Tag Lucky

How to be Lucky

Steve Keating 3 Comments

I’ll bet the title of this post will interest a lot of people. Sadly, many of those people will not finish reading it. They won’t get much further than the very next sentence.

You see, being lucky requires bunches of hard work.

To those of you still reading let me congratulate you on possessing one of the most important qualities of “lucky” people… perseverance. Luck has a much easier time finding people who remain in the game after the “unlucky” people have given up. So many times success in business, and in life, is just over that next horizon. Pushing yourself beyond what you thought were your limits will often provide you with the “luck” that you need to succeed.

Lucky people don’t wait around for something good to happen; they make good things happen by taking the initiative. Hockey great Wayne Gretzky is quoted as saying “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.” He scored a lot of goals and he took a lot of shots; the two tend to go hand-in-hand. 

You seldom see truly successful people sitting around saying “somebody ought to do something.” They know that they are somebody so instead of saying anything, they just get busy doing something. They are willing to risk failure so that they have a chance to succeed. When they fail, and make no mistake, they do fail, they learn from the failure and work harder so “luck” has a better chance of finding them next time.

Lucky people have a plan and it’s not only in their head. They have it written down. In great detail and with awesome specificity. The plan includes action steps all along the way. They don’t just read their plan, the execute their plan…every day.

Unlucky people say these people with a plan are lucky. Those unlucky people are correct. What the unlucky people don’t realize is that the lucky people made their luck when they made their plan.

Lucky people have a mentor or a coach. Their mentor helps them develop and execute their plan. Their mentor doesn’t allow them to quit. Their mentor pushes them to take the initiative. When they fail their mentor picks them up and shoves them back into the game. 

Their mentor is like their “lucky charm.” When people have a coach or mentor who truly cares about their success then they are not only lucky, they are blessed.

It’s tough to succeed and some days it may feel as if it’s getting tougher by the minute. Every successful person has had some help along the way with developing their own “luck.” If you truly want to be successful then find yourself a mentor and ask for their help. 

You will be surprised at just how lucky you really are!

The Three W’s

Steve Keating 5 Comments

Some people want stuff. Some people wish for stuff. Successful people work for stuff. 

I remember when the Mall of America was being built. It was a huge shopping mall that opened to much fanfare. I, in my infinite wisdom gave it a year. I was sure it was going to be a white elephant, destined to one day be bulldozed into oblivion. 

It’s undergoing a major addition as I write this, 23 years after it first opened. Pretty soon I’m going to have to admit that my prediction may not happen at all. 

The Mall of America now attracts more visitors each year than all the Disney theme parks from around the world… combined. I guess it’s doing okay.

I remember something, or more accurately, someone else from the time the mall was getting ready to open. His name was Bob, he was a pretty good sales person. He wasn’t flashy or especially polished but he was one of the hardest working sales professionals I’ve ever met, even to this very day.

Well Bob worked for a food service company and his goal was to sell his services to one or more of the many restaurants that would reside on the fourth floor of the mall. Most of the restaurants were national chains not based in Minnesota and he faced huge challenges just figuring out who the buyers were.

He met one road block after another. This guy said to talk to that guy, that guy said to talk to someone else. I’m certain most salespeople would have simply stopped trying.

But Bob kept working. He discovered that his biggest challenge was that one of the major restaurants was to be run by a management company out of California. So he pursued the buyer for the management company.

He found him and through a relatively brief conversation discovered he was the first salesperson who had gotten through to him. He also discovered something else….the management company was actually going to manage most of the fourth floor restaurants.  

Bob had struck gold…he sold ALL the accounts at once. It was a huge success and it was a huge sale.

As Bob shared the effort required to find all the people and put the deal together he kept repeating how lucky he was. Lucky to find the management company, lucky to find the buyer, lucky to be the first salesperson to get in. Yes, Bob was one lucky guy. Of course, his “luck” was completely created by his hard work. 

Bob demonstrated that the harder you work the luckier you get. Bob focused on the third W! 

You can want stuff you’ll never have, you can wish for stuff that the “lucky people” have or you can work for both and have what you earn. 

It is a life choice…I didn’t say it was an easy choice but it is a choice. In most cases those who would say the ability to work is not a choice have already made theirs.