It is because of the four tries that we might doubt it is possible. Not for any other reason. I mean, beside some yellow and red, the test in Eden Park seemed quite possibly Green&Gold!

Yes, I have read some counter arguments from various writers around the world, not least the long-breathed slander that the Boks had no chance. That’s rubbish, as I addressed here.

But again, I say, they need to be lucky, and let me try to put that into perspective for you.

My recent travel schedule: Cape Town/Argentina/Cape Town/Brisbane/Auckland/Perth/Johannesburg/Cape Town/ Johannesburg/Cape Town/Dubai/Johannesburg/Cape Town/ Hermanus, and now eventually, Cape Town again.

Aaah, bliss! (Next week is CPT/DBN/JHB/CPT – I’ll deal with that then!)

I am lucky enough to enjoy travel, and have always done. I am lucky to be able to benefit from visits to places that friends and family might never see. Either through sport, business or leisure travel, but I have always embraced it and found it exciting.

The magic of people and places that are new or even revisited, is that they can be manipulated by your own attitude to them. I am lucky enough to see it like that too.

Even bad meals in new places can be funny and memorable, chance meetings with wild characters that you wouldn't ever have seen, can be turned positive or negative by the way you go about them, and that is the key.

Some elements of travel for sport can be arduous, as the above itinerary suggests, and even hotel rooms on the others side of the world, are mostly just that, hotel rooms.

You have to want to embrace the experience to enjoy it, find out what is good and where to go and who to meet. Travel is not for everyone, but it is a lot more fun if your attitude and reaction to adversity is better.

For example, if you are lucky enough to enjoy it!

Glass half full?

Maybe. But it’s my glass, and I will see it as I want. But the point is, the way you react to something can impact you positively, and has been proven to do so.

Richard Wiseman, author and speaker, writes in his book The Luck Factor that lucky people actually choose to be so, and unlucky people the same.

He uses a wonderful example of a staged job interview, where the environment was controlled and relates how the two candidates, expressly chosen for their own personal “lucky” and “unlucky” perceptions of their lives, had two vastly different experiences.

My question is, what part of our lives is controllable, and what is not? What measure can we implement that makes us react in different ways to opportunities, to relationships, to adversity? Can some parts of luck be learned?

Among others, Wiseman believes so, and has set about proving it. Candidate “lucky” went in to a coffee shop, found some money on the floor, bought a round of coffee because of it, struck up several conversations with strangers and effectively, won the chance to go through to the next round of interviews.

Candidate “unlucky” didn't, and the results were dire. “Unlucky” slipped into the corner of the coffee shop, hoping to be noticed, eventually. They never were, and as they slipped back in to the stream of people on the sidewalk, so did the opportunity.

Loosely proven, yes, for the moment, but there are several studies that prove that either perceived luck, positive attitude or outlook all contribute to outcome, and I happily continue in the belief that it is so very true. Effectively, again, I can say I am “lucky” to enjoy travel, as it is currently a huge part of my life.

That’s an easy thing to do, though, compared to changing an outcome in a less “alterable” reality.

What about the people who can change outcomes of difficult of or competitive things in their lives through their own projections?

Confusing to think of it backwards – but by a mental picture projected on an outcome, you can make yourself feel lucky, effective, or successful before you already are.