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We should stop praising the world’s top CEOs because a new study by a business journal shows that they are not as good as everyone thinks they are–they’re LUCKY!

In the June 25th edition of the Financial Times, Lucy Kellaway writes: "Take Bill Gates. Had he not come from a well-off family–making it easy for him to indulge his young love affair with computers–and had his well-connected mother not opened doors with IBM, he probably wouldn’t have become the richest man in the world. That doesn’t mean that Mr. Gates isn’t clever, it just means that we can study him all we like but we’re not going to end up where he is."
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People who believe that fate and chance control their lives are more likely to be superstitious, but when faced with death they are likely to abandon superstition altogether.
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Can luck really influence the outcome of events? Athletes clearly think so: Many baseball players have talismans they carry around with them and perform elaborate rituals before getting up to bat. Investors are also superstitious (and their lucky charms haven’t been working lately).

In the April 29th edition of the Wall Street Journal, Carl Bialik writes about German researchers who tested this by telling a group of golfers that some of them were playing with “lucky balls.” Those who thought their balls were lucky sank more putts than those who thought they had regular balls. Bialik quotes psychologist Stuart Vyse as saying, “Simply being told this is a lucky ball is sufficient to affect performance.”
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Many people consider the number 7 to be lucky, so this Saturday, July 7 (which is 7/7/07) must be particularly lucky. July 7 was a very UNlucky day for the British in 2005, since that was the date of the terrorist bus bombings there. Recent events suggest that Al Qaeda elements in that country are aiming for 7/7 again. Meanwhile, brides across the US are setting July 7 as their wedding day, believing that this year?s 777 combination will be especially lucky. Where did the idea that 7 is a lucky number come from, anyway?
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