“I don’t believe that old cliche that good things come to those who wait. I think good things come to those who want something so bad they can’t sit still.”
-Ashton Kutcher
There are no traffic jams along the extra mile.
-Roger Staubach
All of us have bad luck and good luck. The man who persists through the bad luck – who keeps right on going – is the man who is there when the good luck comes – and is ready to receive it.
-Robert Collier
Depend on the rabbit’s foot if you will, but remember it didn’t work for the rabbit.
As many of you may know, a few weeks ago, Google launched Chrome, their new internet browser.Since this site is all about “getting lucky”, I decided to wait a little while before posting about this major step for Google so that I can apply a lesson to Chrome instead of just announcing the browser and what it can do for you.If you’ve been following this blog, you know that I am big fan of Google and what they are doing for the internet and the end user.
Do We Need Another Browser?
Everyone has been wondering and talking about why Google would come out with a browser especially since they aren’t making any money off of it.Some people say that Google is trying to take over the word, dominate the net and have as much control over what surfers do as possible.Although there is probably some truth to that, I believe that Google is just trying to give the end users what they want.They want to simplify everything and give their users as many free (or advertise based) tools as possible.Current browsers were built based on the internet of the 1990’s where the average website was a document online.Now with web 2.0, sites are going interactive and cannot be viewed through the same lens as we’ve been using all along.The entire browser is open source so anyone can use it to build or improve their own browsers and applications.
What do People Think About Google Chrome?
I happen to love Chrome and have made it my default browser on all of my computers but I have been getting mixed reviews from others in the blogosphere.There are some plug-ins and features that Chrome is missing right now that Firefox has but I’m pretty sure that Google will catch on quickly and surpass the capabilities of the other browsers.The majority of the negative opinions on Chrome that I have heard are from the web designer’s side.Now designers and webmasters have one more browser to optimize their sites for.From the consumer side, it’s pretty much all positive except for a few sites that have not yet been optimized for Chrome and look a little messed up.
The Bottom Line
The Bottom line is that Google is making things easier for the end user and in this world that is all that really counts.The lesson we can take from Google is to do as much as we can make the end user happy even if it inconveniences us a little (or a lot) in the process.Companies are no longer in the position to tell their consumers to “take it” or “leave it”.If we don’t give the consumers what they want, they’ll leave and let the whole world know about it.
Mitch Hedberg , the comedian has a famous bit that when he is in bed and thinks of something funny he has to either get out of bed and find a pen and paper to write it down or convince himself that whatever he just thought about was not funny.
Everyone is pretty much in the same boat at Mitch.It may not be writing down jokes but everyone has something that they need to write down.It can be business ideas, things to do, movies to watch, blog article topics, errands etc… we often think to ourselves that whatever we thought about is either important enough that we won’t forget or not important.The truth is that everyone forgets at least some of the time and if you decide not to write it down, you’re probably just lazy.
There are so many ways to take notes in any situation that we have no excuse not to take notes.There is the old fashioned pen and notepad which I use most of the time, or you can use email, text messaging to yourself, recording your thoughts on an audio recorder, or any of the many ways you can use a pda.
Worst case, you may look at your notes a week later and think that it’s ridiculous but at least you’ll get a good laugh.In a better case scenario, you will have a goldmine of thoughts that you would have otherwise lost.They may trigger new thoughts as you’re looking them over.It’s like brainstorming over time.Sometimes when brainstorming, no matter how hard you try and think, nothing comes out but when you’re relaxing, taking a shower or playing ball the idea just comes to you.
Once you start recording your thoughts, make a point of looking through them on a regular basis and putting the good ones into action.You may want to write about them or discuss them with a friend which will make for an interesting conversation and even more good ideas to take note of.
It’s amazing how much smarter you feel after doing this for a while.
I’m a big Simpsons fan… or at least I was when I used to watch the show.I even wrote my high school thesis on Homer.One quote of Homer’s that’s been running through my head lately is “Trying is the first step towards failure”.I’ve been thinking about this because I am about to “try” a whole bunch of new things over the next few months.I am going to try to move to a bigger place in another city.I am going to try and start my own business.I am going to try and start up a few side projects that I’m hoping will bring in some money on the side.I am going to try and grow my blogs and build a bigger readership.And most of all, I am going to try and spend more time with my family.
Homer was right when he said that trying leads to failure but what he forgot to mention is that failure is on the road to success.No one can expect to “try” something new and be successful every time.Every new thing that you attempt comes along with new challenges that you never would have considered before starting.You live, learn, try, fail and if you stick it out long enough, you succeed.
Have you ever failed, stuck it through and ultimately succeeded?
As you may know, both this site and Sucky Poems went down last week for a couple of days.It turns out that the 1and1 databases were not compatible with the upgrade to the newest version of Wordpress and it wiped out one site’s database while messing up many of the features of the other site including not displaying the index page.Through the whole fiasco, I learned a few lessons and things about myself that I wanted to share, so here it goes:
I enjoy blogging and will not give up.
I spent about a year on each of my sites creating content, fixing it up and tweaking just about anything that can be tweaked, and in one moment everything was lost.Sometimes when a loss it too great, it is common to just give up.When I was left sitting at my computer with nothing to show for a whole year’s worth of my work, I was determined to start over put in the extra effort to recreate everything I possibly could.
Until this point, I had no idea how long I would continue to update my sites.Now I know that they are here to stay.
Always back up all of your information.
With computers, it is so easy to back up information that it is a wonder why everyone doesn’t do it.Computers make everything much simpler but they also make it much simpler to erase everything that you’ve ever done.Your computer can crash, your server can crash, you can drop your pda in a puddle, or lose your information in so many other ways.There are programs that can back up all of your information automatically on a regular basis, so why not do it.If you want to do it yourself and it’s something small, you can just email it to yourself.For bigger files, you can get an external hard drive and copy everything to that.
Don’t rely on anybody else but yourself for something really important.
Don’t think that just because a company like 1and1 says that they back up your files that they really do or that even if they do, they will get them to you in time to save your work.1and1 failed me and I am still waiting for them to get back to me for over a week on some of my files.I was lucky that I backed up all of my work on my own computer and was able to fix things myself.At first it didn’t work because of the compatibility issues but with a little tweaking, I was able to get everything back up.
Go ahead and trust others with anything that doesn’t really matter or things that can be fixed with a little effort.But when it comes to something with no remedy, you probably want to do it yourself because nobody cares about what’s important to you as much as you do.
Use companies who care about your business and have great customer support.
I can’t say this enough, if a company doesn’t have good customer service, it is not worth giving them your business.I made the mistake by staying with 1and1 until this point.Find out about the level of customer support for all of your services before signing up and especially before you need them and it’s too late.Also, as part of this lesson, make sure that the support speaks your language fluently.It doesn’t help if the customer support speaks a broken English and doesn’t understand what you are trying to say.
Internalize the lessons you learn.
You live and learn every single day but it is important to keep going over all of your lessons to master them and let them become second nature to you.Just by reading something once, you may become familiar with it but to really know something and internalize it, you need to go over it many times.
When reading a book, the average person only takes away about 3 concepts.When it comes to advertising, a person needs to see an add 7 times before he remembers the ad and what it’s for.If there is something you really want to “know”, read it over a few times and then make a point of coming back to it.Even better, internalize it by following it and making it part of who you are.
If you are human (or Scooby), you have fear.Everyone fears something, it is just how we deal with the fear that determines if it will cause good or bad luck.It could be fear of what people will think, fear of not having enough money, fear of rejection, fear of the government or just fear of possibility and change.
To deal with fear most people like to just push it aside and live a life that won’t be bothered by fear.They take the safe and secure route in life to minimize fear in the short term.But by doing this, they are playing it safe.They do what society, their parents and friends expect of them, they go to school, get a secure job and never really question anything.It isn’t until many years down the line that they start to question if they made the right choices in life.
When looking back at your life, you will regret not doing more things than you regret doing.
There are so many things in life that we pass up doing because we are afraid of the consequences.I’m not saying to go and do something stupid but the fact is that at the end of the day you will regret not doing more things than you regret doing.So go ahead and take a risk.
People don’t spend their days thinking about you.
Stop thinking about what people think about you and live your life.Don’t worry about anyone else because at the end of the day, you are the one that will answer for what you’ve done and you are the only one that matters.Your parents and friends make their own decision and have made their own mistakes.It’s time for you to make your own decisions and yes, your own mistakes.
The reward is in proportion to the risk.
If you take the secure and boring path, you will lead a boring life.The secure part isn’t even that secure, look at anyone in the financial field these days.If you take risks, there is potential to fail but there is potential to succeed beyond your wildest dreams.The worst case scenario is that you will fail and learn from your experience.After all, failure leads to success.
Courage is when your mission is more important than your fear.
We all have fear and there is no way to get rid of it so you have a choice, push it to the side and never think about it or stare it in the face and kick its rear into place.If you choose the latter, your life will be a lot more exciting and you will get lucky.
I want to give you, my readers an apology since Get Lucky has been down for the last couple of days.I upgraded my wordpress to the latest version and something went wrong in the process.I tried contacting my hosting provider 1and1 and I have never had such a bad tech support experience in my life.To follow my own advice to get lucky in the future, I will be switching to a new hosting provider as soon as I get my sites in order so that I can take advantage of a company who actually wants my business.I will write more about my experience in a future post but I just wanted to let you know that I am working on the issues and hoping that the site will once again be fully functional very soon.I have plenty of content coming up so please stay tuned.
On Thursday I wrote that Seth Godin only likes to do something if he can do it “really well” which is consistent with his message to companies to be “remarkable”.Now while that is great advice for a company to only do things well that you can be remarkable at, I don’t believe it to be true for the individual in general.
Companies, to be successful must have a mission and have everything they do fit into that mission.If they put in half efforts, they will get less than half results.It is the additional 20% or the “extra mile” that gives a company their results.
Individuals are different in that sense because people have to discover their mission in life.They don’t have a great idea one day and define their life based on that idea.They have to keep trying new things and see what they enjoy and what sticks.People go to school to get a rounded education to see what is out there and hopefully begin their journey in life.Each new day brings new opportunities to the individual.He can change jobs, careers, start new businesses volunteer, vacation and retire.Each step of the way he can try new things and adopt them or drop them on his journey through life.It is the trying new things out that will prepare him to get lucky down the line.I must say though that this advice is only when you are playing around on your own and testing out the waters.When you are starting a business, applying for a job or to a school, or giving a presentation, the individual must also be remarkable.It is the best way to guarantee that you will be successful.
For companies, every step has to be so well thought out and they can’t just pick things up and drop them whenever they feel like it.It would look terrible for a company to start a blog and not update it for a month or to get a twitter account, collect followers and never update.An individual can do these things.If he enjoys keeping the blog or updating his tweets, he can do something with it.But if he doesn’t, nobody is really going to think differently about him.
If you are a business, be remarkable and only do what you can do better than anyone else.If you are an individual, try anything and everything that even remotely interests you because it is the journey that defines who you are and who you become.
I spent some time today messing around with some of the settings on this blog. I’m always trying to improve the site and make it as easy for you, the reader to get the most out of it. Every once in a while you may notice a new feature or small change on the site and today’s tweak is that I added an email subscription box in the sidebar (to the left of the screen).
By signing up, you will get all the new articles in your inbox as they come out. I invite you all to try it out!
Problogger posted a while back about a conversation he had with Seth Godin about Twitter.Seth mentioned that he doesn’t use twitter and barely even uses Facebook.He feels that if he does something, he wants to do it really well (which is a whole other post) and it’s better not to do it at all than do a mediocre job.
If Seth Godin Doesn’t Use Twitter, Who is Using His Name on Twitter?
Whoever it is has thousands of followers who think they are following him.That person isn’t really trashing Seth Godin’s name or reputation, but he could if he wanted to.There is so much possible damage that can be done by someone taking your name, so why let them?
Take Ownership of Your Name
Buy the domain name of your name, preferably .com if it’s available.You may even want to buy the .net, .info, .name and any others that are available.At $7/year, you can’t really lose.You should also secure your name on twitter, blogspot and any other Social Media tools that can be hijacked.
The web is growing exponentially and the amount of time we spend online is increasing as well and will continue to increase.Even if you just get your name now to secure it for the future, it is a good investment.Who knows what you will need it for in 10 years.You should even consider buying your kid’s names, I know one person who already does.
Five years ago, it was almost unheard of to buy your name’s domain.Now it’s almost common practice as people are using their domain for their blog, business, resume, or just a place to show things off online.
If you want to get lucky in 10 years when having your online identity is crucial, get it now.After all, Luck is all about being prepared for what lies ahead.
This self improvement blog is full of advice on how to increase your luck and improve your life. You can start off by reading 40 Ways to Increase your Luck.
