Luck Be a Lady, But Not a Friend

Luck: a word we use liberally and often times daily and a word we need to give more thought. Luck: good fortune; advantage or success, considered as the result of chance. Luck: become a non-believer in its existence.


I can speak for us all when I say ‘Lady Luck’ has deceived us into thinking she has been an unconditional friend to us all. She shows up at the finish line at the end of the race, on graduation day, when we finally get hired after three extensive, pressure-filled interviews, when we win the game, when we pass our exam, and after each ‘wall’ we break down. Now, I don’t mean to appear cynical, but why is it that in our glory this great and ‘unconditional’ friend tries to steal the spotlight by taking full credit for all we achieve? Even better still; why do we proceed to allow her to take it from right under our noses? This has been a question I have began pondering since moving to Las Vegas where I have begun to catch on to her tactics of accepting responsibility for things she didn’t do. Correct me if I am being too harsh, but I must admit that Lady Luck doesn’t seem like she’s the celebrated friend and ally we have all been fooled into believing and thinking she is.


Not long ago, I too was entranced by the Lady’s constant manipulations and it took an extended period of time for me to see through her trickery. It wasn’t until a couple years ago that I began thinking something seemed a little out of order. Each time I would progress into a new stage of life and step onto the next highest platform of my goal-staircase, there she always was eating up my limelight and gleaming with joy at her recognition. It took me a while, but I realized her selfishness when her name always had to be brought up first in conversations; “I Lucked out!”, “What Luck I have!”, “I have the best Luck!”… I could go on and on about each time this happened, but the point I hope you see is that she is not the rightful owner of these incredible feats in life. We are. You are. I am.


‘If this is the case’, you are asking yourself, ‘and Luck is such a fallacy, than why is it that ‘lucky’ people are so successful, positive and content with life while ‘unlucky’ people are the complete opposite?’ Quite simply, our awareness to our own reality and our attitude in coping with what life lays out on our palate determines our outcomes. Lucky people have trained themselves to subconsciously think positively and to expect success and therefore receive it, while unlucky people presume failure is inevitable and blame ‘luck’ for not being on their side. Everything in life is relative and ‘lucky’ people realize that there is no big or small, no hard or difficult, and no bad or good because they don’t compare their insides to another person’s perceived outsides. Just because someone or something appears to exist in a certain way on the surface doesn’t necessarily mean the interior will remain synonymous throughout. Lucky people rely on faith for what they need and carry out the action needed to receive it. They bring things into form with the thoughts, words and actions they give their energy and faith to. Unlucky people send things away from themselves by doubt, fear and negativity. All ‘luck’ consists of is thinking and acting in a certain way that enables us to be skilled at noticing the possibilities in front of us and allowing ourselves to open our minds to new possibilities. Even though ‘luck’ isn’t the deciding factor of our fate, we can all learn a lesson by emulating and following the footsteps of self-proclaimed ‘lucky’ people and adopting their positive, success-driven thought processes. By acting on our intuitions and gut feelings without comparing our fate to that of someone else or relying on statistics for the answer, we are giving ourselves permission to dig deep in finding a better version of life as we know it.


By taking the reins of life and directing our thoughts into simple expectations day in and day out, we are paving the road for our own success story that we can use to help influence and positively change the lives of others. How are we, as health care providers and fitness professionals, supposed to have an influence on our client’s lives if we can’t have the same influence on our own lives? By accepting that we are in control, we are giving ourselves permission to change our lives and therefore our fate. In order to be the best, we need to expect the best. And in order for our client’s to become successful in reaching their own goals, they have to have a positive role-model (in YOU, Faithful Reader) in which they can emulate and follow the example of.


The future of society in regards to health and wellness is statistically in a downfall that appears to have a very ‘unlucky’ fate. If we decide to give in and accept that this is just how it’s going to end up and that we have no control of the situation, we might as well all quit our jobs and work for Lady Luck in a different field with more security…. or ‘luck’, as you will. Is this what it’s going to come down to? Can you find it within yourself to step out of the stands and into the arena to win the fight we are all up against without doubt that you will succeed regardless of what is slated to happen or how many jabs are thrown your way? Are you ready to face the unknown and can you hear your heart as it silently screams for you to push on as times get tough because success is ahead? There are no guarantees in this life, Faithful Reader. This is a curse and a blessing, but it means that life as we know it isn’t predetermined and that we have some say in how we want our future and the future of the world to transpire. We are but one person, one believer, and one single voice to be heard. But we have to realize that there are millions of other like-minded individuals in this field and millions of cries for our help to bring them the ‘luck’ they assume we can grant them with our services. Why should we fight this battle alone and give the Lady the upper hand? Although she is putting up a good fight, it’s just not good enough for what we can accomplish together. We are not only health care and fitness practitioners and professionals, but we are ‘life changers’. With this comes huge responsibility and we should never give ‘luck’ the satisfaction of managing our dreams of impacting and helping others.


Whatever it may be that drives and impels you to succeed, remember that is YOU that had made your accomplishments possible. It is you that broke through the wall and it is you that saw the outcome long before it presented itself. Connect To Fitness is an outlet for those of you who have found it within yourselves to see Lady’s true intentions in holding us back from our greatest potential. We have a tremendous journey ahead of us and it is going to take all of us to beat the odds. Connect To Fitness is looking to take things to the next level and we need your help to make this dream a reality. Not by chance, not by luck, but by pure dedication and commitment to doing the right thing at the right time. Right now. Take a stand and pursue your dreams with your eyes wide open and only look back with your eyes closed.


Currently, Connect To Fitness is working to allow more voices to be heard in the industry by scheduling and conducting live interviews with health, fitness and wellness professionals who want to share their story or passion with others and let others know how they are helping and how you can help as well. We want to spread the inspiration as far as possible and would love to share the story of anyone who is going above and beyond to ensure they are doing their part to make their mark in their field. Please contact me if you, Faithful Reader, are interested or if you know of someone who you would like me to get in touch with who has a story that could benefit from the help of others or that just simply needs and deserves to be heard. My intention is to help more people connect and to provide exposure to the different people, aspects and venues of this industry. We don’t need Luck on our side to accomplish big things. We just need each other.


Luck is not a magical ability nor is it the result of random chance. We aren’t genetically inclined to inherit a ‘lucky’ or ‘unlucky’ gene. Instead it is our thoughts and behaviors that are responsible for much of our good (or bad) fortune. ‘Luck ‘ is generated from those who are excellent at creating and noticing chance opportunities, making decisions based upon their intuition, turning positive expectations into self-fulfilling prophesies, and transforming ‘bad’ luck into ‘good’ by adopting a resilient attitude.


So you see, Reader, the mythical ‘Lady Luck’ is indeed not on our side and she never has been. She is there to shelter success and to claim it for her own. This is not the type of friend we need to proceed on our journey in reaching our goals.


Instead, we need to rely on each other to accomplish common goals and to expect success in helping ourselves and those who are counting on us to guide them to their own aspirations. By taking back all the credit from Lady, we can now free ourselves to accept that we are in charge of our future and we can move forth with making everlasting change.


“What we call ‘luck’ is the inner man externalized. We make things happen to us.”-Robertson Davies


How will your future transpire? Until next week… Luck be an Unlucky Lady Tonight.