Over the years I have spoken to many very successful business people and entrepreneurs and every single one of them told me the same thing. To be successful, it takes a lot of hard work and you need a little luck. A few of these successful people even made the connection that the “little luck” comes from the “hard work”. Most of them didn’t put 2 and 2 together and realize that the only reason they got lucky was because of the hard work they put in. Regardless of what field you are in, you will not get lucky sitting on your rear playing video games all day, unless you are in the gaming industry and you are learning from all the playing that you are doing. My point is that if you want to get lucky, you have to look for the luck. A real estate investor cannot not sit at home on his couch all day waiting for a seller to ring his doorbell and offer him a property. A successful real estate investor is constantly doing research, meeting with people, networking going over numbers. All of that is hard work and if he keeps it up, two things will happen. One, he will eventually find an investment property to invest in, either through his research or networking. And two, he will become more knowledgeable in what to look for and therefore be able to spot more opportunities that less skilled investors don’t see.
Take for example, two people starting businesses in the same field at the same time in the same area. They both work on building their business to become profitable but after a year, one of them closes. Two years down the road, the business that stayed open is extremely successful. From the outside people might say that they got lucky. The economy might have turned or other factors might have come into play. Looking at the first company, you might see that the company failed and closed up shop. Looking at the second company, if you look deep down into the business, you may see that the company failed as well, and it probably did. The difference between the two companies is that one of them took the failure and closed up shop while the other learned from their failure, fixed their mistakes and kept going. Chances are that the second company failed many more times but kept going ahead with their business plan. As I wrote in Lucky Failures Can Lead to Success, the way to success is to work through the failures because failing is the road to success.
A lucky person gives everything 110% effort and is always going the extra mile. Luckortunity comes from all the extra experiences, looking at the big picture and pushing yourself forward. An unlucky salesman will knock on three doors, get rejected three times and then realize that sales is not for him. A lucky person will knock on those same three doors, get rejected and then keep knocking until he makes a sale. It might take him 100 tries or more but at the end of it all, he made a sale and had 100 chances to refine his sales pitch, figure out what works and build up his confidence.
These examples can be used for anything. Some people are lucky in love by finding just the right person, some are lucky by finding the right home or job and some are lucky by building a successful business. The point is, the harder you work, the more luckortunity there is and the luckier you can get.
Previous Posts in this Series: 10 Ways to Increase your Luck.