You Feeling Lucky?

I met an old friend for coffee the other day and she got me thinking about opportunity and luck.

Which reminded me of this parable I heard sometime in the early days of starting my business.
(Sorry, I don't remember where or from whom).

The Parable of the Lucky Horse

A rancher's horse ran away.

His neighbor came by and said, "Too bad. That's unlucky."

"We'll see," said the rancher.

Two days later, the horse returned followed by 10 wild horses.

"Oh, that's lucky," the rancher's neighbor said.

"We'll see," said the rancher.

Later that week, the rancher's son was taming the wild horses when he was kicked to the ground. Several of his ribs were broken and he was unable to help out on the ranch for a while.

"That's too bad," said the neighbor, "what rotten luck."

"We'll see," said the rancher.

As the son was recuperating, war broke out and the army came to round up recruits. Seeing the rancher's son was not fit to fight, they passed him by, enlisting all the other able-bodied, of age children in town.

"You're so lucky," said the neighbor.

"We'll see," said the rancher, "what tomorrow brings."

Here are my takeaways from this parable:

When you have no control over a situation or events, it's your perception that makes the difference.
What seems like a setback in the moment may, in hindsight, be a blessing (and vice versa).
Just as you can't change the past, you can't accurately predict the future, so be content in the present.
The only dependable thing is change. Make your peace with it.
Luck and opportunity often depend on how you frame things.
This is helpful to remember when envying someone else's success.

To me, opportunity and luck have a lot in common. Although we act like each one comes out of the blue, they involve work and effort on our part to occur.

Thomas Jefferson famously noted, "I find the harder I work, the more luck I have."

In other words, you've got to roll out the welcome mat to entice opportunity to knock on your door, and you've got to give luck a map to find you.

A few ways to do that as an entrepreneur are by:

Consistently giving and asking for testimonials, referrals, and introductions.
Celebrating others and touting your own accomplishments, successes, and achievements.
Sitting comfortably in your zone of excellence, while regularly stretching to expand its limitations.
Being honestly and authentically yourself and embracing what makes you awesome, unique, and extra.

I know a lot of folks practice different ways of manifesting the life they want. If you've got a system or method that's working for you, I'd love to hear about.

Drop me a line and let me know how you're attracting opportunity and drawing the luck of the universe to you.

Until next week, I'll leave you with a few nuggets of wisdom on luck and opportunity to ponder:

— Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get. —Ray Kroc
— Sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck. —Dalai Lama XIV
— A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. —Francis Bacon
—We often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work. —Thomas Edison
—You don’t know if it’s good or bad [luck] until you have some perspective. —Alice Hoffman

Want to rely on more than luck to build your business?

Book your strategy session today.

PS - In case you missed it, last week I explored The Value of Trust and how to build and manage it with your messaging.

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