the most important. The lucky man with a broken leg refused to label it bad luck because a past hospital stay had led him to his wife.

Wiseman argues that advice like 'look on the bright side' is too broad, and that action lies in specific methods such as counterfactual thinking, looking for silver linings, or Dale Carnegie's journal of daft things done that day.

Writing down gratitude and good events builds a record that changes self-perception, which changes how others treat you. Wiseman stresses that merely thinking it doesn't work and that the causality runs both ways.

Wiseman never had an endpoint and asks whether he is having a good time and wants to get out of bed. He suggests finding the topic you'd pick for a desert island and earning enough from it, calling pursuit of great wealth a false god.

Wiseman writes a rough 80,000-word draft in two months at 1,500 words each morning, then edits on alternate days. Quality doesn't matter at first, and a blank canvas is the scary part.