How to Get Lucky

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity" - Elmer Leterman

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The young salesman was disappointed about losing a big sale, and as he talked with his sales manager he lamented, “I guess it just proves you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.” The manager replied,

“Son, your job is not to make him drink. Your job is to make him thirsty.”

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People come up to me all the time and tell me how lucky I am that I get to do what I love for a living. I always smile when I think of how great my "work" is and then I whole heartedly agree with them.

As I sit alone in front of this screen I'm having a change of heart. I guess I most-heartedly agree with them. No. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure I agree with them at all.

The sentiment that one is lucky when one does for a living what one truly has a passion for has been adopted and adapted into our vernacular and collective consciousness so strongly, that virtually everyone concurs. But does anyone concur because they have thought it out and feel like the "lucky" person is lucky to have a job doing something they love? No. They say it because it sounds good and they have heard countless other people say it.

Here is what I am trying to say. My life is awesome. I wake up happy pretty much everyday. On the days where I don't wake up happy, I find that a cup of coffee and a little breakfast cures what was ailing me.

I create music. I love creating music. I record or perform music with phenomenally talented friends. These friends add their flavor to my creations and bring them to a better place.

I travel. I love to travel. Music has taken me to places that I never dreamed of and I have 3 more international trips already slated to yet more places I've never seen.

I connect with people and make new friends. I love interacting with people. Music allows me (via all that travel and performing) to meet really interesting people that I wouldn't have met otherwise.

It is sure starting to SOUND like I am lucky. Everything I love doing is presented to me on a silver plate.

Yes. I love my life. It's a perfect comfortable place (for me anyway).

But I think people are too quick to attribute this to Luck.

It has nothing to do with luck….at all.

Being in a career that truly makes you happy and fired up is a choice.

When people attribute my happiness and success to luck, I feel like it is unfair to them. I get up every day and attack because I'm happy with what I am doing and I have seen what can be accomplished when I do. It wouldn't matter if it was attributed to horseshoes or leprechauns or anything else. I wake up and make music, travel , and meet new people. These are all things I love.

But by thinking of my situation as being "lucky" people aren't changing MY situation one way or another, they are changing THEIR situation.
What I mean is this, I have worked exceptionally hard for a long long time and sacrificed a bunch to find myself in a happy place. Things are going well for me. When people throw out the word "Lucky" they are putting obstacles in their own way to similar happiness and success in their lives. Reaching a dream career seems unachievable if it requires luck. It seems like winning the lottery. But it is not.

If you see a glassblower, that has worked at his craft for 30 years and is now a master. He wakes up every morning with a smile, goes to his shop and makes superb glasswork and makes a sustainable living, would you say he is lucky? No. He has been determined and persistent.

Everyone can do the same.

If you are in a job you hate. Make a plan to get out of it and in to one you love. I'm not saying that will always be simple. As a matter of fact, I'm almost assuring you it will be difficult. It may take years and years, but make the plan and do it.

It is peculiar to me how some people misunderstand their station in life (like the salesperson in the story at the beginning of this post). It is easy for people to get sucked into the cyclic drudgery of day in day out grind and the rhythm of it lulls them to sleep.

The preconceived notions of what they "have to do" or are "Supposed to do" are keeping them from happiness and fulfillment.

I say start a revolution in your life. Ask yourself if you love what you do.

Imagine you are a stranger that has been observing you work for a week. Would you walk up and say, "You are lucky. You get to do what you love doing."?

If not, CHANGE your situation. It doesn't have to be immediate. As a matter of fact it probably can't be immediate. But break the cycle. Set your long term plan into motion. You don't have to arrive at happy, fulfilling career by the month's end, but you should turn your sights toward that destination.

It may be a decade before you get to the point where you are sustaining yourself doing what you love, but you will get there.
And when you do , you will not only be helping yourself but you will be helping the world.

Because the world doesn't need a bunch of drones plugging away at meaningless monotonous tasks. The world needs people who have come alive and attack each day with passion.

Do what you love and you will have no choice but to attack each day with passion (and a smile).

Your journey will be tough but worth it.

Good Luck!

Rock Me, Amadeus

Again today I'm just feeling like having a good time. So I figured I'd relay a few interesting stories I've read about Mozart.

I've always loved Mozart. He may be the most genius musician who ever lived but his personality was apparently equally remarkable.

There are a million Mozart impressive stories and who knows if they are all true. But I like to think they are. We all know he was a musical genius. That fact is well documented and his songs are still with us today. Listening to them will convince you that he had a special mind for music. But these stories paint a picture of this larger than life personality that seems Will Ferrell-esque at times and mechanically sharp at others . They crack me up and impress me.

Here's a few of my favorites:

The most celebrated of Mozart's Italian operas is
Don Juan. Well, Don Juan was composed
under very uniquely Mozart circumstances. Mozart liked to goof off, and he was accustomed to
indulging himself in that musician past time, procrastination. The fact that Mozart's musical abilities seemed to be magnified seems to have also magnified his other attributes (including his procrastination). The general rehearsal
of Don Juan had taken place, and the evening before
the first performance had arrived. Only problem was not a note of
the overture had been written yet.

At about eleven at night,
Mozart came home and asked his wife to make him
some punch. He also asked her to stay with him to keep him awake.

He began to write. As he did his wife began to tell
him fairy tales and odd stories, which made him laugh. He desperately needed this to keep himself awake.
The punch, however, made him very drowsy (must have been adult punch...he is a musician remember).

He got so sleepy that he could only
write while his wife was talking. As soon as she would pause he would nod off. He was at last so fatigued by these unnatural efforts, that he begged his wife to let him sleep for an hour.

He slept. but he accidentally slept for two hours instead of one. At five o'clock in the morning she woke
him up. He had appointed his music-copiers to come at
seven, and when they arrived, the overture was finished.

Mozart pulled the old "all nighter" like a college kid and got it done.

It was played without a rehearsal, and was applauded
as a brilliant and grand composition. If you've heard it you know that it IS a brilliant and grand composition.

The note that makes this story even better to me is: after centuries of studying this piece of work, musical critics have no doubt this story is true because they say by studying the composition they can tell which passages where written while
Mozart dozing off, and those while he was suddenly
awakened.

Mozart's wife should've gotten co-write credit on that one.

And Mozart should get the gold medal for procrastination.

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In order to be able to procrastinate at such an unbelievably high level (and still be successful) Mozart had to possess almost super powers. Luckily for him , he did. His powers of observation and understanding were probably the most adept of any musician's ever.

Here's an example:

Part of the musical service used in the Pope's chapel at Rome
is sacredly guarded and kept with great care in the
archives of the chapel. Any singer found tampering
with this "Miserere" of Allegri, or giving a note of it to an
outsider, would be excommunicated. Wow. Think about that. Excommunication (which was probably close to a death sentence in those days) for distributing in anyway this music.

And people are complaining about the penalties for free downloads. Hahaha What if the penalty was exile? I think we have gotten slightly more lenient in recent times, But I digress.

Only three copies of this musical service had ever been sent out.
One was for the Emperor Leopold.
Another was for the King
of Portugal.
The third was for the celebrated musician,
Padre Martini.
That was it. There were 3 copies. The existence of any other copies was not allowed.

But there was one copy that was made without the Pope's orders.

When Mozart was 14 he was taken to Rome by his father. They went to St. Peter's and heard the service in all its impressiveness. Mozart's dad could hardly snap the kid out of his fascination with the
music. Afterward, Mozart's dad had a difficult time getting his son to leave the cathedral.

That night after they had gotten home and gone to bed, Mozart stealthily arose and by the light of the moon, wrote out the sacredly guarded "Miserere" in its entirety.

This is so absurdly impressive that it boggles my mind.

The Pope's locks, bars, and threats of excommunication gave no safety against a memory like Mozart's.


(I guess he was allowed his extreme procrastination as mentioned in the story above, because he had a mind like a steel trap)
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There's one more quick Mozart story that has always cracked me up. This one makes him sound kind of arrogant and pompous, but it actual makes him more endearing to me.

As we have seen, Mozart was exceptional. His mind was sharp to a level that I consider legendary. Well his wit seems to have been equally sharp.

Mozart was once approached by a young man who was interested in Mozart's advice on how to compose a symphony. Since he was still very young, Mozart recommended that he start by composing ballads. Surprised, the young man responded, "But you wrote symphonies when you were only ten years old."

Mozart countered "Yes.....But I didn't have to ask how".

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