Translator: Sanda L Reviewer: Riyad Almubarak
Very often we go to courses, that will teach us how to invest money.
How to invest money in assets or derivatives,
or how to invest your time, you know,
in order to be successful in classes, such as strategies for academic success.
How about how to invest other people's money
in your own ideas in classes, such an entrepreneurship.
But the real question is: what to invest in?
Very rarely you'll be put in the situation,
to understand, that one of the most important things that you can invest [in]
is your own luck, your very own superpower.
But, what does luck actually mean?
When you go to the dictionary, you'll find that luck is a success or failure,
brought by chance, rather than through one's own actions.
It's worth repeating that part.
Brought by chance, rather than through one's own actions.
I don't like that.
When you grow up, you make your own definition about luck.
When you ask a child, what good luck is,
he'll answer that it will be to receive a candy from his parents.
Bad luck will be to be asked by the teacher
to speak in front of their class.
If you ask average AUBG student, what would be the good luck
it would be to survive the finals, finals week.
Bad luck would be to fail of course.
If you ask a senior citizen, what would be a good luck
it would be to find the two-leva bill on the street.
Bad luck would be to lose two-leva bill.
How about the investor?
If you ask an investor, what would be the good idea, the good luck?
It's to find one idea, then to put thousands and take millions of it.
Bad luck will be to miss that opportunity.
So, those examples are combined in one definition
that I summarize it as
good luck is a situation when something happened
often unexpected happens, that brings you happiness.
It is the desire of happiness.
I purposely and obviously omit something about the actions.
It is because I don't like that part.
But can we attract luck?
This is the universal desire 4,000 years ago, in the Bible
there was as it is now.
To attract luck, can we influence luck? Can we become lucky?
Well, remember that the luck is within your control.
When I started to prepare my speech for this, for today
I did my own research - on YouTube, of course -
and I found a lot of videos, viral videos, called "The luckiest people."
If you don't look at the guys, who escaped from the crashes and other forms of death
you know that there is all-time ranking of the luckiest people on the planet.
And when you go there,
you'll find Joan Ginther, who won the lottery,
not once, not twice, but four times.
Do you have any idea what are the chances?
Even one, to win even once, it would be one to two hundred millions.
Probably you'll get luck to be struck by an asteroid
more than win the lottery.
Other astonishing example, I really admire that guy,
is Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the guy who survived two nuclear attacks.
He had miraculously survived the first attack in Hiroshima,
and then escaped to his relatives in Nagasaki,
only to survive the second attack.
That guy lived to the ripe old age of 92 years.
The third example will be Fidel Castro, hated and loved by millions.
He attempted to escape
630 times from assassinations.
Who else?
Think for somebody,
your friend, your relatives, that they are lucky.
What makes them lucky?
Is it the magic? Is it some kind of blessing?
Think for your life. Are you a lucky person?
Well, meet Richard Wiseman.
He is a professor of psychology in Hertford University in United Kingdom
and he wrote
several books for psychology
translated into more than 30 languages.
He devoted his work
for study about luck.
And he filed an advertisement in the newspapers and magazines
about, "If you think for yourself
and you are extraordinarily lucky or unlucky,
then please contact me."
He was contacted by 400 people, volunteers
from all ages from 18 to 84.
They were with all backgrounds like businessmen, school teachers, lawyers etc.
He conducted 10 years of exams, IQ tests, etc,
in order to derive a few results.
The results are actually there, you can see that.
The results also show
that you can change your luck, you can attract luck.
The conclusion, of course, is when you stay positive, you attract luck.
When you are confident, your attract luck.
To summarize it, you can become a lucky person, if you are not up to now.
Very often lucky people think that a good thing happening in their life,
happens by chance.
His study said that it's not important
to be in the right place at the right time,
it's important to be with a right state of mind.
So here's an example of two people
who knew that they control luck.
First one is Barnett Helzberg, Jr.
He's a successful entrepreneur.
In 1996, he built a company
with a turnover of 300 million dollars per year.
He recently turned 60 and decided to sell this company.
One day, when he walked down to the Plaza Hotel in New York,
he heard a lady calling, "Mr. Buffett," a guy next to him.
Well, he decided to grab that opportunity and ask to meet that person,
probably would be Warren Buffett, the one of the most famous investors in America.
And indeed, it was Warren Buffett.
And one year later, he succeeded to sell his company to Warren Buffett.
Another example, I'm sure that you know that guy, is Warren Buffett.
He is by far the most ... the best investor of all times.
I mean, he managed to build such a fortune.
From 1965, he put one dollar,
and now he put 0.2 million dollars for each dollar.
He was twice as successful as S&P 500, including the dividends.
In his interviews he said that luck requires,
like any other investments, good luck requires time, effort and devotion
in order to become scalable.
Well, to share my journey
I decided, thankfully, to question that theory
when I was young. What if I can attract luck?
Since then, I started to think for myself that I'm a lucky person.
After that, I shared that with my friends, my relatives, my parents.
And slowly, I built the reality that came to an existence.
My luck was with me and how about that?
I have a lot of examples that I can give you from my luck,
from my lucky experience up to now, but I will share with you only one.
In October 2015, I decided to open my own company
on financial M&A practice.
This market is ruled by huge corporations and banks.
Nevertheless, I decided to take my chance.
Even before I managed to register my company,
I got my first big project with a big client.
Many of my friends asked me how I managed to contact such a big client
and to convince him that I'm the right person for him.
Well, the truth is that I didn't, I didn't at all. He found me.
And I guess it was pure luck.
I was on a wedding, you know, wedding of my friends,
I was best man and I was giving the best man speech.
After the wedding, there was one man who came and asked me
for advice,
how to prepare himself for a best man speech.
That man turned out to be my first golden customer, so it was pure luck.
I'm not sharing my story just because to promote myself for my business.
It's about to share with you that I made that on purpose.
I carefully analyzed every good and bad situation I've been in,
and derived from that five steps that attract good luck.
And I will be more than happy to share with you those five steps.
First is to realize that you can control your luck.
I don't want you to believe right now about that.
It's okay to refuse it, but just test it.
You're smart enough to ask yourself, if somebody put something in a dictionary
and it's the truth, or you will test that.
You've already done the first step, because you're here
and I planted this idea in your head.
Most of the people never go that far.
The second step is to persuade yourself.
I know that it sounds a bit strange when you start speaking to yourself
"I'm a lucky person, I'm a lucky person,"
and I'm not telling you to speak out loud around people "I'm a lucky person," no.
Just think that, repeat it to yourself.
For example, when you walk into a bar on Friday evening, without any reservation
with five people with you, just think for yourself:
"Okay, I'm a lucky guy, I will enter the bar
and find the best spot for that."
And the third part is to share with others.
Again, not to share arrogant with them,
like "You know, I'm a lucky guy!" No.
Just gentle. When you go to that bar, just share with the others, relax.
I'm a lucky one, I'll find the place, believe me.
Then comes the good part, fourth step.
Recognize the moments when you actually become lucky.
I mean, you enter the bar, you see that spot there, right for you,
and you say: "Okay, I got lucky."
Remember that.
If there is no spot, well, it happens to everybody.
So, say "I didn't have the luck today."
One more important thing.
I'm not telling you to be always a positive idiot
who thinks that luck will drive me from every problem and trouble.
No, just be positive about luck, note the moments when you got luck.
The fifth and most important step you cannot reach by yourself.
You have to wait and see
how others start to believe that you are lucky.
For example, when people that I don't know very much,
they start to notice me as a lucky person and say "You know, you're a lucky guy."
I say "Yeah, thank you."
That was the moment when I realized that I finally reached the goal,
finally reached the end of my journey and I became a lucky person.
So those are the five steps, please remember it, try it, test it,
because you're a smart one.
You will not believe blindly in somebody who's telling something. Test it.
And if you make all the five steps right, that's the favorite part,
you will start to see opportunities everywhere.
I mean, opportunities are often presented to you,
or to anybody else for that matter, all the time,
but only a handful of people realize them, sees them and make a good fortune of them.
So now you can argue with me that, if it's so easy to be lucky,
then why to study, or pour efforts in a career or something,
you just got lucky, procrastinating for something.
Yeah, but actually it's not true because luck can be scaled,
and in order to make your luck scalable,
you have to put efforts, hard work and skills.
If you decided to be just fine like that, without any investment in your luck,
then you will be like the senior citizen, having two-leva bill.
Lucky? Yet lucky worth two-leva bill.
If you decided to invest in yourself, in your skills, in your abilities,
you'll become something more, an investor, like Warren Buffett, for example.
And after that, lucky, yet lucky worth millions.
Well, at the end, I want to share with you
how I think what is the luck.
Luck is the result of belief and self persuasion that brings us ...
that brings to the existence unplanned ...
unexpected opportunities,
as a result of success, happiness, prosperity, for the ones that do believe.
And please remember, if there is one thing I want to remember from my speech,
it is just that the luck is within your control.
Thank you.
(Applause)