How to Create Your Own Luck: The "You Never Know" Approach to Networking, Taking Chances, and Opening Yourself to Opportunity

by Susan RoAne

Networking guru Susan RoAne shows readers how to exploit chance to create a bigger network of contacts, friends, and acquaintances—the key to new life opportunities. In How to Create Your Own Luck, she reveals the eight traits of successful people who make their own luck, rather than wait for it. Filled with engaging and instructive stories of real people who've turned serendipity into success, her book focuses on the eight counterintuitive traits that they all have in common, including talking to strangers, making small talk, dropping names, and even eavesdropping. This handy, real-world guide reveals the practical ways that anyone can create their own luck—opening up new opportunities in every aspect of life.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published September 24, 2004

Reviews

[Harish B · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book based on the saying Luck favors the trained mind. "You Never Know "approach sounds practical

[Anthony Deluca · Rating 4 out of 5]

How to Create Your Own Luck
By: Susan Roane
Read: February and March 2009
Reviewed: March 2009

How to Create Your Own Luck was published in 2004 and had been on my reading list for a while. I even started to read it at one point in the past but stopped as I found little value in it at the time. Today, with turbulent times around us in the employment arena, my interest was re-sparked. I have been an avid “networker” since about 2004 when this book came out and I was interested to learn any tricks Susan may have.

The first chapter of the book is very important and lays a solid foundation for creating opportunities for yourself in the eight traits of people who successfully create their own luck:
1) Talk to strangers
2) Make small talk
3) Drop names
4) Eavesdrop and listen
5) Ask for or offer help
6) Stray away from chosen paths
7) Exit graciously without burning bridges
8) Say yes when you want to say no.
This chapter offers 90% of the value in this book.

The remaining chapters are classifications of stories that illustrate the use of the eight traits. I found little value in many of these stories, but did find value in some of them. Many of the stories are pretty crazy, but that is the point. You will find luck, or it will find you often in places and situations where you least expect it.

I would recommend this book to a naysayer of networking. For those of us that know and value networking, reading the first chapter, then skimming the rest would suffice.

[Lori Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

A should-read book on improving your businesss skills in your work life.