Luck

I remember last year watching a short clip about Terry Fator on an Australian news show. He is a ventriloquist who was lucky to win America’s Got Talent in 2007. The video portrayed him as a lucky guy. How lucky he was to have won the talent show? How lucky he was to be performing in The Mirage Hotel, Las Vegas in a packed room? He was a lucky man, he made it big. Rags to riches story.

During the interview, Terry said something that stuck with me. It was how he spent 7 to 8 hours a day practicing and perfecting his act. And he did this for years, spending a lot of time and effort to improve his ventriloquism skills. Sure, he was lucky to win American’s Got Talent. But, he met the once-in-a-life-time opportunity head on - well prepared.

I think that is what luck is all about. Meeting your once or twice in a life time opportunity - well prepared - prepared to perfection.

I used to get a bit irritated when acquaintances commented on how lucky I was to get a scholarship to study in Australia. But, they don’t know the years I spent building up my resume. The amount of time and effort I spent on research. How I used to work over weekends to juggle between teaching 3 full courses a semester, and conducting and leading research in biomedical imaging. It took me 3 years to build my resume. For it to be good enough that the Australian Government took notice of me and gave me a scholarship. This didn’t include the hours I spent looking for scholarship opportunities, filling out countless forms and preparing additional documentation for the application. Yup, it was all luck.

Maybe luck/lucky is a word used by lazy people. People who think that success just falls onto your lap. People who do not want to acknowledge the effort and time spent meeting opportunity well prepared. It may be easier to say someone is lucky - than to work hard yourself to meet opportunities in life well prepared.

So, if you want to be lucky - meet the opportunity in your life well prepared.