Be Your Best

Todd Gifford – Success Coach

Luck is a very hard concept to pin down when it comes to success and failure, and of course, we all hear ‘you were lucky’ or ‘that was just good (or bad) luck’ all the time — but it seems more of a cliché than something that people really understand.  There is no doubt that luck plays a factor for personal and group success in the big picture and small picture — but how and how much?  Should you/we care?  Can luck be understood or managed or leveraged?

I have always been intrigued by the concept of luck, wondering just how much luck (volume of luck, frequency of luck and timing of luck) played a factor in life.  My first interest in “luck” was when I was a kid, about 10-12 years old, playing tennis, and trying to become a better tennis player.  I was playing recreationally, but then started to enter some tournaments as I became a teenager.  Bottom line is I didn’t win very often.  The frustrating thing was that I truly felt that I was ‘better’ than most of the players I was playing against.  When I would warm up with my competitor before the match, hitting the ball back and forth, I would feel that I was better than the other player.  But then during the match, they would beat me sometimes handily and sometimes in a close match.  But I lost most matches.  I continued to work hard and practice frequently to get better, but still lost most all my matches.  Going through this stretch for a few years, I started to wonder if I was just ‘unlucky’ or the players I was playing were ‘luckier’ than me.  Well, the answer was they were just better tennis players than me … but the real point here is that the concept of “luck” was something I began seriously wondering about and it did play a factor (as I understand it today), but not how I thought it did.  Did some people have more luck than others?  Did certain people have more frequent luck?

Of course as you get older, you hear more statements and clichés about luck — my personal favorite: “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”  For me, through all the years of working, I never really had any big conclusions about luck and its role in my successes and failures.  I think I felt that overall, I was pretty “lucky” in general, but not sure I would consider luck as being critical in getting me to where I am at (like most of us, I like to think that what I have achieved was based on hard work and effort more so than any luck that I have had, good or bad.  But the reality is that until recently, I still felt that the concept of how luck plays into success and failure was pretty much a mystery.

Of late, I had the fortune of reading a book by Jim Collins, called ‘Great By Choice’.  This book is an excellent read for several reasons, but one of the most interesting portions of the book (and worth the price just to read this one chapter) is the chapter discussing “Luck”.  Collins’ research project for this book sort of backed into the issue of luck, because an obvious question that was raised by his identification of a number of companies that had reached success more than 10X over 20-30 years vs. the comparable companies was: ‘did luck play a minor, major, or nonexistent role in the success of the 10X companies?”

Collins’ team studied the concept of luck like no one else has ever done prior, and arrived at some very interesting  and important conclusions based on empirical data.  These conclusions finally provided me clarity as to how luck plays into success and failure.

R.O.L.

First, by definition, a luck event is something outside of your control, so you cannot predict or ‘advance manage’ luck.  Second, Collins’ research data showed that the ultra successful companies did not have any more good luck, any less bad luck, and no different timing or frequency of luck events than the comparable less successful companies.  This is what the empirical data over a 20-30 year study period showed.  OK, so by and large, luck itself does not cause great success.  But is any part of luck a factor in success?

YES.  The aspect of luck that DOES cause greater degrees of success is the concept of “Return on Luck” or R.O.L.  Return on Luck (ROL) is what kind of positive or negative ‘return/benefit’ you get when luck happens to you.  You can think of ROL in a 4-box matrix.  There is the type of luck (Good or Bad) you get, and then there is the benefit that you create when ‘luck’ happens (Good or Bad ‘return’ on luck).  So, when a good luck event happens, you can either capitalize on your good fortune, or the luck event can pass you by (possibly unnoticed) and your return (benefit) from that luck was poor.  Same goes for bad luck, and in fact, your performance/success may be more dependant on your Return on ‘bad’ Luck than on good luck.  It is quite possible to have a ‘good’ return on ‘bad’ luck (and ‘bad’ ROL on bad luck) — taking a bad luck situation and transforming it into a tremendous positive outcome (challenging, but very possible).  Collins’ research study showed that the 10X more successful companies achieved better ROL with the luck that they got (good luck AND bad luck).  This is extremely important information, but maybe even more significant is the fact that what people do with the luck that they get is completely within their control.  It is all about choices and action taken upon recognizing either good luck or bad luck has occurred.  For me (and I hope for you), this is a really important principle that can help your career, your life, and your success/happiness.  Be on the sharp lookout for when good luck and bad luck happens, and strive to get a high ROL!

Be Your Best,

Todd D. Gifford

Todd Gifford – Success Coach

Warren Buffett, business magnate, legendary investor, and philanthropist was once asked how he defined friendship.  He answered: “I remember asking that same question of a woman who had survived Auschwitz.  She said her test of friendship was: would they hide me?”  That made me stop and think: how many friends do I have that would hide me?  How many friends do I have that I would hide?

Another successful person said that you will uncover a lot of lost friends and unknown relatives by winning the lottery big, but you can only determine the true friends you have by calling them all the night before your having won that lottery becomes public knowledge, telling them you are under life and death duress to raise a million dollars more than you have immediately, and asking how much they will lend you first thing in the morning.

A statement made by a trusted friend: “Caskets are made with six handles — a very optimistic thought.”

And finally, yet another interesting perspective of friendship: “If you want to know who your true friends are, get yourself a jail sentence, and see who visits you.”

All of these perspectives point to the same basic point that true friendship is very rare.  True friendship is something that I think should be taken  very seriously, like other important principles like honesty and integrity.  Succinctly put by a person I admire: “The hole we give through is the same hole we receive through.  We choose its circumference.”  Putting some concerted thought each day on how to be a better person and a better friend will almost guarantee a large band of good true friends.  True friendship is priceless.  A good first thought: How many friends would hide you?  How many friends would you hide?

F.E.A.R.

We all are pelted and pounded with issues, concerns, doubts, and reasons why things are bad, why we can’t accomplish things, how things may be worse in the future.  It is a real challenge not to be inundated and subsequently have increased anxiety by all this negative information in today’s information overload environment.  But it is critical that we proactively manage fear to allow ourselves to reach our full potential and accomplish everything we desire.  Fear can stifle us.

A mentor of mine provided me this definition of “Fear” many years ago:  Fear =

Fantasized Experiences Appearing Real.  This puts the concept of fear into good perspective.  Most of the things we fear are simply an exaggeration of our imagination.  Our subconscious mind and our nervous system don’t know the difference between reality and our imagination.  So, the same feelings of anxiety are created whether a situation is real or imagined.  That is really important to understand.  F.E.A.R.

Here are a few things you can do to proactively manage your fears:

Actively feed your mind with positive and uplifting information.  You are constantly being bombarded by negative news and negative information.  If you are a news-oriented person, this is magnified.  On an average day, studies have shown that 80%+ of our thoughts are negative.  By actively exposing yourself to positive information, your brain and imagination can absorb that to offset or counter all the bad news coming at you.

Second, it is important to take time periodically (daily or weekly)  to think about positive goals and aspirations, and develop plans to achieve those.  By doing this consistently, you put your mind on ‘track’ and focus on your targets — helping to eliminate distraction (aka fear).  As Earl Nightingale (father of personal development) once said, “You become what you think about.”

Lastly, it is generally productive to confront your biggest persisting fears head on.  It is an interesting paradox in life that when you resist something, it persists even stronger.  Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.”  One of the best and most useful tools I have ever been given is this:  The best antidote to fear is ‘Action’.  If you ever have fear or anxiety, just start ‘doing’ something and you will immediately feel better.  Go for a walk, ride a bike, work on a craft, play with your kids/pet, etc… It works like a charm.

Be Your Best,
Todd D. Gifford

What is old is new again — The model car DEE President Todd Gifford assembled and painted after 34 years since doing his last plastic model project

Over the holidays, I was ‘sequestered’ at my wife’s folks’ home in Pueblo, Colorado.  I am not very good at just sitting around and relaxing for very long.  I did not have my typical house chores to do, nothing broken to fix, no cars to wash or work on, and none of my normal list of things to do.  Since it was right after Christmas, everyone wanted to just hang out at home.  I was getting restless and had already done a lot of reading and football game watching, so I started to think about things I could do.

We had given our 5 year old nephew a little wooden Lion puzzle 3D model for Christmas from a craft store.  Lots of little balsa wood pieces that you have to figure out how to assemble (puzzle), and when you are done, you have a ’model’ of a Lion.  After several adults in the family had tried to start this model puzzle and gotten no where, everyone agreed that it would be too difficult for our nephew to try to assemble it alone.  I grabbed the project and started to take a look at it.  I was dying for a challenge, so I started into it.  Even though the package said “for Ages 8+”, this thing was fairly difficult to figure out (although it should be noted I have never been any good at puzzles).  After about an hour, I started to make some nice progress.  I began to get some oooh’s and ahhh’s from family members, as they checked on my progress — which made me feel pretty good.  After a couple hours, I had a Lion model completed that looked just like the picture on the package!  That project was done, and now I was back to my original situation of needing something to do.

That wooden Lion model sparked some memories I had of when I was about 9-12 years old, sitting in my basement putting together 1/18th and 1/24th scale plastic models of tanks, airplanes, and some buildings for an H.O. train setup.  I remember really enjoying doing that, but could not figure out why I just stopped building models somewhere around age 13.  I have not even looked at or thought about a plastic model project in over 34 years.  I got excited and thought “I am going to take all this free down time and put together a plastic model just like the old days.”

I really like old cars, so I decided to hunt down a cool old car model that I could build.  So, within a half hour, I was looking for my project at the local hobby shop.  A few days later of 6 hours per day effort carefully painting and gluing, I completed my first model after 34 years since I stopped building them.  It was every bit as fun and rewarding as I remember it from when I was very young.  And in some ways, it was more rewarding.  My two daughters (10 and 13 years old) helped me with the project, which made it even that much more fulfilling (and they really enjoyed it).

This experience got me thinking.  If I had forgotten about something this fun and rewarding for 34 years, what else am I missing or have forgotten about that is just as rewarding?  The fact is that there are hundreds upon hundreds of activities, books, techniques, tools, learnings, etc… that you have used or been exposed to in the past — that you simply just forget about or stop using or doing.  Why?

I suppose there are a lot of reasons why we (I) just stop doing or using valuable or important things that we have done in the past, but the reason that I think is the biggest is: that I am always looking for the ‘next thing’.  As human beings, we have a fundamental need for growth and excitement.  This is a good thing, but the bad part about it is that we can leave behind some very good things we have been exposed to, only to be forgotten and replaced by new things.  This phenomena applies equally to business and personal life.

On the one hand, searching and finding ‘new’ allows us to become exposed to a lot of different things and experiences — but on the other hand, it may not allow us to fully maximize the value of what we already have learned or been exposed to.  In the plastic model story I talked about above, if I had stuck with building models over the years, what could I have accomplished?  Same goes with business tools, strategies, and techniques.  So many times we move on to the next ‘thing’, without fully leveraging or maximizing strategies or techniques that we have already learned.  In the end, it is all about ‘balance’.  Not searching for ‘new’ inhibits our growth potential.  But constant searching for new or better without fully mastering or leveraging the good stuff we already know can also lead to falling short of our potential.  It’s a bit of a paradox where you need to do a lot of both.

Take time to look ‘back’ at some of your lost or forgotten ‘good stuff’ that you can rediscover. What is old can be new, important, and valuable again.

Be Your Best,

Todd D. Gifford