Modern Wisdom – #464 Dr. Christian Busch – The Science of Creating Good Luck

Yes, you can create more luck in your life, and this researcher and doctor discusses how. Modern Wisdom is a fantastic podcast, one of my frequent go-to’s, and this episode is one example of why. I have listened to it at least three times because the conversation covers so much about having the right mindset when engaging in life. And that is what it’s all about. Is life happening to you? Or are you happening to life? Do you have a limited, fixed mindset where “that’s just how life is”? Or do you take a “life is what you make it” attitude? I prefer the latter, and having a wide-open view of my experience allows me to be so much more of a captain and not the passenger.

Listen to the entire conversation for full context, which can be found here.

See more information on the guest, Dr. Christian Busch, on his website.

My 5 favorite quotes from the conversation:

“The idea is that there’s always some kind of element of randomness, but then we have some kind of agency, some kind of control over, not the situation itself, but our response to it.”

Dr. Christian Busch

“Once you let go of this idea that you can control everything, then actually you start building that muscle for the unexpected, and that decreases anxiety.”

Dr. Christian Busch

“The pain of unfulfilled ‘what ifs’ is way worse than the pain of rejection.”

Chris Williamson (Host)

“The point here is that you’re looking at the world from the perspective of ‘What can we make with what’s here?’ vs “What we think we need.’… Once you do that you get so used to this idea “Oh, actually, there’s always resources around us if we see it or not”. And that comes back to the serendipity mindset that there’s an abundance of potentiality, but we tend to not see it because we’re so focused on particular resources and particular things.”

Dr. Christian Busch

“We just did a study, actually, with CEO’s where we tried to find out what is that makes the most successful CEO’s really successful. And the one key theme that they all have in common is that they are extremely good at saying, ‘Here’s a sense of direction…But I am already telling you now that we will adjust that strategy based on new information coming in.’ (paraphrasing). So what they do is the give people a sense of clarity of where we are going, but at the same time also built the unexpected as part of the plan.”

Dr. Christian Busch

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