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“Diligence is the mother of good luck.” – Benjamin Franklin
You see lucky people everywhere. They have rich parents, they are good at sports, and they nearly always get good grades in school. Most of us, however, are just ordinary. We don’t have rich parents, we’re not very good at sports, and we barely pass our exams. For a lot more of us, it’s even worse as we’re often saddled with disadvantages and life often feels like an uphill climb.
You probably know what it’s like. You study hard for your exams and you barely pass that test. You work hard at your job and you still don’t get promoted. You try to improve your business yet sales don’t increase one bit. While you’re doing all that, other people seem to just glide through life. Some people just have all the luck, right?
You know, I wish luck will give me a billion-dollar business tomorrow. I also want to get lucky and become a world champion athlete as well. I mean, that how most people think luck works right? You wake up one day and you suddenly built a multinational corporation from thin air, you suddenly won the world title fight without ever leaving your couch, or you go from fast food worker to a real estate billionaire in a day because you got “lucky.”
Sadly, that doesn’t happen. So what can we do about it?
Life is like Basketball
Do you remember the first few times you’ve tried to shoot a basketball through the hoop? You probably missed. A Lot. Really, you shoot and miss. Shoot and miss. Repeat that a dozen times over. At some points, you got some lucky shots, but most of the time you missed.
As you adjust your aim, throw it a little higher, angle it a certain way, or put a little more control to your throw, you might score a bit more often. You’ll still shoot and miss, but you’ll get “lucky” shots more and more.
Soon, you’ll start scoring a lot. As you keep doing it, you’ll even start scoring more than your friends. That goes for your career and business too, or everything else in your life.
Who are the “Lucky People”?
They are the ones who work overtime and learned how to earn the respect of their peers and bosses. They are the ones who learned and adjusted their marketing and sales and improved their products. They are the ones who learned what works and kept trying until they became great.
(“Rich kids”? Don’t forget, they have what they have because their parents or grandparents had to WORK and EARN it all. Mansions and multinational corporations don’t appear out of thin air you know.)
Luck doesn’t always happen… but you can MAKE it happen.
“Many men believe that the affairs of the world are governed by luck and by God; that even wise men cannot control them, nor can anyone even improve things. They would have us believe that it is not necessary to toil and sweat much over things, but to let chance govern them. Fortune may be the arbiter of one half of our actions, but she still leaves us the other half, or perhaps a little less, to our free will.”
– Niccolò Machiavelli
Ignore what (Unsuccessful) People say and the Excuses they provide you:
Many take “work hard and do better” as an insult as they think it means something like “poor people are poor because they don’t work hard enough.” Well what’s the alternative? DON’T work at all? If you’re not born lucky, there’s nothing you can do?
And then they give excuses:
“Only a few are lucky enough to be born healthy.” (Translation: You have no control over your own body so don’t even try. Just keep eating sacks of junk food every day and don’t bother getting off the couch.)
“Only a few are lucky enough to be born talented.” (Translation: No matter how much you practice or train, you’re useless.)
“Only a few are lucky enough to be born rich.” (Translation: No matter what you do, there’s no way you’re going to achieve anything in life.)
Whatever people say, just keep shooting, missing, and adjusting. One great thing about not being born lucky is that we quickly learn that we can earn our skill. Whatever you want, you don’t need to wait for “luck” to give it to you. You can simply work to earn it.
Eat nutritious food, limit or stop eating unhealthy junk food, and exercise often.
Study the rules and strategies of the game, get a good coach and role model, and then practice and compete a lot.
Do better at work, learn new skills and ways to create more value, save, invest, and slowly grow wealthy.
You’ll miss and fail a lot especially when you start. Adjust, learn, and keep going. Like what Zig Ziglar said, “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly–until you can learn to do it well.”
Eventually, you’ll get good. You’ll become healthy, talented, and rich.
…and THEN people will start calling you “Lucky.”
“Luck is great, but most of life is hard work.” – Iain Duncan Smith