Challenge your belief – 5 Lessons from Lucky 7

A Universal Belief – Lucky 7

We sometimes take things for granted as we are overly guided by our long held beliefs. Most of us have accepted the concept of Lucky 7 without much protest.

Sometimes, it might take an event of global magnitude to shake long held beliefs. In this case, all it took to rattle my belief was a casual conversation with a young child !

Lucky 7 – A belief rattled

I am sharing some insights post an interesting conversation with my children. In a discussion on the unluckiest number and its rationale, my son chipped in with pearls of wisdom:

“7 is the most unlucky number, because everyone expects it to be lucky all the time and there are so many expectations from ‘Lucky 7’ that it just cannot fulfill. Hence, it is quite an unlucky number”.

Simple words coming from a 10 year old that impress a proud father. However, are there some hidden lessons to Make YOUR world a better place?

Surely, so let us see what lessons can be abstracted from Lucky 7.

Lessons from Lucky 7

There are several strands of thoughts that you can pick up from this simple conversation. Here is my list of 5 Lessons from the experiences of Not So Lucky 7

1. Bet on Different Horses: Do not increase the burden of expectations on your 7s aka winners. You need more winning horses to spread your bets.
2. Compassion for the 7s: A child can think compassionately for a lifeless number. Surely, the pressure is on all of us to show more empathy and compassion for our 7s.
3. Life Beyond 7s – Take Some Risks: There is safety in numbers and greater safety in safer numbers. This leads to a risk avoidance approach and systemic destruction of ability to take calculated risks. The least risk and the luckiest option holds out a placard saying “Choose Me”. Even if you fail, you will not look like a fool for betting on me. It is time to look beyond the 7s and take appropriate risks.
4. History May Not Repeat Itself: In a VUCA world, history certainly will not repeat itself. New business models are emerging with lightning frequency. Industry dynamics are being turned on their heads in several segments. Time to introspect on what we consider to be our 7s.
5. Success – Our Biggest Enemy: The aura of historical successes has blindfolded and subsequently devastated many an empire. In case you were wondering in #4 above that history does repeat itself, you were absolutely right. Some patterns do repeat themselves !

This list can continue but I will stop at #5.

Your Lucky 7 ?

I am sure each one of you will have your individual perspective, interpretation and circumstances.

Please do post your comments and thoughts on what belief you have challenged to make YOUR world a better place !

In case you are interested in…

• How to win at the game of Lucky 7 – Check out my response on Quora here.
• What happened after a chance discovery of a trivial 5th grade problem? What followed after an understanding of the divisibility test of 7? Why “Child is Father of the Man?“
• 7 V’s of Big Data – A new framework with the Big V – Value – of Big Data at it’s core.
• <Inserted in 2018> Lucky 7 Thoughts – Seven Things I learnt on completing seven years as CEO of Anand and Anand