Only People Who Believe in Luck Have It

How belief in luck makes us bolder and better.

Richard Branson will be the first to tell you that he’s generally a lucky person in business and life.

An adrenaline junkie, he’s lived through several near-death experiences, including in the early ’70s, when he and his then-wife survived a shipwreck that no other passengers did by jumping off the boat in a storm and swimming to shore.

The first song on the first album that his recording studio, Virgin Records, put out — “Tubular Bells” on the album of the same name by artist Mike Oldfield — was used as The Exorcist theme song and has sold nearly 20 million copies to date.

Branson later made a mad leap from Virgin Records to launch Virgin Atlantic, an airline so bold that his bank threatened to shut him down. The airline saw a record total revenue of £3.1 billion in 2023.

In 2014, when asked “how important luck is in building a great business,” Branson replied:

I think luck certainly plays a part in it, because there are lots of people out there who’ve worked enormously hard who haven’t been successful. But you know the old saying, by working hard, by making the right moves, you can create your own luck, I think. But certainly luck plays a part. I’ve been lucky to have survived balloon trips, boating…