The value of luck
Jeremy uses a saying often, "the harder I work the luckier I get", certainly there is truth in that but I want to dig in a little further. There are some other interesting quotes, "the name of the game is to stay in the game" Gordon Gecko from the movie Wall Street. I will paraphrase this one it is from Glengarry Glen Ross when Alec Baldwin let's the sales staff know that there are three prizes in this months sales competition, first prize is a cadillac, second prize is steak knives and the third prize is that you get to keep your job. The first two relate to the fact that if you keep your head in the game opportunities will show themselves, it is what you do with those opportunities that will either make you a success or failure. I brought up the last quote because it highlights that coming in second is an option, coming in third you are an "also ran" and coming in fourth is pointless. In anything that you do. Think about it from the standpoint of google, the guy that comes in first has a big advantage over the fourth place guy.
One of the problems that most of us have (I will speak for myself) is that we tend to look at our success and believe that it is our genius that created that. That mistake alone has caused many civilizations to go into ruin. For instance, let's say that your best converting site is mousemobile.com you bought it because no one else had, the next week Disney comes out with a Mickey Mouse phone for kids, which ends up being a windfall for you. Genius or dumb luck? Certainly a case could be made for both sides.
Pressing your bets because you think it is your ideas alone that make the difference is a mistake. There are a lot of conditions that cause success. Do not discount the value of luck and timing.
For most of the day each day I do relatively little. I like to stay on instant message just in case my customers and partners need me and most of my day is spent just having polite conversation. I touch base with a lot of people each day, probably somewhere in the order of about 50 to 100 people a day. They are CEO's and fraternity brothers. I would love to tell you that I give the same respect to the fraternity brother but I would be lying. I am sure some of the people reading this are of the opinion that I am busy a lot when they contact me. Which is true, I am often busy. I prioritize my conversations like this, money makers, potential money makers and fun. If you catch me at the right times I will have all of the fun conversations that you would like to have. At the wrong time I prioritize my conversations. But just the fact that I am out there means that opportunity will come to me.
Which brings me to another point, who are your friends? That will be my next topic.
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