James Altcuher believes that how much luck someone has is not just randomly assigned to him or her. While he does not state that people can fully control how much luck they have, they can live in a specific way that will gradually give them more luck. To become luckier, he explains, one has to change their mindset about the world. He or she has to focus only on what makes him or her happy. This can be done through four steps. The first way is through physical exercise. Exercise is helpful to a person’s well being for a couple of reasons. It helps with breathing, anxiety, and it keeps the body healthy. The next step for someone to become happy is to get rid of his or her emotional stressors. One easy way for a person to achieve this is to get rid of any bad influences that he or she has in his or her life. Through doing this, that person will not be forced to do anything that he or she does not want to do. The last two ways that Altucher says that someone can become luckier and happier is grow his or her mind and spiritual presence. This can be achieved through meditating, praying, or completing tasks that are a mental strain. The basis for Altucher’s argument, is that if someone lives with joy and has a happy life, then he or she is generally going to have more luck. Also, that to have a happy life, one has to better themselves in a multitude of ways. 

Altucher’s theory seems like it might have some validity to it. He is basically saying that to become more lucky a person has to become happy and find peace within his or herself. Achieving these two things does not seem like a bad thing to do. Most people would assume that if they are happy, then they are living a good life. Accordingly, the steps that he outlines in his article, will all definitely contribute to being happy. First of all it has been scientifically proven that physical activities help to cure depression and anxiety. Indulging in a spiritual life, this being through a type of religious belief or simply meditation, has also been shown to reduce stress levels in the average person. His idea if someone creates a life for themselves where in that they are always happy will most of the time give him or her a better life. 

The problem with his process is that it would obviously improve someone’s life and also, that it can not be connected to luck. All of the things that he tells people to do that will make them luckier, will not actually make them luckier, only happier. This is because of the very way that luck works. Luck is a good outcome or bad outcome that is decided by random chance. If luck is decided by fully random chance, then there is no way that by living a certain way, someone can increase their luck. Altucher’s theory might seem factual because it gives off the illusion that someone’s luck would be better because his or her life was better. Because they now have a better life they feel as if their luck has turned around and now they have good luck. The truth is that that person’s life is better because they spent the time and work to improve themselves and create a better life.