I’ve always wanted to visit Japan. I am people watcher, I love to travel, see new places and see how people live their lives. The different cultures fascinate me and I am always excited to see new things. I have traveled to six countries, seven provinces in Canada and forty-four states in the USA. Although it would be great to see how people live in Japan, the main reason I want to visit is because they are extremely innovative. They have hundreds, if not thousands of products and inventions that the United States have never even heard of.
I once stumbled upon a website with pictures of all kinds of different funny things in Japan as well as a vending machine like parking lot where you would park your car in one specific spot and your car would be taken automatically to an empty spot in the parking garage. When you wanted your car back, you would punch in your number and your car would be vended right to you.
One amazing innovation from Japan is the square watermelon. I was amazed when I first heard about them a few years ago but was reminded of them yesterday while reading another article by Andy Sernovitz about the Lesson of the Square Watermelon. The story behind them is that watermelons are traditionally big oval shaped and heavy. It is very hard to ship them to stores and stack them in the isles. The square watermelon was the response to this problem making them more efficient to ship and stack and resulted in a huge increase to the bottom line.
As Andy said in his article, people never thought of square watermelons as an option so they thought that it would be impossible to grow. In life we think of many things as impossible and because of that, we never attempt to do them. By writing things off as “impossible”, we give up on many great opportunities.
Unlucky people give up right away when faced with a challenge claiming that it is impossible. Lucky people take the challenge and may come to the conclusion that the challenge is impossible but they may figure out a way to complete the challenge and realize that it is a lot easier than it seems.
I am a typical person more or less that has always tried to get away with doing the absolute minimum to get by. In school, I did my assignments last minute, I barely passes some of my tests, I crammed for everything and didn't care about retaining any information. I always wanted to be successful and get lucky but my problem was that I thought that luck and chance were synonymous. One day, all that changed when i found out that there was more to "Luck". I learned that it was possible to make your own luck and that people that were "lucky", all had very similar characteristics. I made a conscious decision to become one of those lucky people and the world started to open up. It didn't happen overnight and I'm still not there yet but at least I know what to look for and what to do. Recognizing the opportunities to get lucky is only the beginning of the battle. Now I have to train myself to jump on every opportunity and one day be truly "lucky".
You’re Taking the Wrong Route to Work (and how to find the right route)
11 Companies and People that you Wouldn’t Believe Failed (and how you can Succeed like them)
My ADD has ADD: How to get focused in a distracting world when you need to get stuff done
Get Lucky Even Though Your Parents Were Wrong
Give Someone a Compliment when you Stub your Toe
Don’t Let Your Friends and the Media Luck Block You!
They’re All Going to Laugh at You!
Never Turn on your Computer Again Without an Agenda