Photo via Flickr
Nobody talks about it much, but there’s a part of life that’s just luck.
Out of nowhere comes a great job, home, business opportunity or relationship. Even if you’re just inexplicably good at scoring ideal parking-spots, it’s nothing to sneeze at and didn’t cost any blood, sweat or tears.
You get it.
And then sometimes you slave away at something—your version of a brass ring—and it eludes you like a good night’s sleep after a scary movie. You take two steps towards it, it takes five steps back and no amount of huffing and puffing, whirling or whining gets you any closer to that victory dance.
But you still want it.
Luck trumps hard work, but if you really want to achieve something meaningful or worthwhile, you should take a run at it anyway, and not just for the dream itself, but for the side-bennies of pursuit you’ll soak up along the way.
- Fun
- Adventure
- Mastery
- Championing something you believe in
- Helping others
- Having a good story to tell
These are all great reasons to take a stab at anything and “head” wins you must come back to again and again whenever draining why is this taking so dang long thoughts creep into your mind.
Dreamers have highs, dreamers have lows. I live for the “head” wins.
The moments when everything hasn’t quite fallen into place and I may not even be making much headway, but I’m all in and racing towards the finish line anyway.
Like when my first book came out, and I decided I was going to be on the now defunct Oprah Show.
Yes, I did.
My book was getting media buzz and CNN had already penciled me in, so I figured, why not? I wrote her a letter and one of the show producers called me (twice). Didn’t score a guest spot on the show, but did talk my escort into swinging by Harpo Studios when I was on tour in Chicago and I suddenly had a two-hour window due to a radio interview cancellation.
“You need tickets. People reserve spots months in advance,” he warned yet he had that unmistakable Go for it glint in his eyes when he dropped me off in front of Harpo Studios. Of course, everyone in line did have tickets already except six of us. Nevertheless, by the time my escort returned from parking the car, I had two tickets and we passed through the security scan grinning ear-to-ear.
One of the guards confiscated the copy of my book I planned to personally hand Oprah after the show, and the thing is, I forgot all about it when I settled into my seat and glanced around the studio with awe, surprised it was so small and bright with so many staff running around doing a gazillion things, and that Oprah was just a hop, skip and jump from me.
Back at the hotel later, I got word I was being bumped from CNN for an update on Paula Jones (aka, the woman whose sexual harassment lawsuit led to President Clinton’s impeachment by the House), but that’s another story. The point of this one is that I was still glowing when I boarded the plane the next morning for Atlanta. I may not have been a guest on the Oprah show, but I’d gotten a seat in the audience at the last minute, and that was a head win enough for me.
Luck sometimes trumps hard work and determination, but ingenuity, energy and the willingness to have hundreds and hundreds of “head” wins trumps EVERYTHING.
It may also be about enjoying the little things all throughout the Dream Maze. Forget about book tours and press, after all these writing years, the juicy creative sparks and excitement I still often feel as my fingers dance across the keyboard keep me in the game. It is knowing that I plucked something out of nothing, and grew it from an itty-bitty thing to maturity, and that it may have mattered to someone half as much as it mattered to me.
Dream, do, dream some more, and turn every single thing you can into a “head” win.
Better For That 