My colleague Ewan McIntosh's post on 'Quirkology - there is no career path just luck' makes for interesting reading. I left the following comment: 'My take on what most people call luck is that it's where preparation meets opportunity. Hard work is (usually/often) a necessary but insufficient condition for good luck. By and large you also need to have the awareness, self-confidence and attitude to risk to make your own luck.' I think the work of Martin Seligman is important here. Seligman writes on positive psychology and what he calls learned optimism. In the Scottish.
more