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