Lucky Number Seven

What’s the luckiest number? A variety of surveys have shown that most people choose 7. Lucky number seven.

Why seven?  A few years ago, I wrote an article which had a few theories on what makes seven special:

• There are seven openings in the head: the ears, eyes, nostrils and mouth
• Physiologically and biblically speaking, six is the optimal number of days to work before you need a day of rest
• Seven (plus or minus two) is the number of things a person can remember simultaneously

At a get-together this weekend, I mentioned these theories to an acquaintance and she told me the following story:

A man meets a friend on the street and asks “What’s wrong? You look a little down.”

His friend sighs. “Yea, I really thought today was going to be my day. I woke up at exactly 7 a.m. and realized it was July 7 – that’s the seventh day of the seventh month. I put on my pants and found seven dollars and seven cents in my pocket. When I went to make breakfast, I had 7 eggs left.

It was a sign. I took the number 7 bus to the racetrack and – would you believe it – the seventh horse in the seventh race was named Seven-Up… running at 7-to-1 odds! Of course, I bet seven hundred seventy-seven dollars on Seven-Up to win.”

“Well, what happened?” demanded the friend.

“He came in seventh.”

Lucky number seven, indeed.

In life and in business, we sometimes misinterpret data so that it supports conclusions we wish were true.