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Do You Feel Lucky?
Dr. Richard Wiseman is a former professional magician who went on to earn a PhD in psychology from the University of Edinburgh. He has spent much of his career studying luck, not as superstition, but as a pattern of perception.
One of his most well-known studies is the newspaper experiment.
Wiseman divided 400 participants into two groups based on how they self-identified: “lucky” or “unlucky.” He then asked them to count the number of photographs in a newspaper.
On average, the lucky group completed the task in seconds and correctly answered that there were 43 images. The unlucky group took nearly two minutes to reach the same conclusion.
Why the difference?
On the second page of the newspaper, Wiseman had printed a large headline:
“STOP COUNTING. THERE ARE 43 PHOTOGRAPHS IN THIS NEWSPAPER.”
The unlucky group was so focused on counting that they never noticed the answer staring at them. The lucky group did.
Wiseman’s conclusion is that people aren’t lucky because the world treats them differently.
They’re lucky because they see the world differently.
Their view of the world is intentionally broad, not accidentally narrow.
We all struggle maintaining a broader perspective as social media algorithms and the daily challenges of life tend to narrow our focus to the problems of the day.
I find this especially true in myself and my clients who are running businesses. The deluge of tasks and decisions required to keep a business running can overwhelm even the most organized owner.
When you spend your days marinating in problems, adopting a narrow world view similar to the bad luck group becomes more likely.
You become responsive instead of intentional.
Your focus narrows to survival instead of growth and expansion.
And without realizing it, your worldview starts running on filters and cognitive biases that quietly hide opportunity in plain sight.
The Filters
The newspaper experiment wasn’t about luck.
It was about filters.
Everyone saw the same newspaper.
Only some people saw the answer.
These are the common filters that decide the difference.
1: Attentional Bias
Attentional bias is the tendency to see what you are actively focused on and miss everything else.
In Wiseman’s study, the unlucky group was so focused on counting photos that the giant headline on page two might as well not have existed. Their attention was doing its job too well.
Founders experience this daily. When your attention is consumed by fires, metrics, or tasks, your brain filters out anything that doesn’t directly relate to the immediate problem.
Opportunity often shows up as a headline on page two.
If you’re only counting, you won’t see it.
2: Confirmation Bias
Confirmation bias is the habit of searching for evidence that reinforces what you already believe.
If you believe growth is stalling, your brain eagerly collects proof. Soft sales calls. Churned customers. Slow weeks. Meanwhile, contradictory signals barely register.
In the newspaper study, once participants committed to the idea that the task required counting, they stopped questioning the approach itself.
Founders do the same. They optimize for being right instead of being curious, even when the answer is printed right in front of them.
3: Availability Bias
Availability bias causes us to overweight whatever is most recent, vivid, or emotionally charged.
A loud customer complaint can feel more important than a quiet trend. A bad day can outweigh months of steady progress.
In the experiment, the act of counting dominated attention because it was the most immediate and tangible task. The headline, while more useful, felt less “available” to notice.
Running a business makes this bias almost unavoidable. The latest problem crowds out the bigger picture.
4: Negativity Bias
Negativity bias is the brain’s preference for threats over opportunities.
Bad news grabs attention faster. Risks feel more urgent than upside. Problems feel more real than possibilities.
The unlucky group in the study didn’t miss the headline because it was hidden. They missed it because their brains were locked into error-avoidance mode: don’t miscount, don’t mess up, don’t fail the task.
Founders live in this mode. When your mind is tuned for danger, opportunity rarely gets through the filter.
5: Loss Aversion
Loss aversion means losses feel more painful than gains feel rewarding.
As a result, we cling to what we have. We protect existing decisions. We avoid risks that threaten the status quo, even when the upside is asymmetric.
In Wiseman’s experiment, stopping to scan the newspaper felt risky. It meant pausing the task, potentially losing progress. Counting felt safer.
In business, founders often keep counting when they should be scanning. They protect momentum instead of questioning direction.
Affirmations
Left alone, those filters don’t disappear.
They get reinforced.
This is where affirmations come in.
Think of affirmations as a daily reset of your internal filters. Not as wishful thinking, but as deliberate calibration.
They aren’t declarations of what will magically happen.
They are reminders of:
What matters
What you’re building toward
How you choose to interpret the signals coming at you
Founders who skip this can drift into reaction mode.
Founders who practice it stay oriented, even when the business gets noisy.
What Makes a Good Affirmation
Affirmations fail mostly because we stop doing them.
We expect an immediate and visible payoff. When nothing dramatic happens quickly, we abandon the practice and move on.
Affirmations aren’t about instant results. They’re about retraining perception.
There are many ways to write them, but effective affirmations share a few traits.
Directional Without Being Overly Specific
A good affirmation sets direction without pretending the path is known. It guides attention without locking you into a script.
Feel Achievable
Good affirmations shouldn’t be so small that they’ll happen anyway.
They also shouldn’t be so grandiose that your subconscious knows you’re lying.
Consistently Repeated
Affirmations work through repetition, not intensity. Although, associating them with positive emotions is known to make them more effective.
They matter most on the days you’re tired, distracted, or overwhelmed. Those are the days when your filters are reinforcing themselves without your permission.
Consistency is what retrains perception.
Not inspiration. Not enthusiasm. Just repetition.
That’s how affirmations stop being words and start becoming defaults.
The Next Step
Luck isn’t random.
Often, what appears as luck is noticing the opportunity staring you straight in the face.
What separates founders who seem “lucky” from those who feel stuck is rarely effort or intelligence. It’s perception.
Progress is often noticing the opportunities that make it through your filters.
Affirmations aren’t about predicting the future. They’re about training how you see the present so opportunity doesn’t get filtered out before you ever notice it.
If you want to go deeper, I’ve put together a few resources to help you turn this into a simple daily practice:
A short guide to affirmations for entrepreneurs
A more in-depth guide that includes journaling practices
Scott Adam’s best seller where he describes how affirmations shaped his career and success
You can find them here:
As founder or business owner, you must train your perception deliberately, or the environment will do it for you.
My goal with The Leap is to provide you each Saturday with the knowledge, tools and lessons learned to help you get started and keep going toward building your future.
Whether you are making the leap to startups, solo-entrepreneurship, freelancing, side hustles or other creative ventures, the tools and strategies to succeed in each are similar.