You are the lucky one

Tom Sangala June 12, 2017

262 3 minutes read

We know people who are always at the receiving end of better things in life – be it awards, appointments, recognition, you name it. We normally say they are lucky and we resign to the conclusion that we are not lucky or are not well connected. That is the inability to utilise the potential we have. We all have the same chances of success. What differentiates us from those we say are lucky is that they are peak performers, they work hard on their dreams, they keep on improving their skills, they keep on practising what they are best at and eventually succeed.

James Allen was right that people do not attract that which they want but that which they are. The path to success and to being lucky starts by realising that, just like anybody else, you have resources that you never know you had, a sense of internal power, efficiency and effectiveness to allow you to make a quantum leap of performance. Just as you are admiring the life stories of other people, come to believe that you also have a hidden story, that if written through your works and deeds, will make other people will admire you and call you lucky. Be an action-oriented person. Never walk on the path of mediocrity. Challenge the other people’s thinking and be the one to make a difference.

You are the lucky one, only that you do not work hard to realise the luck. You keep on blaming your background that you never went to school, you were born in a poor family or you were an orphan at a tender age. The more you blame the past, the more you inhibit your opportunities to rise to the future of your dreams.

Stewart Chibanda rightly puts it that there are many people that grew up in poor environments with a distinct and noticeable disadvantaged background who told themselves a different story that they would do better and succeed in life. America’s celebrated President Abraham Lincoln was son of a deer-hunter and illiterate carpenter. He was a poor boy who claimed to have been educated by ‘littles’ – a little now and a little then. The total sum of his home education did not amount to one full year. In fact, the ugly face of poverty in his family glared its teeth when at one point his mother had to pin dresses with wild thorns.

Make a difference. That is all what Stewart Chibanda advises. That is how you pay rent for being on earth. That is how you pay rent for breathing. One of the best ways to start making a difference is to monitor your self-talk. Monitor the stories you tell yourself. Monitor those stories every day and every minute.

Catch the cloak of your luck. You are the next to be called lucky only after you have worked very hard on your dreams and after you have failed many times but not give up.

Thomas Edison, who himself did 9,999 experiments to come up with a light bulb at the 10,000th attempt, says: “Many of life’s failures are those people who did not realise how close they were to success when they gave up.”

We give up easily, yet expect better things and glory. That formula does not work. Life is brutal. To make it big in life you have to fight misconceptions and challenge the beliefs of other people. You have to believe in yourself even when others do not seem to see wisdom in your dream. Success comes through the road not taken. Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison all for his dream and it worked; he eventually freed South Africa from apartheid. He got his luck having suffered in prison for over a quarter a century.

Your luck hides in what you love most. The simple formula is that do what you love most. Do what you enjoy doing. If you do so, success will find you, you will realise your luck.

Sir David Frost once said: “Success is a by-product of doing what you believe in and enjoy.” Look at how successful footballers enjoy playing football. They make playing football look that easy, yet it is not. If you love singing, then work hard on that dream, you could be the next Michael Jackson. If running comes easy to your feet, then you could beat Usain Bolt’s record in future, or if you love cracking jokes, then you are the next TV star celebrity. Any talent you have has strings that draw luck to you.

Take action. You are the lucky one.