Do Something… Different!

A few words about luck

Some people believe they are lucky. Their luck may be good or bad. “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all.”

Some people don’t believe in luck.

But one has to acknowledge the role of chance or, at least, randomness in our lives.

The problem, the opportunity, is: How do we increase that we will be favored by randomness, chance…or luck?

I think it is by trying a lot of small experiments and seeing where they lead.

For example, one of my favorite experts on public speaking, Darren LaCroix, held a contest. He would give a presentation in whatever city created a facebook page and get more people to like it than any other city.

I started a page for the city I was in at that time, Fort Worth, Texas. I was new in the area (a problem) and thought it would be a great opportunity to get to know people in Fort Worth.

We did not do well. We had 40 likes. The winner 373. We finished 6th. Oh well. Bad luck.

The winning city was Austin, Texas. The date Darren offered was January 24. As luck would have it, Darren already had a workshop scheduled in Dallas, Texas on January 28.

Darren decided it would be wise to fill those empty dates with free presentations that would give him a chance to sell his educational tools. He usually does that through local Toastmasters districts. He contacted the toastmasters district leader and, because of my efforts in Darren’s contest, she asked me to organize the event.

Which, of course, was exactly what I had volunteered to do when I entered into Darren’s contest.

Chance played its role. Any other city might have won. Both Cleveland and Seattle got a lot of likes. Had either of those cities won it is unlikely that Darren would have filled an open date in Fort Worth, Texas.

So was I lucky?

Yes, but I contributed to my luck by volunteering to do something. I wouldn’t have been asked to organize the event had I not started the facebook page for the contest that I lost.

Did I fail? Did I succeed? Was I lucky?

You decide. All I know is that I learned a lot and had a wonderful experience.

Who know where else it may lead? I don’t.

But I’m willing to keep my eyes and my mind open to possibilities.

Do something…different!

What can you DO?

I suggest you limit your soul searching and immerse yourself in action. If you want to do something different, well, DO something different. The longer you wait the less likely you are to do anything at all. Mel Robbins (visit her site here, and her blog here), author of Stop Saying You’re Fine: Discover a More Powerful You suggests you have only 5 seconds. 5 seconds to do something. This is from page 30 of her book:

“To combat your mind-set, adopt the five-second rule. Move from idea to execution in five seconds. Pretend that if you don’t, the idea will start to melt. The longer you wait, the more likely you’ll have only a puddle left to work with. If you think that’s not enough time, guess again. Five seconds is a lifetime for your brain and plenty of time for your thoughts and feelings to step in and kill the idea,”

List out activities you want to try, pick one, and do something about it.

Exercise 1. List 20 activities you’d like to do.

Exercise 2. Pick one!

Exercise 3. Do something about it…now!

What something? Well what can you do RIGHT NOW!

Then what, then what, then what?

Do Something Different!

I can’t do that because _______________ (fill in the blank).

Sean Forbes is a singer. He is also deaf. Watch this:

Do Something Different!

This is a recording of a speech I gave about improvement.

Star audio

first-apple-computer

The REAL X factor is aka the will to succeed and was the title of a book by George Plimpton. Plimpton said that people who succeed actually fail MORE than those who don’t.

The difference?

They learn from their failures.

Anything worth doing is worth doing…badly.

As long as you learn from it and correct it.

Each failure is a necessary first step in your journey to do something different and do it well.

Doing something badly is an opportunity to succeed.

Do something different. Do something badly. Learn. Succeed.