Hi Michael,

Great post!

> Not counting the customer who employs his
> girlfriend, which could be a case of
> nepotism, he has five customers in total.
> But it all began with just one. The first
> one. A single contact who gave him a break,
> so to speak.

> But he never would have made that contact if
> he'd just sat at home. He took action. Just
> enough to get one single customer.

I believe this is the key....

I generally believe that, in most cases, you "make" your own luck. How can that be?

By this I mean, you're ready to leap at opportunities when they present themselves....

I believe we have many great opportunities pass by us, perhaps several each year.

But when an opportunity presents itself, many of us do one of these things....

(1) We don't recognize it as an opportunity, or
(2) We do recognize it, but then convince ourselves that it's not really an opportunity, or
(3) We let our fears get the better of us, or
(4) We're too lazy.

And as a result, the window of opportunity slips away....

Even highly successful people miss many great opportunities every year. I don't think it's possible to take up every opportunity that comes your way....

And often those opportunities don't just sail by.... In many instances, you create them....

One way is by writing to the right people. I've done this before....

In 1994, I was still working on my Ph.D. But I was being "daring" and with my research, I was going into a field which there really were no experts for in my university.... So, to be sure my work was on a solid basis, I wanted to work with an eminent researcher in this field.

I made a list of names of the people I wanted to work with, with the top names at the top.

Then, I sent out an email, the first email went to the guy at the top of my list. My plan was to work down the list, until someone accepted me to visit and work with him.

Luckily for me, the guy at the top of my list accepted -- and I spent 5 months working with Professor Raymond Chiao, one of the world's top experts in quantum optics (which was my field), at the University of California, Berkeley. (If you want to look him up, he appears in science news articles regularly, especially regarding faster-than-light effects. Just do a search for his name on the WWW.)

So, was it "luck"? I think that clearly, a lot of this "luck" I created myself.... Even if Prof. Chiao didn't accept me, I had a list of many other names -- all also top researchers in the field -- to continue emailing....

I believe that practically any other Ph.D. student (at least under the Australian university system) could have done what I did. But most don't.... I think many of them don't even think of it. Or if they do think of it, they dismiss it as impossible. Or even if they think it's possible, then their fear defeats them (a fear of rejection)....

I think a fear of rejection is perhaps the biggest fear that's good to overcome.... I must admit, I sometimes still struggle with this, but I've generally had my greatest successes when I've consciously pushed any fear of rejection out of my mind.... And had courage.

Now, that case was an opportunity that, to a degree, I created myself....

But opportunities also sometimes just jump out at you unexpectedly, and you have to make a fast decision whether to grab them or not....

However, I do believe that you can, to a large degree, through your actions create your own opportunities, and therefore create your own "luck"....

- Dien