The TRUTH About Luck and Success
By Craig Ballantyne
Luck has been in my corner since day one back in 1975.
I was extraordinarily lucky to be born in Canada into a lower-middle class
family. Lucky enough to have been educated in the years of the first home
computer, to have come of age as the first Internet generation, and to have
stumbled across the convergence of direct marketing and online e-commerce
before everyone and their uncle knew about it.
When I was a child I was lucky enough to have an alcoholic, underachieving,
embarrassing father who gave me the first chip on my shoulder, one that
compelled me to work harder, achieve more, and go further so that I could
escape his shadow.
I was also lucky that my mother had dropped out of high school and spent the
rest of her life working for barely more than the minimum wage, never earning
more than $28,000 in a year. I was lucky, because of her mistakes, that she
would never let me make the same ones.
And boy was I lucky to have went to grade school with patches on my knees, for
this caused me great embarrassment and instilled in me the drive to do better,
to excel in school, to get into the best program in college, to make the Dean’s
Honor List three years in a row, to get accepted into a Master’s program, to
study until 10pm on weekends so I could earn a scholarship to help me pay for 6
years of post-secondary education - and so that I’d never feel embarrassed like
that again.
It’s as though I’ve had a horseshoe made out of rabbit’s feet around my neck
for these past thirty years.
I’ve also been lucky to make friends with entrepreneurs like Bedros Keuilian, a
real-life American Dream. Bedros was lucky to have been born in Armenia (then
part of the Soviet Union) and to have a father that gambled his family’s safety
by bribing their way out of the USSR so they could arrive virtually penniless
in America (legally).
Bedros was also lucky enough to arrive in America in 1980 without being able to
speak a lick of English. He was fortunate that his family was so poor that he
had to "dumpster-dive" behind grocery stores for food. Without this
luck, Bedros wouldn’t have the burning desire that has allowed him to succeed
and create a better life, so that as he often tells me, “My kids will never
have to spend an hour of their lives in daycare.”
And I’m lucky enough to be friends with Matt Smith, another lucky young man from
my generation who, like me, grew up with little more than an embarrassment of a
father and a mother that spent the little money she had to take care of her
children.
Among Matt’s lucky childhood experiences was the night when his mother scraped
together a few dollars for a special Friday dinner of take-out pizza. That
night, the Smiths were lucky to have mistakenly left the pizza on top of the
car as they drove away). Eventually, the pizza fell off the car’s roof into the
middle of a busy intersection – where car after car drove over it – and this
was a lucky break for Matt.
Why?
Because the Smiths’ had no money to go and buy a replacement pizza. And so Matt
will forever remember that night – and that feeling – as something he will
never want to experience again. It’s just another lucky motivator in his drive
to do better and succeed so that his children won’t have to experience that
great fortune.
That kind of luck leaves a burning desire that NOTHING – not even a life of
iPhones, TV’s in every room of the house, unending after-school activities, or
24/7 Internet and cable TV access – could ever top.
My luck continues. I’m fortunate to know Isabel De Los Rios and fellow BioTrust
Advisor, one of the world’s most successful nutrition experts, who herself was
lucky enough to spend almost a decade as a sick, unhealthy, overweight, and
unhappy young woman, so that she could truly understand the troubles that her
hundreds of thousands of female clients go through.
Isabel was also lucky enough to be downright broke when she applied to my
Mastermind Group in 2008, having to borrow the money from her fiancé. It was
due to her great fortune to be in these situations that she committed to
working harder than almost any other person I’ve ever coached. This has allowed
her to pull herself up from financial stress and into a business where today
she has over 200,000 customers that have been lucky enough to get Isabel’s help
as they change their lives.
Finally, there's Michael Masterson, one of my business mentors that was lucky
enough to grow up in a poor household of ten children. He was lucky enough to
have so little that it drove him to become the entrepreneur and mentor to
hundreds of thousands of good folks all around the world.
This is the luckiest group of individuals you might ever meet. We were lucky to
have had the experiences we did because they taught us so much and drove us to
great action. Without our setbacks, what would we have achieved? We have been
part of the luckiest generations to have ever lived.
What about your luck? Have you lucked out and been fortunate to have gone
through similar struggles? Have you been given the inspiration to work harder
than ever, to explore new opportunities to take control of your future, and
that drive you towards financial independence? Are you one of the fortunate
ones that were not born with a silver spoon so that you could learn the
importance of adding value to the world in exchange for a fair return? Have you
been lucky enough to fail again and again?
Never forget that failure isn’t bad. Failure isn’t final. Don’t let the fear of
failure stop you from achieving the success you deserve. If you’re struggling,
keep hustling. Keep taking at least one big action step each day.
Failure is good luck. Just listen to these experts.
“Problems are in your life so that you can discover potentials that you didn’t
even know you had.” - Barry Michels
“Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.” - Zig Ziglar
”Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed on an
equal or greater benefit.” - Napolean Hill
”Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that
counts.” -Winston Churchill
“Everybody in your situation has the same choice: you can rue your situation or
you can dedicate yourself to changing it. Accept responsibility for your
future. Refuse to complain, criticize, or condemn. If you want us to help you
achieve your goals, then trust in and follow our advice. Stop doubting it. Stop
denying it. Have faith.” - Mark Ford
I can only hope you’ve been as lucky as I have over the years. And the old
saying is true, you know, “The harder I work, the luckier I get”. So take that
luck that you get and press it. Keep on pushing. It only gets easier from here.
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