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Speaker 2: There's a lot of ways to look at luck. I
Speaker 2: often look at luck in terms of the things which
Speaker 2: are probabilities, but it just kind of comes up, you know,
Speaker 2: against you from time to time. Like, for example, there
Speaker 2: was a story on the website at Coast tocoastam dot
Speaker 2: com about the cell your cell phones going off as
Speaker 2: a result of that big emergency transmission they had earlier
Speaker 2: this week, and the people who are Amish who had
Speaker 2: secret phones who were busted because those phones started going
Speaker 2: off regardless whether they had the ringtone off or whatever.
Speaker 2: It's like, that's a little unlucky. And then I see
Speaker 2: the story about I don't know if you saw the video,
Speaker 2: I would recommend it if you go to coastcoastam dot
Speaker 2: com about people who are on this little train in
Speaker 2: Colorado kind of sounds like a little tourist train and
Speaker 2: the and they get video of what appears to be
Speaker 2: bigfoot walking across the brush not too far off the
Speaker 2: railroad tracks. They get a pretty clear image of whatever
Speaker 2: it is. Now, maybe that's a hoax, maybe that's all
Speaker 2: been pre prepared, Maybe it's whatever, But that's lucky, right
Speaker 2: that they happen to have a cell phone camera in
Speaker 2: their hand as something like that is happening. How do you,
Speaker 2: in generally, how do you look at luck?
Speaker 3: I think, I like to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, is the
Speaker 3: harder I work, the luckier I get. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 3: you know. I mean it's like winning the lottery. You've
Speaker 3: actually got to buy the ticket to win, because you
Speaker 3: know a lot of people I wish I could win
Speaker 3: the lottery, or a lot of times when I'm on
Speaker 3: callin shows, people call in and they mistake me being
Speaker 3: a medium, which is communicating with spirits, for being a
Speaker 3: fortune teller, and they say, well, will I find a
Speaker 3: new job and will I find a love in my life?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: That's what are you doing about it? Well? Nothing, like
Speaker 3: you create your own luck in many situations. And then
Speaker 3: there's times like you're talking about, where you could be
Speaker 3: in a particular place at a particular time and something happens.
Speaker 3: The question then, Ian, and we've talked about this before
Speaker 3: the last time, I is synchronicity, because sometimes you will
Speaker 3: find yourself in a particular situation at a precise moment
Speaker 3: which affects the rest of your life. And sometimes that
Speaker 3: can be really good, and sometimes that can be really negative.
Speaker 3: My dad, the Navy Cloas, used to say to me
Speaker 3: that your life can change in a second. So let's
Speaker 3: say that you make an improper left turn, you're driving
Speaker 3: into an intersection, and you get into a horrific collision.
Speaker 3: That one second has changed life in a terrible way.
Speaker 3: Or perhaps you could be in a job interview and
Speaker 3: they throw a question at you out of left field,
Speaker 3: and you give the answer that really impresses your potential employer,
Speaker 3: and then they hire you for a great job. So
Speaker 3: that one second has changed your life in a positive way.
Speaker 2: I see that. As long as we're quoting on luck.
Speaker 2: I think it was Seneca, right, the Roman philosopher. I
Speaker 2: think it was Seneca, who is originally I believe he's
Speaker 2: credited with luck. Is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
Speaker 2: And so the people on the train, they didn't panic,
Speaker 2: they didn't scream, they didn't an opportunity to take this
Speaker 2: video of bigfoot or what appears to be bigfoot. They
Speaker 2: had a camera in their hand and they did. It's
Speaker 2: that's preparation meeting opportunity and I like all that. I
Speaker 2: think what's interesting is when luck gets in your head
Speaker 2: as and you know, to your point about the lottery.
Speaker 2: You know, people talk about luck in that way, and
Speaker 2: I say, luck would be winning the lottery without having
Speaker 2: bought a ticket. That's just like, that's a miracle.
Speaker 3: That's not Yeah, that's not luck, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: That's it's crazy.
Speaker 2: So even if you have a one in ten billion
Speaker 2: chance of something, it could happen. So but I think
Speaker 2: that kind of gets in some people's heads, right, and
Speaker 2: they think of themselves early on in light They start
Speaker 2: thinking of themselves as unlucky, as born under a bad sign,
Speaker 2: that that somehow the universe is against their own success,
Speaker 2: and it's hard to break people free from that perspective
Speaker 2: once it's become ingrained.
Speaker 3: I couldn't agree with you more because once you develop
Speaker 3: a mindset, whether it's positive, positive, or negative, a negative
Speaker 3: mindset seldom results in positive results. And when in my
Speaker 3: work both as a medium and then when I was
Speaker 3: practicing law full time, and I would I dealt with
Speaker 3: both criminal cases and civil complex civil litigation, and there
Speaker 3: would be clients I had that were physically injured or
Speaker 3: they had severe illnesses, perhaps cancer or something like that.
Speaker 3: And the ones that seemed to make it the longest
Speaker 3: or even defeat thee the illnesses or the injuries, were
Speaker 3: determined to do it. They had that positive mindset, I'm
Speaker 3: going to beat this, I'm going to do that. The
Speaker 3: ones that gave up seemed to go right away. And certainly,
Speaker 3: you know, you can only have so much control over
Speaker 3: something like cancer. But the thing is, a positive mindset
Speaker 3: has a lot to do with your success in life.
Speaker 3: Because there's a lot of people like you just said
Speaker 3: that go around with this, Oh, I was born under
Speaker 3: an unlucky sign. Nothing ever works out for me. So
Speaker 3: they flood their head negativity and then everything that they're
Speaker 3: looking at is through this filter, which you know, in
Speaker 3: other words, it's hard to be optimistic. Through misty optics.
Speaker 3: You're giving yourself not a head start, but you're always
Speaker 3: at the rear of the pack because you're putting that
Speaker 3: intention out there. So luck is, I think it's part
Speaker 3: of our life, but it's also how we shape things
Speaker 3: and perceive things, and luck is oftentimes and that's why
Speaker 3: we're talking about pride to the thirteenth, and there's a
Speaker 3: number of superstitions and phobias out there which you know
Speaker 3: people are so afraid of certain things. But once again,
Speaker 3: once you begin to understand and approach a fear, approach
Speaker 3: a superstition, what we find in the study of ancient
Speaker 3: mysteries and paranormal phenomenon, in fear based beliefs, there is
Speaker 3: some factual basis which led to what that fear, what
Speaker 3: that phobia, what that superstition is.
Speaker 2: And in this case, it does seem like the legend
Speaker 2: of October the thirteenth is the truth of why this
Speaker 2: date looms so large for.
Speaker 3: Us well, absolutely, and that's why it's such an honor
Speaker 3: being on coast to coast on Friday October thirteenth, because
Speaker 3: because seven hundred and sixteen years ago, on Friday October
Speaker 3: thirteenth of thirteen oh seven, seven hundred and sixteen years
Speaker 3: to the day, is when it is widely believed that
Speaker 3: the fear, this the phobia of Friday the thirteenth originated.
Speaker 3: And I love the how the psychologist. There's two technical
Speaker 3: terms paris skivy deca triphobia, which is the term, and
Speaker 3: frigatriska decaphobia, which is the Latin term, both of which
Speaker 3: mean fear of Friday the thirteenth, So these are this
Speaker 3: is a legitimate fear for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: And there's just trisca dicophobia. People every time thirteen comes up,
Speaker 2: they think it's unlucky. Yes, right, it's just the number itself,
Speaker 2: not even attaching it to a date or a day
Speaker 2: of the week.
Speaker 3: Well, there's a lot to it though. According to numerologists,
Speaker 3: twelve is considered the number of completeness. There's twelve astrological signs,
Speaker 3: twelve months in a year, twelve hours on a clock.
Speaker 3: In ancient Greece, there were twelve main gods on Mount Olympus.
Speaker 3: In Judaism, there were twelve tribes of Israel. In Christianity
Speaker 3: there were twelve apostles of Jesus. So twelve was always
Speaker 3: looked at as a number of completeness, a high standard,
Speaker 3: but the number thirteen was irregular because it considered to
Speaker 3: upset the balance of twelve. And the belief where this
Speaker 3: came from may have originated in Norse mythology and then
Speaker 3: mirrored in early Christian beliefs about the Last Supper that
Speaker 3: having thirteen people seated at a table, one will die
Speaker 3: within a year, and according to legend, there are thirteen
Speaker 3: witches in a covin. But you know, this may sound irrational,
Speaker 3: but then again, think about it again. And for all
Speaker 3: the coast to coast listeners, most cities don't have a
Speaker 3: thirteenth street. Hotels have no thirteenth floor because many people
Speaker 3: won't stay on that floor.
Speaker 2: But I'm so I'm so glad that tradition stopped. There
Speaker 2: was a time when that's always true. And you can
Speaker 2: almost mark buildings at a time when people started saying,
Speaker 2: or architects or it's just saying, pish posh, there is
Speaker 2: a thirteenth floor. We might as well call it the
Speaker 2: thirteenth floor, because you count them up from the ground,
Speaker 2: there is going to be thirteenth floor. It's not like
Speaker 2: you magically skip a floor, I know.
Speaker 3: But then again, of all the NASA manned missions to
Speaker 3: the Moon, it was Apollo thirteen, right that had the
Speaker 3: disaster and thanks to the genius of NASA. And I
Speaker 3: have to put a plug in here for my dad
Speaker 3: who has passed on. He was one of the team,
Speaker 3: one of the Aerospace cool members that helped figure out
Speaker 3: how to get Apollo thirteen back.
Speaker 2: So whip smart.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, in that situation, that was about as bad
Speaker 3: luck as you're going to get. You had had an
Speaker 3: oxygen tank blow up on the command module, so clearly
Speaker 3: there was no way that the mission could be sustained.
Speaker 3: And you know, I'm sure we've all heard or seen excerpts,
Speaker 3: if not seen the movie Apollo thirteen. They actually transmitted Houston,
Speaker 3: we have a problem. And I remember being I was
Speaker 3: really young, and my dad came home from work and
Speaker 3: he said, we got to figure something out tonight. He
Speaker 3: came home to eat dinner and he goes, you know,
Speaker 3: to my mom, I got to go back back in.
Speaker 3: He said, we got to figure out something tonight or
Speaker 3: these guys are going to die. And I said, but Dad,
Speaker 3: on TV, they said it's going to be okay. He goes,
Speaker 3: that's what they're telling us. We don't come up with
Speaker 3: something tonight, and they did. And so there's a situation
Speaker 3: that involves really bad luck. But then when you put
Speaker 3: the best and brightest on, okay, instead of caving into
Speaker 3: the fear, let's analyze the situation, take all the factors,
Speaker 3: what do we have to work with, and you come
Speaker 3: up with a solution. So, you know, thirteen, yes, maybe
Speaker 3: that was a coincidence, but I don't believe in coincidences,
Speaker 3: but it was Apollo thirteen that almost didn't make it.
Speaker 1: You know that.
Speaker 2: It's funny as you spell that out like that, and
Speaker 2: I'm I'm inclined to think that this is what there's
Speaker 2: that certain amount of magical thinking goes into that, and
Speaker 2: I'm not. But but often is sort of a reflection
Speaker 2: that people are focused on one thing, and in a
Speaker 2: way it kind of helps them deal with the world.
Speaker 2: If if they can avoid thirteen, then they then they
Speaker 2: are actively trying to avoid problems, or they're actively trying
Speaker 2: to avoid bad luck, and or if they really look
Speaker 2: at October, you know, if they look at Friday the
Speaker 2: thirteenth and I think, well, I'm just going to stay
Speaker 2: in bed tonight. You're going to stay close to home.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe that's its own kind of way of
Speaker 2: acknowledging that the rest of my life is so good,
Speaker 2: this is what I'm going to step aside for and
Speaker 2: not necessarily be so overwhelmed by thirteen that they can't
Speaker 2: step outside. You see what I'm saying. It becomes almost
Speaker 2: like a kind of symbolism for all that could go wrong,
Speaker 2: and so you try to avoid it, just like we
Speaker 2: should normally.
Speaker 3: And there's actually statistics to back up what you just said.
Speaker 3: According to the late Donald Dossi of the Stress Management
Speaker 3: Center in Phobia Institute, Nashville, Carolina, twenty one million Americans
Speaker 3: fear Friday the thirteenth, to the point where they won't
Speaker 3: leave the house. They avoid normal routines, they won't drive,
Speaker 3: they won't fly. They're absolutely paralyzed by this fear. And
Speaker 3: it's been estimated in that nearly nine hundred million dollars
Speaker 3: in business is lost every Friday the thirteen. Wow, because
Speaker 3: and it shows the studies show that there's fewer accidents,
Speaker 3: feer fires, fewer thefts because people don't go out. So there,
Speaker 3: you know, there's a flip side to it. Yeah, which
Speaker 3: isn't almost a billion in revenue on Friday the thirty
Speaker 3: that's probably made up on Saturday fourteen. But because people
Speaker 3: don't you know a lot of people won't go out,
Speaker 3: they're not driving as much, there's less mishaps. Yeah, So
Speaker 3: you know, it's funny, it's it's it's you know, there's
Speaker 3: this oh it's bad luck. But then again it does
Speaker 3: translate into into actual actual dollars.
Speaker 2: One of my children, my oldest son was born on
Speaker 2: Friday the thirteenth, and somebody told me, well, now from
Speaker 2: now on Friday the thirteenth is your lucky day. And
Speaker 2: it turned, it turns the whole thing on its head,
Speaker 2: that that Friday, that Friday the thirteenth, at any time,
Speaker 2: any thirteen is now your lucky number because your child
Speaker 2: survived on the thirteenth of a Friday. Someday I think,
Speaker 2: I mean, I never really put much faith in it anyway,
Speaker 2: but I thought, yeah, I've always felt very lucky as
Speaker 2: a result of that.
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