Luck & Success

WHAT DOES LUCK have to do with success and is it a requirement? Do all successful people have good luck? Are they just in the right place at the right time? Actually if you take the time to study successful people, in most cases you will learn some amazing things about them. You will learn about the struggles they had, just like everyone else does, and how they overcame those struggles.

Here are a couple of real life struggles I have dealt with to give you some perspective:
Many years ago, when I was pregnant with our son, our daughter became very ill and was hospitalized. It was something very serious and I was 9 months pregnant. When we have personal challenges, it is easy to take your focus off other responsibilities. I stayed at the hospital with her day and night, sleeping beside her bed for two weeks. I was busier than I had ever been in my business, and was working from the hospital room. I had a ladies wear business then, and I had orders coming in that needed to be sorted and delivered to clients. I just wanted to cancel all my business appointments and just be with my daughter, but felt a responsibility to my clients. We often believe we must choose one thing or the other. I decided to choose both. My husband would bring boxes of clothes each day for me to sort and tag for clients, and then he would take them back and deliver them for me. I also had appointments to meet with clients in the evenings, so he would come to the hospital and watch over our daughter while I went on the appointments. I came back about 3 hours later, and stayed with her again when my appointments were completed. My feet were so swollen I couldn’t fit them in my shoes, so wore slippers from the hospital to their front doors, where I slid my swollen feet into my shoes to look presentable when the client opened the door. That year I had my personal best year in sales. Wasn’t I lucky?

I changed businesses about 12 yrs ago because my income had dropped to about 1/3 of what I had been earning for 5 yrs in a row. That had left us in a tough financial position and it was the worst time ever I could consider starting a new business. It was a time that most would choose to play it safe, and not take any risks. I knew if the new business didn’t work out, we could lose everything we had worked for. I had to go through the learning curve of learning everything I needed to know to operate this new business successfully. I was still running my prior business part-time, and with the added hours I was putting in to the new business, it was normal to still find me in my office at 2 am, and back up at 6 to start the next day. That went on for 6 months before I was in a position to leave my original business. I went on to have my personal best year ever the following year. Wasn’t I lucky?
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Do you see the pattern in these stories? I was willing to face adversity, make changes, push through tough situations, never gave up…took massive actions. Was I lucky? Luck is found when you are willing to do what it takes, despite adversity, despite not feeling like it, despite having guarantees. I learned through all of this over the years…the harder I worked, the more committed I was, the more risk I was willing to take, the more I learned, the luckier I got…. Success is a result of being willing to do what it takes, like it or not.

As published on:  http://bizcatalyst360.com/luck-success/_