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I’ve never considered myself to be lucky.  Yet many people have called me that recently.  I associate the word luck with chance.  Random happenstance.  There is nothing particularly random about the place my life is at right now.  It is very close to what I’ve been working towards for years.

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

–Seneca (Roman philosopher, mid-1st century AD)”

I don’t like the word luck.  To me it removes the element of skill.  When I think of luck I think of winning the lottery.  Dumb luck.  You bought a ticket just like everyone else and you were randomly picked.  Yay you.

What you want in your life is to be one of those people others perceive as lucky.   How did you find your beautiful spouse?  How did you get that great job?  You met someone and they were so impressed by you that it all flowed from there.  Lucky right?  Not really.  The key difference here is  they were impressed by you or simply liked you, that was that catalyst for your “luck.”

People tend to like what is similar to them.  They like people with similar interests.  They like people who dress in a similar style.  For smart, beautiful and successful people to like you all you need is to be smart, beautiful and successful yourself.

If you want to be a part of a certain crowd you need to act like it.   It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that in order to be a thin person you need to eat like a thin person.   To be an athlete you need to work out like an athlete.  Yet people often think they can simply go on a diet for a few weeks and become thin or that they will become rich without doing the things rich people do.

“Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.

– Orison Swett Marden”

Luck, like anything, has to be earned and worked towards.  You can’t just wake up one day and be a jet fighter pilot.  You have to go to school to learn how to fly.  You have to train to be able to withstand intense g-forces.  Then you have to go out and prove, over and over again that you have done these things to the people who can put you into a position to be a fighter pilot.  Only then can you be lucky enough to become one.