We have all heard about this mysterious phenomenon called luck. These are some of my favorite sayings about the subject:
- Luck smells a lot like sweat.
- People make their own luck.
- Chance prefers the prepared mind.
- We all have equal amounts of good and bad luck. It is what you do with both that counts.
- If it wasn’t for bad luck I’ve have no luck at all.
Allow me to tell you a story about luck and then give you 5 lessons from it.
The date was June 12, 2009. The New York Yankees are trailing the New York Mets 8-7 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning. The Yankees have Derek Jeter on second base and Mark Tiexeira on first. Alex Rodriguez steps to plate hoping to tie or win the game. Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez (no relation) fires a 3-1 pitch to the plate which Alex pops up high to second base.
The game appears to be over. Rodriguez slammed his bat to the ground. Manager Joe Girardi talked about missed opportunities. Yankee players lowered their heads in disappointment and then the following happened:
Everyone would agree the Yankees got lucky and should not have won the game. But they did with Teizeira scoring the winning run for a 9-8 final score. Why?
The postgame analysis give us 5 Reasons Why Some Leaders Seem To Have All The Luck While Others Do Not. The quotes come from Mark Feinsand and Bryan Hoch’s excellent new book Mission 27: A New Boss, A New Ballpark, And One Last Ring For The Yankees’ Core Four.
- Leaders Who Seem To Have All The Luck Are Usually The Most Talented – Teixeira said, “It’s almost like a microcosm of the Yankees and Mets history. The Yankees are always the team with the talent and they win. And the Mets are always the team of ‘How can this happen?”
- Leaders Who Seem To Have All The Luck Hustle The Most – Speaking of Teixera, he began running full speed immediately on contact even though the odds were completely against him. He said, “That ball went up, and I just said, ‘I’m going to bust it. You never know. Why not hustle?” Luck does smell like sweat.
- Leaders Who Seem To Have All The Luck Are Grinders. They Bring Maximum Effort Everyday. – Teixeira said, “I’m proud of that play as any play in my career because I always thought of myself as a grinder.”
- Leaders Who Seem To Have All The Luck Have Great Fundemantals. They Do The Little Things Very, Very Well. – Alex Rodriguez said, “I think when you have great fundamentals and you play hard…”
- Leaders Who Seem To Have All The Luck Consistently Do Things The Right Way – Rodriguez added, “and you play the right way, great things are going to happen?”
What is one thing from the list above you can do to improve your luck?
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