Mark S. Brown

Do you need luck to be successful? Many people believe it. But most successful people make their own luck. It is lucky if you are in the right place at the right time, but then many people are probably there also. So why is one person luckier than others? It takes being in the right place at the right time and to be aware of the opportunity around you.

It is not about luck. It is luck combined with awareness, competence, discernment, initiative, and so forth. No one is just lucky. People make their luck. So how can you make yourself more lucky?

1. Prepare. Prepare yourself for the future you want. Become a student of whatever subject you want success. Hang out with like minded people, and study those that are successful. Know what it takes. Know what the opportunity will look like.

2. Be aware. Keep yourself ready to take advantage of opportunities when they appear. Most people will miss the opportunity because they are not looking. They are still waiting to be lucky. Put yourself in situations and environments where opportunities happen. It is not likely to be in front of a television screen.

3. Take the initiative. When you see the door of opportunity you must walk through it. Successful people take risk. They do things that they are scared of doing. They step out into the unknown. Many successful journeys start when you do not know how you are going to do something, and yet you are focused on the successful completion.

Opportunities to be lucky are all around us. Prepare for success, find your opportunity, and make yourself some luck!

 

Nearly half of everyone that made New Year resolutions have already abandoned their goals. It is still January! Why is it that so many of us make great plans, but fail to follow through?

Change is hard. We want to achieve, but many of us don’t spend the effort to make success a reality.

We all stumble. We all fail sometimes, but failure due to lack of effort is different. You were not committed to be successful from the start.

Here are three things you can do to increase your success at keeping your 2012 resolutions.

1. Hold That Vision. My friend Paul Martinelli uses this phrase all the time. He taught me that in order to achieve a goal, you must know what it looks like. Then you must hold that vision. You must picture yourself achieving success. So make sure you know what the conclusion of your successful resolution looks like.

2. Keep Your Goal In Front of You Daily. Every day do something to move yourself towards your goal. Keep that action on your to-do list, or on a sticky note on your mirror, or on a card taped inside your car. Being successful will become a habit if you work at it every day.

3. Reflect Weekly on Progress. Are your actions showing progress? Do you need to adjust? How can you accelerate your progress? What has slowed you down? What obstacles do you need help with? Those are all questions you can be asking yourself every week. Make sure your actions are contributing towards your goal.

There is nothing new in those simple three tips. But before you abandon your 2012 resolutions, make sure your are putting in the effort.

It seems almost natural for people to avoid their weaknesses. None of us want to fail, or do we very often knowingly walk into a situation that will fail. Most recent leadership and developmental literature will recommend that you focus on your strengths. Do you know your strengths?

If you don’t know your strengths, I recommend you get the book, Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath. You will get a code that will let you take an online survey, and provide you the top 5 strength categories that fit your profile.

Why is that important? Not only can you focus on your strengths, but you can learn a lot about situations to avoid. Let me give you an example.

One of my top 5 strengths is “Learner”. Basically this is a category of people that love to learn. We love the process of learning, not just the knowledge we gain. Learners thrive in an environment where we are continually challenged with new information, new challenges, new processes, or new situations. For a learner, the learning journey s more important than “getting there” or becoming the subject expert.

So from knowing my strength area, what can I learn about my weaknesses or situations I need to avoid? Here is some of things I have concluded:

1. Avoid stagnant environments. Learners are avid about change. Change is not a barrier to a learner. Learners enjoy the challenge. But learners also hate situations that do not change. Routine without challenge will drive learners crazy.

2. Avoid situations where we force change upon others at the fast rate that we enjoy. We are not all learners. Change is accepted at a different pace by different people. It is easy for learners to get frustrated when people drag their feet on a change for no apparent reason.

3. Avoid situations where learning is not supported. Some organizations are learning organizations, other are not. Learners should avoid organizations that do not see value in education.

4. Keep the goal in front of you. Since learners love the educational journey, sometime they lose site of the objective of the organization. Learners should keep the goal in mind and must force themselves to continue to deliver results in spite of the research.

This is not an exhaustive list of potential weaknesses for learners. I am sure there are more. But the process of examining your strengths in depth to understand how your strengths also create weaknesses, can give you opportunity to really understand how best to leverage your strengths.

 

People hate change. We love habits and routine. Even people that are spontaneous, and enjoy new things are trapped within their habits. Change is how we grow and improve. So let’s get started driving change.

How can we transform our daily lives into something more? We need change in our life, but seldom to we push ourselves to change. Here are three ways to approach change.

1. Change the little things. Make yourself more open to change by doing small things differently. Pick some of your daily habits and do them different. Every day can be a day of change when you select one thing to do differently each day. For example, take a different route to work, brush your teeth using the opposite hand, do a new exercise routine, and so forth. If you look to the little things, you can challenge yourself everyday. Get use to change.

2. Change in an area of growth. What is your growth goal for this year? Is it defined in terms of an accomplishment or completion of something? If so, think about your growth in terms of change. How will your grow change and transform you? Challenge yourself to embrace the change that will be needed to achieve the goal, and work on it everyday.

3. Change the way you think. Routines are more than actions. We all have routines in the way we think and make decisions. Try to define how you make decisions. Challenge yourself to change and grow in the area of thinking. Some ways to think differently include: look at the bigger picture, dig deeper, research more, get advice, get opinions, participate in group thinking, increase the use of reflective thinking, and increase your strategic thinking. Those are just a few ways that you can change and grow your thinking.

Rachel Naomi Remen said, “Life is known only by those who have found a way to be comfortable with change and the unknown. Given the nature of life, there may be no security, but only adventure.”

Life will be full of change, and full of adventure. So let’s get comfortable with it.