Luck

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Today’s thought comes from The Richest Man in Babylon. It is from the parable titled “Meet the Goddess of Good Luck”. In summary, the only way to be consistently “lucky” is by recognising good opportunities and taking action.

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Financial Shortcuts

You can read a bit more context about the book here, but basically, the Richest Man in Babylon, Akrad, is trying to pass on his financial knowledge to the other citizens in the hope that they can all become wealthy and build a prosperous city. One man said he had just been lucky and found a wallet on the ground with some gold in it. If he could find gold on the ground every day, he would become a rich man. Whilst this man had good luck today in finding the gold, it is very unlikely he will be able to find gold on the ground often enough to become wealthy. The men discuss some other ways in which they can encounter good luck.

What if they bet at the casino? Surely they could quickly become rich? In their casino game, a dice had 5 blue sides and one red side. If it rolled red, you won 4 to 1. If they rolled enough reds, they could become rich. But Akrad quickly points out that they had 5 chances of losing, and only win 4 to 1, meaning the casino wins 20% of every dollar bet. Whilst we don’t play this dice game today, the odds at a casino are always skewed in the house’s favour.

What about the races? You can get lucky at the races and become rich? No again. Betting on the Babylonian horse races is not a reliable route to wealth.

Luck – The only reliable way

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The only way we can actively encourage luck is by recognising strong opportunities and taking action. We must be able to find good opportunities. Those that add value to others. Those that will lead to an increased payout. When we find these opportunities, we need to take ACTION. Procrastinators miss opportunities; “opportunity waits for no man”. If you see an opportunity, please don’t procrastinate. Go ahead, take action, and a little good luck might come your way.

 

“Men of Action are favoured by the Goddess of Good Luck” – George S Classon

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Success?

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“Success”

It means so many different things to so many different people. Some see “success” as having a lot of money, some see it as having a great family, some see it as having a job we the can impact others in a positive way, some see it as being a well-respected public figure… There are many different definitions of “success”. A few years ago, I assumed everyone was financially motivated. Now, I’m realising more and more that money isn’t everything. Time and a feeling of freedom are featuring more and more in my personal definition of success.

“Success” is such an abstract, nebulous term that everyone has their own opinion on. As I was reading today, something really stuck out and grabbed my attention. I read every day (you can check out the books I’ve read here), and today, I started re-reading The Richest Man in Babylon in preparation for my podcast this weekend with my mate Adam Jones (check out our What You Will Learn podcast here), this jumped out at me. It wasn’t even in the book itself, it was actually in the foreword! I almost always skip the foreword but this one was only two pages so I read it. This sentence, tucked away in the middle of the page, really resonated with me:

 

“Success means accomplishments as the result of our own efforts and abilities.”

 

Efforts and Abilities

Everyone wants to achieve “success”, whatever that may mean to us. Thishis quote says to me that we like to do things right and we like to be rewarded for it. In this sense, we like to put in effort and accomplish things.

If success to you means having lots of money, you will be satisfied when you build a business and sell it for millions of dollars, or you may be satisfied from working and saving for 40 years and seeing a big retirement package at the end. But you won’t be as satisfied if you win the lottery. Whilst winning the lottery may satisfy your “success” in terms of giving you a lot of money, this isn’t a ‘result of our own efforts and abilities’. Perhaps this is why we hear that many lottery winners find themselves in financial trouble a year or two after a big lottery win.

If success to you means having a job in a position of authority, you derive your success form have a positive influence over people. By using ‘your own efforts and abilities’, you build a reputation, get promotions and earn peoples’ trust and respect. Therefore you are able to lead and inspire those around you. But if you were somehow thrust into a managerial position (perhaps you had friends in high places or used some of your other assets to get you there), I don’t think you would have the same feeling of success and you wouldn’t be able to exercise leadership because you wouldn’t have earned trust and respect.

 

Just a thought that crossed my mind this morning. Tucked away in a foreword I’d normally skip over. Have a think about it…

“Success means accomplishments as the result of our own efforts and abilities.”

"Sucess" from The Richest Man in Babylon

Change

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I’m nearly finished re-reading The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy for this week’s What You Will Learn podcast. I stumbled across this section and it really makes sense. He tells us that it isn’t easy to make a change, but that’s exactly why we should.

Change Is Hard: Yippee!

Darren tells us that every has 99% of things in common – we all hate doing the same things. Everyone is susceptible to getting chips instead of a salad. Everyone is prone to watching mindless TV instead of reading a book. Everyone would rather go to sleep than put in that extra hour of work at night.

“[We] all hate the same things. The difference is successful people do them anyway“

That’s the difference between ‘failures’ and ‘successes’. No body wants to do it, but successful people choose to do it anyway. It’s not easy. It’s hard! But that’s exactly why we need to do it. That’s because most people won’t. To put ourselves ahead of the pack, we need to choose to do things that no one else will.

For me, it’s all about choosing to put in more effort now. I can get lazy with my diet, lazy with exercise, lazy with my budget and spending… But I need to choose to make a change. I need to choose to eat better, spend less, and put in more productive work. It won’t be easy, but if I want to be successful, that’s the whole point.

Reading and Applying

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For the last 18-20 months I’ve been reading A LOT. After finishing high school, I think I read one book in four years. So when I got a summer internship, I decided to take my entire paycheck and use it to buy books. I think I just finished my 54th book since December 2014 (currently June 2016, so 19 months or so). As soon as I put one book down, I pick the next one up.

There’s no doubt in my mind that I’ve completely changed as a person as a result of these 54 books. My outlook on life is totally different in every aspect. I would recommend everyone should at least read a book a month. Heck, even 4 or 5 books a year can change your life for the better. I’m kind of getting to the point now though where I’m reading books for the sake of bumping the numbers up. Yes it’s good to read, but it’s more important to absorb and apply.

Stop just READING and start APPLYING

So, I’m going to try and SLOW DOWN the rate at which I read. Instead, I want to try and extract MORE VALUE out of the books. I’m not completely certain how I will achieve this, but here are a few of my ideas:

  • Start recapping and summarising books. On one hand, hopefully it will help others that would rather spend 10 minutes reading my summary than 6 hours reading the entire book. On the other hand, it will give me more of a purpose and an analytical lens while I’m reading. I’ll be attempting to extract the best ideas from each book. You can check some of these out here.
  • I’ve started the “What You Will Learn” podcast with my mate, Adam Jones. Each episode, we’ll be reviewing the books we’ve read. Again, we’re focusing on extracting the best stuff and presenting them. We are trying to help people either make more informed choices of what to read next, or just listen to the podcast to get the most important information. You can find us on iTunes and subscribe, or you can listen here.
  • APPLYING what I’m learning. I want to extract the most actionable items from each book and actually DO them, not just read about them. On the podcast, we’ll be committing to one challenge from each book.

 

I’ll report back and let you know how not only reading but also applying has improved my life! Let me know if you have any other suggestions for getting the most out of the books I’m reading.