Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking.

A positive, optimistic outlook does tend to keep one open to opportunity,

Indeed. Stripped of the lunacy parts, this seems to be mostly what Taleb was talking about.

Generally (in the long term) people have to take risks. Those who were incautious and get unlucky bad crash and burn, but those excessively risk-averse are often in a position where they wither with certainty.

Which had many recorded manifestations over millennia.

E.g. we know that debts increase risk aversion; which is enough to make them inherently poisonous; and that’s why “debt jubilee” thing was a widespread practice: it was adaptive. And so on.

We believe that parapsychology and psychical research contain a large amount of untapped potential for psychology. …psychical researchers and parapsychologists are often ahead of the curve and conduct pioneering studies into topics that are relevant to mainstream psychology.

https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/missing-trick-how-psychology-could-benefit-more-paranormal

Still, my opinion of him was formed circa 1990 and it’s not easy to forgive him.

I think Richard Wiseman is an intellectually dishonest denier of psi evidence, but I also imagine I would be lucky if I were forgive him for his sins, so I will stop complaining and get busy with forgiveness.

A positive, optimistic outlook does tend to keep one open to opportunity, whereas a negative outlook tends to one withdrawn and effectively paralyzed. So the optimist accomplishes more. But many people are delusional, and do not understand the reality around them.

For example, they spontaneously imagine how things could have been worse, do not dwell on the ill fortune, and take control of the situation.

Or as that proverb says: «a pessimist is but a well-informed optimist».

“Lucky” people are either really lucky or they are people who know exactly what they are doing.

Most people don’t realize that because most people think they already know what they’re doing, but in fact, most people are clueless about everything and keep trying to consume “signals” to luck it out.

Pathetic, we only got to this point because of ‘education’ — if people didn’t even know how to read they wouldn’t be so conceited and hubristic.

“Just go with your gut” is the worst advice you can give to some people. Some guts are smarter than others.