WEBSTER’S new collegiate dictionary defines luck as “a force that brings good fortune or adversity; the events or circumstances that operate for or against all individuals”. The key words in the definition of luck are “force” and “events or circumstances” simply because they cause good things to happen.
If you are like most people, you probably have never realized that good fortune is caused by something or the other. And since it is ‘caused’, anyone can study and master this ‘cause and effect’ process, bringing good fortune to themselves.
Yes, that’s right. You too can make your own good fortune. I can almost see you raising a sceptical eyebrow. But just hang in there and trust me for a moment.
Here are the three examples that I would like you to study and analyze:
1. A barber named Sal won $100,000 in a state-run lottery — enough to support him and his wife in comparative luxury for the rest of their lives.
2. John was one of the five young executives employed in a steel company based in Akron, Ohio. Recently he was named manager of a newly-opened branch office in Phoenix, Arizona whereas the other four young executives muttered enviously under their breath: “That lucky dog.”
3. An unskilled blue collar worker named Steve was recently laid off along with half a dozen of his fellow workers on a county road maintenance crew. They lost their jobs during a round of budget pruning and belt tightening. The other six have gone on welfare and are looking, not very hopefully, for new jobs. Unlike them, Steve is now earning twice as much as he was before, running his own paving and patching service.
Each of these people was “lucky” in his own way. But while examining it closely, some important differences instantly come to mind.
For instance, when Sal won the lottery, he beat out odds of something like half a million to one.
“Luck” of this kind is hardly classifiable as luck at all. So many possible different outcomes can result from the spin of the wheel or a drawing from a hopper, depending on a near infinity of intangible influences, that what happens becomes a “random event”, subject only to “blind chance”. That’s why gambling games are often called “games of chance”. Aside from shelling out 50 cents to buy that lottery ticket at the corner news stand Sal did nothing but wait for the drawing to take place. Obviously there was nothing more he could do but wait. There was no way in which he could influence the outcome. John on his own time and initiative ran a series of computer studies showing that the Phoenix area (refer to example 2) was expanding faster than any place else in the country as a market for his company’s products, with a growth rate of over 300 per cent in the last four years. Moreover, he analyzed that particular area to determine, for example, it’s likely future trends as to the population growth, new construction, specific types of items most frequently ordered, available financing, etc. With this kind of hard-nosed market data, he was able to convince his boss, and ultimately the company’s top brass that opening a new branch in Phoenix was likely to be a high profitable move. Naturally, by the time the company had decided to make that move he had already established himself as the obvious and logical man to head the new operation.
He did not wait and hope that he would be selected as manager. John made his own luck; he learned to manipulate the odds so as to ensure that he would enjoy at least the more modest kind of luck.
Let’s examine Steve’s case.
Steve, in the course of maintaining county roads, had noticed that a lot of householders had sidewalks and driveways in need of slight repair. These are the kind of chores that most people tend to keep putting off simply because they require a certain amount of forethought, preliminary preparation and expense, and a modicum of physical effort. On weekends, Steve performed such mending jobs and because he knew that business was there. A steady trickle of calls kept coming from two ads placed in local community newspapers and from householders who had seen him doing such work for their neighbours. As things turned out, his emergency enterprise became a full time job. Steve is not investing in heavy equipment and bidding on a full-scale job as a paving contractor.
By now the difference between the lottery winner and the other two cases should be even more evident. The lottery winner did nothing but wait and hope. The other two worked actively to bring about their good luck.
It should be clear that our two cases of modest success (examples 2 and 3) share two other important qualities:
First of all two (examples 2 and 3) of these individuals were strongly motivated to succeed. Second, all of them were aiming at definite goals. They knew what they wanted and they wanted it so badly that they could almost taste it.
Wanting something intensely is the motivating power that produces good luck. It’s the steam that makes your personal engine of success go.
In other words the choice is yours. You have a couple of options mentioned below.
1. You can indulge in the kind of negative, antagonistic, self-defeating behaviour that produces failure.
2. You can sit back and do nothing. In which case your situation may not get any worse, but it’s not likely to get any better either.
3. Or you can adopt the kind of positive, productive, self-helping behaviour that makes for success.
I repeat: the choice is yours. The future is up to you — because luck is what you make of it.
WEBSTER’S new collegiate dictionary defines luck as “a force that brings good fortune or adversity; the events or circumstances that operate for or against all individuals”. The key words in the definition of luck are “force” and “events or circumstances” simply because they cause good things to happen.
