How’s your luck?

For years I believed that I had bad luck.  It was true.  I never won anything.  Whenever there was a drawing or a lottery, my name was never drawn.  It seemed like the same lucky people always won over and over.  When I was 8 my sister won a highly coveted Cabbage Patch Kid on the Point Pleasant boardwalk by placing her $1 bet on the word “son” on the roulette wheel.  The very next round I wanted to place the same bet but was talked out of it because it would never hit again.  Guess what word won on that next spin?  Son.  In college when I worked at the Riverwalk in New Orleans, I parked at the riverboat casino.  Just for kicks, I’d occasionally throw a buck into a slot machine while getting my parking ticket validated.  I never won.  As I grew older, friends would always return from Vegas with tales of winning big at the black jack table.  The one time I tried not only did I lose all my money, but I lost it within 15 minutes.  I couldn’t even justify the loss with that old rationalization we use to comfort ourselves that, “it’s okay, we were paying to be entertained.”

It seemed like throughout my life I couldn’t get a lucky break.

I actually believed I was unlucky.  Then one day it occurred to me.  I finally took stock of what I was thinking to myself and saying to others, and I started to feel like a jerk.  It dawned on me that the opposite of what I’d been telling myself was actually true.  I had a pretty darn good life.  I was indeed very lucky where it really mattered.  So I started shifting my belief and my declarations to the world about my luck.  Whenever I caught myself saying or thinking I was unlucky, I changed it.  I clarified what I really meant by saying, “I have a very lucky life, but I just don’t win things.”  I hated the thought of sounding so ungrateful for all the good in my life.

Interestingly, a few years ago I finally won something for the very first time.  I entered an office Super Bowl pool.  I only entered it so people in my office wouldn’t think I was one of those people who didn’t like to participate in fun office pools.  I put in $10, and I won $500!  I couldn’t believe I had won!  I was over the moon, and ironically, literally the exact minute I learned I had won, I was involved in a snowy car accident on the highway heading home during halftime.  The irony wasn’t lost on me.  You know me… of course, I had to find meaning in that event!

In that moment, I learned what was and what wasn’t important.

In that moment I realized that I would have preferred to not win and not have my car accident.  We can’t choose these things, and they don’t go hand-in-hand, but I realized that winning didn’t really matter.  Once I started to appreciate the luck that was present in my life and letting go of the need to win, I gradually started to win more and more.   I mean, I didn’t miraculously start winning things all the time like those lucky people who I mentioned earlier, but I saw that I was capable of winning.  And I dropped the script altogether.  Instead of saying, “I am so unlucky,” or, “I have a lucky life, but I don’t win things,” I started believing, “hey, I can win.  I am lucky.”

Now I win more than I ever have in my life.  I can’t help but wonder, was my luck actually changing?  Was I able to manifest my luck?  I think the answer to that is a big, fat, definitive… maybe?  Either my luck is the same, and I have a changed perspective; or by believing I am lucky, my luck has improved.  If I gambled (and thanks to bad luck early on, I don’t,) I would bet it’s a combination of the two.

As I write this, for the first time ever I have fully noticed how changing my script actually changed my outcomes– or my perception of the outcomes.  And whether it’s perception or real, it doesn’t matter because our perception is our reality, right?  Ever since I started believing I could win, I started winning.  But it’s about more than just winning…

It’s believing you can win even after you’ve lost.

I’ve recently won pretty big.  I’ve shared the evolution of my career change and the exciting news about being the face to represent people in their 40’s for Nerium International.  It just keeps getting better.  Along with my fellow winners, I was featured on the cover of the latest edition of Beautiful You magazine!  Next week we will have parties all over the US celebrating the debut of this magazine.

What a lucky experience that is!