READ: Welcome to Luckortunity! You will only see this once but I invite you to keep coming back and browse through the archives to Help Yourself Get Lucky. To get started, read 40 Ways to Increase Your Luck.
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My family is my goal; my income is just a means to the goal
So many people miss the point.They work hard to make money and then work some more.To get lucky, you need to define your priorities and goals and then work toward them.You can’t let anything get in the way of your goals.Working 100 hour weeks for 40 years and then retiring is not normal.You need to take a step back and enjoy what you have.There is no point in making money that you will never use.“He who dies with the most toys is still dead!”
Tim Ferris has it right when he advises to take “mini retirements”.If you wait until you’re 65 years old, you may never get what you work so hard for.Look at the big picture and enjoy life.Don’t miss the forest because all the trees are in the way.However you want to put it, don’t get lost on your way to fulfilling your goals.
Don’t get me wrong; I love my blogs, marketing, social media, meeting people, consulting and everything else I do, and people should love their occupation, but it is my family that really gives meaning to it all.
I’ve been away for a little while and I want to apologize since I didn’t plan to stop posting while I was away,I just didn’t have the chance to really sit down in front of my computer for more than a few minutes at a time.I spent the last week and a bit with my family in Beautiful Montreal, Canada, where I grew up, checking out the community again.My family has been looking to move out of New York for the last while and we finally decided on Montreal.Now that we have three kids and our oldest is starting school, we were looking for a simpler life with more grass (and parking spots).
This is going to be the first short post in a series on my decision to move to Montreal.
Change your location and your luck changes
There is an old saying that if you change your location, your luck will change.I am a firm believer in the saying since it has everything to do with Luck.In my description of “Luckortunity” I mentioned the comparison of finding “luck” to an apple orchard where if you collect apples from the same area each day, it will eventually run out but you can always move onto a different section of the orchard and find more apples.If you stay in the same place for too long and do the same things over and over again, your luck runs out.To get lucky again, you need to change things up and look for your luck in a new untouched area.
Luck potential is everywhere
When you’re in a new city, the luck potential is unlimited.Everything is new and fresh for you and the opportunities hit you in the head if you’re open to them.You can look at how people live and do business and then you can compare everything to what you are used to.Then you have twice the tools to build your own business.Sometimes it is so obvious to an outsider what can be done to improve the situation.For example, I was looking for an apartment to rent and most landlords in the area that I was looking didn’t advertise.That’s a perfect opportunity to build an online community poster board for that area.You can also notice that services that are offered in your old city are unheard of in your new city and you can take advantage.
You may have noticed that I haven’t written in a few days.This is especially bad since my last post was the first of a series of 10 posts on how to increase your luck.I was supposed to post every day or at least every second or third day which would give my readers the 10 ways to increase their luck in about 2 weeks.Unfortunately, i lost site of my goals and my posting came to somewhat of a stop.
Not long ago I made myself a few lists of goals that I wanted to accomplish over the next few months, year, 5 years, 10 years and 20 years.I was very proud of myself for getting them down on paper and making a list of things that I think are actually realistic.One of my goals was to build up this blog and post articles regularly.For the next few days after writing down my goals, I looked at them every morning and thought about how I would bring myself closer to my goals each day.After a few days, I stopped looking at my goals every morning.Maybe I thought that I had them committed to memory, maybe I got lazy but the realization that I came to is that “out of sight, out of mind”.I couldn’t believe it, the days that I looked at my goals in the morning were very productive and the days that I didn’t look at them were just the opposite.I think that was my problem for most of my life, I didn’t write down my goals and I certainly did not look them over each day.I wrote my goals in the first place because I woke up one day and realized that although I have had some accomplishments over the last whole bunch of years, I have not even come close to my potential especially financially.
I can’t take all the credit for my realization above, it was pretty much my 3 year old son that made me realize that I need to keep looking at my goals every day.My wife made a 3 foot tall chart for my son and hung it next to his bed so he knows what he needs to do every day from the time he wakes up to the time he goes to sleep.The chart is nicely decorated with pictures so he knows what everything is.He wakes up, goes to potty, brushes his teeth, eats breakfast and so on.His day ends with brushing his teeth, reading a story and going to sleep.
On Friday night, my sister in law was over and went to lie down in my son’s bed.My son went over to her and said “if you sleep in my bed, you have to follow the chart”.He then told her exactly what she needed to do.At that point I realized if you want to build up good habits and accomplish your goals, you need to have them written down and very visible. It also helps if they are in public view because when other people know about your goals, you become more motivated to accomplish.Many people don’t mind failing when nobody else knows about it but if other people do know, they try harder to show that they can accomplish.
Kids are some of the best teachers out there, they make you see things that are right in front of your eyes but you just don’t notice.Another thing my son can do is tell you every time a TV show says the word “stupid” because he knows that “stupid” is a bad word.I watch the same shows and don’t even notice.
Yesterday I wrote about how I realized that in order to get anything done, I needed to make clear goals for myself.A few of the goals on my list had to do with this blog.I wanted to fix up the blog, add Google Adsense, add some articles, etc.Those were just in my first list of short term goals.In a year, I am hoping to have at least 60 articles on this blog.In reality I would like to have at least 100 but I made sure not to put too many things on my list since it might get a little unreasonable.I can do millions of things but I can’t do all of them at the same time.I need to leave some time to accomplish all my other goals while leaving a large amount of time to slack off.Slacking off is not one of my goals, I just know myself and just because I have goals now and I’m a little more organized, I cant expect myself to change overnight.I know it’s going to be a slow process but as I wrote yesterday, I have 20 years to complete my goals.I am sure some will change and some will expand but at least I have the step by step instructions on how I am going to get there.
Most of my life I just drifted from day to day and year to year.I went through the motions like going to school, finding a job, and working.I just recently woke up and realized how much time has gone by and I don’t have anything financially to show for it.I want to retire one day, maybe when I’m 65 but preferably when I’m much younger and I have nothing saved up.I have been saving money regularly but that goes into my savings account that gets peanuts in interest and always seems to find expenses to pay for.I bought a car, I’d love to buy a house to live in, and I’d like to take some vacations over the next few years.Every time I save any money, it’s gone.
I realized that if you are traveling, you need a starting point and a destination and then a map of how you are going to get from point A to point B.The same goes for life, if you don’t have any goals, you’re not going to get anywhere, mainly because you won’t know where to go.After this discovery, I used an entire 70 minute commute home from work to jot down some goals.I made five separate lists of goals for short term, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years and 20 years. I made sure that each list paved the path to the next set of goals.Most of the goals have something financial to do with them but I also put down losing 40 pounds this year.I know it is a lot but I am only so overweight because I eat like a pig late at night and always push off exercising.In my short term goals, I just put down to exercise and in my 5 year list I put to stay under 190 pounds.I put the same for the 10 and 20 year lists.
I plan on using these goals as a road map for my life.I placed the lists in my wallet and plan on looking at them every day to make sure I stay on path, just like I would look at the mapquest directions when I’m on a road trip.
Note: Writing these blog articles are on my lists and that is why they are getting done.
Picture this.You are 20 pounds overweight on December 20th, New Years is right around the corner.This is the perfect time to make a new years resolution.You are more than determined to get to your goal weight and you decide to start the moment that the ball drops in Time Square.You plan for the next 11 days how you plan to lose the weight.NO more eating after 8:00 PM, cut out 10% of your calories, drink less soda and alcohol and more water and finally start exercising like you’ve been wanting to for as long as you can remember.
Since you are extremely determined and organized, you whip out your laptop or a notebook and start making charts of what you need to do, how you are going to track yourself and set clear goals.You feel great about yourself and completely prepared for January 1st when your new lifestyle will start.You are going to be great!
Well, you still have a week and a half to go until you have to change your lifestyle so you might as well enjoy yourself while you can, after all, you won’t be able to indulge yourself for a long time.
A few large meals later, maybe some late night drinking, snacks in bed while watching a movie and holiday dinners, you look at the scale and are somewhat disappointed that you now have an extra 5 pounds to lose.You’re not as optimistic about your new years resolution at this point but you are still determined.
New Years Eve comes and you find yourself at a party with food and drinks going late into the night.You may choose to partake thinking that “the diet starts tomorrow” or you may hold back which can be the ultimate temptation.Whatever the case, the next morning is going to be very hard and keeping to your new program will get harder each day.The percentage of people that come to this point and stick to the program are (from my experiences) very low.
LUCKORTUNITY
The Luckortunity over here is to always start things right away.Never push things off because they will get harder and harder as time goes on.The greatest chance you have at succeeding is moving ahead at full force when the idea hits your head.A new idea, whether it’s your own or someone else’s, can give you a high that will give you the extra push to get things done.If you start on that note, you have a better chance of building momentum to keep going toward your goal.
My new year’s resolution for 2008 is to get lucky.Lucky in general, in everything I do in life, from business to social to family and everything in between.This post is the beginning of me keeping to my new year’s resolution.I know that it’s not January 1st yet but I figure a few things; first, if I start now, it will get me in motion so that by New Years I will already be well on my way and have enough inertia to keep going.Second, if I start now, it will be pretty pathetic of me to not even make it to New Years for my New Year’s resolution so I will be forced to keep it up.Lastly, starting early, working hard and being persistent are some of the keys to getting lucky.
I wrote on the Luckortunity (or introduction) page that there is a major difference between “chance” and “luck”.“Chance” is winning the lottery, something people can hope for but “luck” is something people can strive for.I am convinced that every single person in the world has the potential to be lucky on a regular basis.Through this blog, I am going to go through my own personal luck and give you tips on becoming lucky yourself.
