Do you feel lucky?

Being good at something and having a passion for it are essential to finding your Element, but they're not enough.  It's also a matter of attitude.  Today, Sir Ken Robinson's thoughts on the role of attitude, aptitude and The Element.

Rhonda & the Bridgeway team

Some people who have found their Element believe they have been lucky to be living a life that allows them to pursue their passion.  But there are others who are unlucky - and have had bad things happen to them.  But good and bad things happen to all of us.  As Sir Ken says, "it's not what happens to us that makes the difference in our life.  What makes the difference is our attitude toward what happens."  We're not just the victims of chance in life - lucky or unlucky.  It's our attitude that really influences whether we reach our Element.  In fact, lucky people can make luck because of their attitude.

Sir Ken believes that many of the people he uses as examples in the book have taken an active role in getting lucky.  They look at situations in different ways.  We're all able to do this, but there can be a difference in what we're able to perceive and what we do perceive.

Sir Ken brings in Richard Wiseman and his book, "The Luck Factor" at this point.  It's a study of four hundred "lucky" and "unlucky" people.  Wisemen identified four characteristics of lucky people - 1) they maximize chance opportunities; 2) they're good at listening to their intuion, and find ways to boost their intuitive abilities (ie. meditation); 3) they expect to be lucky, creating a series of self-fulfilling prophecies, and; 4) they have an attitude that allows them to turn bad luck into good.

In this instance, Sir Ken uses himself as an example.  He tell us that as a child, he was a promising soccer player.  But polio changed that.  After being completely paralyzed by the disease, a long, slow recovery process left him able to move and walk again, but took the soccer dream away forever.  His parents pushed him to get the best education possible - a challenge in a busy crowded household with a brother who would reherse with his rock band in the room next to his!  He perservered and went to college, where his current interests began to form.

The lesson to be remembered here is this - "we all shape the circumstances and realities of our own lives, and we can also transform them."  Those people who find their Element know that our attitudes to events and ourselves are crucial to reaching their life's ambitions.