Voices

Douglas Flora

Sep 9, 2025, 12:07

Douglas Flora: The Real Secret Behind “Lucky” People

Douglas Flora, President-Elect Association of Cancer Care Centers at Association of Cancer Care Centers, shared a post on LinkedIn:

“The Real Secret Behind ‘Lucky‘ People

‘Think that you are lucky. If you think like that, bit by bit luck will seek you out.’ — Japanese Proverb

My daughter Reilly Flora gave me a great book for my birthday: ‘Maneki Neko: The Japanese Secret to Good Luck and Happiness.’ She’s a second-year med student at UC and one of the most thoughtful people I know.

The book makes a bold argument: luck isn’t really luck. The people we call “fortunate” are usually doing three things with consistency:

Effort — The Japanese call it kaizen: small, continuous improvements. Most of us wait for the big breakthrough but miss the daily grind that actually creates it.
Wisdom — Knowing what really moves the needle. Not what looks busy or sounds impressive, but what actually changes outcomes. What is the ONE KPI that matters most? Move it.
Confidence — The quiet kind. Believing your work matters even when results are slow to show up. (In oncology, where progress can feel painstakingly slow, this one resonates deeply.) Oncology people: your work matters.

Reilly embodies all three. She won’t see this post—she’s heads-down in an exam today (I did wish her luck) but her gift was a reminder:

We call people ‘lucky’ when we don’t see the steady effort, smart decisions, and quiet belief that made their success inevitable.

So here’s my question for you:

In your field, are the ‘lucky’ people truly lucky… or are they simply working differently?”

Douglas Flora: The Real Secret Behind "Lucky" People