Good luck is more than a game of chance and lucky numbers or lucky charms.

Consider this true story about the famous recording artist Ella Fitzgerald, now deceased, once called the First Lady of Song whose singing career spanned six decades from the ’30s to the ’80s, in which time she won no less than 13 Grammy Awards. At the age of sixteen Ella entered a talent quest at the Harlem Opera House. It was Amateur Night and the nervous young lady had entered the competition not as a singer but as a dancer. Right at the last minute, for some unexplained reason, she changed her mind and chose to sing instead of dance. She gave three encores and won first prize.

In his thought-provoking book ‘The Soul’s Code’ psychologist and university lecturer James Hillman ponders this sudden about face. “Was it chance that suddenly changed her mind? Did a singing gene suddenly kick in? Or might that moment have been an annunciation, calling Ella Fitzgerald to her particular fate?”

In my case my life purpose gene – or was it my fate? – waited until bankruptcy kicked in to show itself. It’s a fate I don’t wish you to repeat – I lost everything, my second marriage, my home, my freelance business, my car, savings, possessions, the lot. I was in a mess healthwise. Years later – too late – I found Caroline Myss’s brilliant book ‘Sacred Contracts’. I could fully relate to what she wrote:

“For our own good, each of us needs to learn what our mission is, because the details of how we live our lives accumulate to create health or illness.” Gene? Chance? Fate? Life purpose? Mission?

Since her particular field is health, I suggest the same warning can be applied to all other areas of our lives: career, success, relationships, love life, happiness, whatever else. Often it takes a major life crisis if we haven’t discovered our mission, our life’s true purpose, before about middle age. Maybe this is what the mid-life crisis is about, our destiny kicking in to remind us that we have a purpose awaiting our attention before it’s too late. Napoleon Hill gives another hint in his famous bestselling classic ‘Think & Grow Rich’:

“That is one of the tricks of opportunity. It has a sly habit of slipping in by the back door, and often it comes disguided in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.”

While Hill’s sources were the worlds of business and politics, a similar message was offered by scholar and author of world mythology Joseph Campbell in this book ‘The Hero With a Thousand Faces’ whose sources were the common themes of folklore, fairy tales and myths of the world. He uses the term ‘call to adventure’ (in our lives) to refer to the call of our destiny to recognise our life’s purpose:

“The herald or announcer of the adventure, therefore, is often dark, loathly, or terrifying, judged evil by the world; yet if one could follow, the way would be opened through the walls of day into the dark where the jewels glow.”

He adds that to refuse the ‘call’ (an invitation to experience good luck) converts the ‘adventure’ into its negative (bad luck). However, as he famously said, “Follow your bliss and doors will open where you never knew they existed.”

Hillman calls this the Acorn Theory, that we are born with a calling which, just as an acorn grows from a seed into a massive tree, so is our life’s purpose born with us to grow throughout our lives. In order to flourish and grow, we attract to us what we consider to be good luck.

The big secret is, luck is inextricably linked to life purpose. Our life purpose needs luck in order to grow, flourish and to be effective. Good Luck.

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