Only People Who Believe in Luck Have It

How belief in luck makes us bolder and better.

Richard Branson will be the first to tell you that he’s generally a lucky person in business and life.

An adrenaline junkie, he’s lived through several near-death experiences, including in the early ’70s, when he and his then-wife survived a shipwreck that no other passengers did by jumping off the boat in a storm and swimming to shore.

The first song on the first album that his recording studio, Virgin Records, put out—“Tubular Bells” on the album of the same name by artist Mike Oldfield—was used as The Exorcist theme song and has sold nearly 20 million copies to date.

Branson later made a mad leap from Virgin Records to launch Virgin Atlantic, an airline so bold that his bank threatened to shut him down. The airline saw a record total revenue of £3.1 billion in 2023.

In 2014, when asked “how important luck is in building a great business,” Branson replied:

I think luck certainly plays a part in it, because there are lots of people out there who’ve worked enormously hard who haven’t been successful. But you know the old saying, by working hard, by making the right moves, you can create your own luck, I think. But certainly luck plays a part. I’ve been lucky to have survived balloon trips, boating trips, you know, a lot of rather foolish things in my life, so I was definitely born under a lucky star.

Branson isn’t the only uber-successful person to say that luck was on their side.

But is it really luck that makes these people successful? Many would say there’s no such thing as luck. What about entrepreneurial spirit (Branson started his first enterprise when he was 16!), resilience in the face of setbacks, or vision?

What role does luck play in success—and who gets to have it?

The Science of Luck

Several academic studies have found that the question isn’t whether luck exists. It’s whether you think it does.

A 2014 study conducted by James Sly at Missouri State University (MSU) explored the influence of a belief in luck on self-efficacy, which “reflects confidence in the ability to exert control over one’s own motivation, behavior, and social environment.”

The belief in one’s ability to accomplish a task plays a major role in how we approach goals, tasks, and challenges.

In the study, 171 students from MSU completed three questionnaires:

1. One to determine their preexisting belief in superstition;
2. One to determine their preexisting belief in luck and their personal luckiness and…
3. One to measure the degree to which an individual feels a sense of agency in regard to his or her life.”

Study participants were tasked with predicting the outcome of 30 computer-animated coin tosses: Select heads or tails.

After each coin toss, the software gave them bogus feedback on their performance. In other words, whatever the participant guessed had no bearing on the results.

The program ensured every participant won exactly 15 out of 30 coin tosses. No matter what, everyone was equally “lucky.”

However, the software varied the kind of feedback each participant received according to three patterns:

• – Ascending (the participant was told they correctly predicted 5 of the first 15 coin flips, but progressively got better, ending up correctly predicting 10 of the last 15.)
• – Descending (the participant was told they correctly predicted 10 of the first 15 coin flips, but progressively got worse, ending up correctly predicting 5 of the last 15.) or
• – Random.

After the trial, each participant was asked:

• (1) how many of the 30 coin tosses they believed they correctly predicted and
• (2) how many they believed they would correctly predict in another series of 30 coin tosses.

Next, participants completed a mentally challenging puzzle in which they were asked to identify as many two- to eight-letter words as possible from a specific set of eight letters.

Before the task began, they were asked to set a goal of the percentage of the total possible words they wanted to find. Researchers noted how many words each participant identified and how much time each participant spent on the task.

Here’s what the researchers found:

Participants with a firm belief in luck and were given descending feedback (they did worse and worse with each coin toss) recalled significantly more of their correct coin-toss predictions than participants in the random and ascending groups.

Furthermore, participants with a high belief in luck who were given descending feedback set higher goals for the puzzle and dedicated more time to it than participants with a high belief in luck who were given random feedback.

Researchers determined that when someone who believes in luck has a lucky streak with one task, it increases their self-efficacy for a future unrelated task, even if the lucky streak comes early and disappears, as was the case with the descending feedback group.

So, while it may seem counterintuitive, the study shows that believing in luck boosts your confidence in your ability to control future outcomes. If you had a winning streak in the past and you believe in luck, you’ll likely try, try again.

How “Feeling Lucky” Gives You an Edge

By feeling lucky, we change our perception of our abilities and, according to some studies, our performance.

One study found that superstitious beliefs help people in uncertain situations relieve anxiety and stress. Another showed that stress relief from a superstitious belief or ritual increases a person’s self-efficacy.

A soccer player nervous about a big game might have a superstitious belief in the luckiness of wearing his charmed socks. According to the studies, wearing the socks will make that player feel more secure and increase their perceived control over their performance in the game.

If you think it’s illogical to believe in luck, know these studies aren’t saying luck exists. They simply show that people who believe in luck experience a boost in their self-efficacy, which may change the outcome of their actions.

While the 2014 study above showed that believers in luck increased self-efficacy on the puzzle task after a lucky streak with the coin toss, it also showed that nonbelievers who got lucky with the coin toss saw decreased self-efficacy on the puzzle task.

The researcher cited the gambler’s fallacy, which states that when a person with a low belief in luck has good luck, they expect bad luck in the future to even things out, even when the outcome is completely random.

Ironically, Sly reported, people who think they’re “behaving rationally by not subscribing to the superstitious belief in luck are actually behaving in just as superstitious a manner (albeit in the opposite direction) as individuals who do believe in luck.”

Overall, people who think they are lucky might feel more confident approaching new tasks and challenges because they have higher expectations of a positive outcome.

That certainly applies to Branson. “You have to stick your neck out on occasion,” he told The New Yorker. “You have to make bold moves, and sometimes you come close to betting everything.”

Branson said he once took out a third mortgage on his home to fund his business endeavors. “I really do believe that if something is important enough, you should go and bet the damn house,’’ he said. “There are bigger things we need to gamble on. Much bigger things.”

If Branson didn’t feel lucky, would he have risked launching an airline in a saturated, complicated industry or begun one of his many other ventures? Maybe not.

Taking Luck Too Far

There is, however, the possibility of relying on luck to the point that you leave your fate to outside forces.

Studies show that self-efficacy and locus of control are interrelated and affect how a person reacts to a situation.

People with an internal locus of control believe that their personal decisions and efforts guide much of their lives. They tend to have higher self-efficacy, seeing themselves as the driving force behind their achievements.

People with an external locus of control believe that forces outside them—fate, circumstances, luck—are responsible for the events of their lives, potentially lowering their self-efficacy.

One’s locus of control plays a huge role in determining life outcomes. An internal locus of control is associated with psychological well-being, as well as academic and professional success.

There are benefits and disadvantages to both the internal and external loci of control.

When it comes to disadvantages, having an internal locus of control may mean you find it difficult to delegate and experience routine self-blame when things don’t work out for you.

Conversely, having an external locus of control improves your ability to let things go but also may make you feel helpless or less motivated to put effort into tasks since the outcome feels beyond your control.

The trick is to find the right middle ground—that is, to have an external locus of control for what you truly can’t control and an internal locus of control for what you can. Investing too much in luck tips the scale too far in the external direction.

We don’t live in the fantasy world of Harry Potter, who was able to take a sip of liquid luck and achieve the goal he desired. Simply drinking the lucky Kool-Aid isn’t going to get you anywhere.

But believing in luck can be a powerful tool to boost your confidence and motivation. It can prime you to tackle challenges with a positive outlook, potentially leading to better performance.

Just ask Richard Branson.

Embrace the power of belief, work hard, and create your own luck.

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