Análisis general de unidades

Marilyn, a 26-year-old sales representative, was typical of many of the unlucky people involved in my research. Her bad luck manifests itself in many different areas of her life. However, much of Marilyn's bad luck centres around her love life. Marilyn met her first boyfriend, Scott, whilst working at a bar in Spain. He was nineteen years old and had just arrived from Britain for a two-week holiday. On his first night in town, he walked into the bar where Marilyn was working and the two of them started to chat. They got on well and saw a great deal of each other over the fortnight. At the end of his holiday, Scott told Marilyn that he had fallen in love with her and was willing to come to Spain to be with her. A few weeks later he flew back to Spain with his belongings and moved in with Marilyn.

Marilyn thought that she had met her perfect partner. It seemed like a fairy-tale romance and, at first, everything went very well. But after a few months the relationship started to go wrong. Scott began to treat Marilyn very badly. He became selfish, insulting and arrogant. Marilyn thought that the problems were due to Scott being so far away from home, and suggested that they move back to Britain. A few months later the two of them flew to London and Marilyn hoped that

their relationship would improve. Instead, everything went from bad to worse. Scott continued to treat her badly, and the situation quickly deteriorated. Marilyn eventually finished the relationship when she discovered that Scott had been seeing other women.

Shortly afterwards, Marilyn met John. The relationship started off well and the two of them moved in together. Again, everything ended in disaster. After a few months of living with one another, John lost his job and Marilyn had to try to support the two of them on her small student grant. When John did eventually find a job, he frequently didn't bother to turn up to work. He started to borrow large amounts of money from Marilyn but rarely paid back the loans. When the relationship finally ended, Marilyn was left thousands of pounds in debt.

Lucky people's choice of partner tends to be far more successful. Like many of the lucky people involved in my work, Sarah has been very fortunate in her love life. Whilst at university, she joined the Officer Training Corps and, at the very first meeting, found herself chatting to the young instructor who was teaching her how to strip and clean a self- loading rifle. Straight away they both knew that they were made for each other. She broke off her existing engagement and married the instructor. It was a brave decision, but Sarah was convinced that she was doing the right thing. The test of time has proved that she made the cor- rect choice - the two of them have now been happily married for over twenty-seven years.

Interestingly, lucky people's ability to make successful decisions and choices also manifests itself in their professional lives. They consistently place their trust in colleagues and clients who are honest and reliable, and make sound choices when it comes to their careers and financial matters. Unlucky people are the opposite. They tend to make poor business decisions, trust unreliable people, buy shares just before the stock market crashes, and back horses that fall at the first fence.

When I asked lucky and unlucky people what was behind their suc- cessful and unsuccessful decisions they had very little idea how to explain their consistent good and bad luck. Lucky people said that they simply knew when a decision was right. In contrast, unlucky people viewed many of their poor decisions as yet more evidence of how they were always destined to fail. I undertook research to discover why lucky people's decisions led to so much more success and happiness than those of unlucky people. The results were to show the remarkable abil- ities of our unconscious minds.

Let's start with an unusual demonstration. On the following page are illustrations and short descriptions of six imaginary financial ana- lysts. All of these people have spent many years investing in the stock market. Some of them have been very successful and others have not. I would like you to read each of the descriptions, look at the correspon- ding illustrations and spend just a few seconds imagining what each analyst would be like as a person. After you have looked at all six people, please return to this page.

Looked at all six? Now I'm going to introduce you to two more financial analysts. Imagine that both of them are going to give you financial advice about how best to invest your savings. You have never met them before and know nothing about their backgrounds. I would like you to take a quick look at their faces and decide whose advice you would follow. Don't think about it too long - just quickly look at them, make a decision and then return to this page. The illustrations of these two new analysts are shown in Appendix B.

Remember which analyst you selected. Before we examine the sig- nificance of your choice, we need to look at my initial research into the mystery of why lucky people make sound decisions.