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Are you lucky? We all know people who always seem to be in the right place at the right time to land the perfect job, stumble across a great opportunity to grow their practice, or hire the perfect employee when no one else can find anyone to interview. Or maybe they're the ones that buy a $1 lottery ticket and win $10 instantly or get three bars in a row on the first spin of a Vegas slot machine. Yet if you look closer, the common denominator is that they did something to put themselves in a position to be lucky. They weren't sitting at home or at work waiting for the leprechaun to drop the pot of gold at their feet.
What if luck is really nothing more than perseverance and hard work? What if you can't be lucky unless you're out there in the real world exploring new avenues, trying new tasks, and making new mistakes? What if being lucky really means you have to leave your c omfort zone to give luck a chance to find you? A lot of us are only too happy to maintain the status quo in our practices and then wonder why life's dynamics seem to pass us by. Of course, it is more comfortable continuing to do what you've always done, but the world may be leaving you behind while you sit in your safe, nurturing cocoon.
Nobody loves a steady diet of change. Even risk takers need a break sometimes. But do you give yourself the chance to be lucky? When you go to a veterinary conference, do you make a point of meeting the peers you don't already know and talking to vendors in the exhibit hall whose products you don't use or understand? Or do you just seek out your classmates or hang with your coworkers?
Widen your horizons. Take a tour in China or hike in Nepal or visit the markets in India if you want a different perspective on people and how they live. Visit the Galapagos Islands to see how animals react to people when they haven't been conditioned to fear humans - let a baby seal scoot by your toes in the sand. However, you don't need to travel half way around the world to broaden your perspective. Explore a different neighborhood right at home, or attend an event that piques your curiosity. People that are "lucky" make lifelong friends and important business contacts where they least expect to find them, and it's not in front of your television. Changing your environment, even temporarily, makes you much more aware of your surroundings when you get back home. Chances are you'll recognize and take on an opportunity that comes your way more quickly if you survived getting on the last car to the wrong destination near Paris and still managed to get back to your hotel.
Sadly, we all learned as children that there is no pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, and in fact, we were taught that we can't even find the end. Just as rainbows are fleeting, so are the opportunities to be lucky. We're not recommending that you invest regularly in lottery tickets or feed the slots at casinos - we all know the odds are stacked against us there. But time spent by team members in pet-related community events can reward a practice with positive images in the community, not to mention name recognition and new contacts. And do you think radio or television stations seek out veterinarians to do drive time Q & A programs or human animal bond stories? More likely, the doctor or the practice sought out the station with an idea that would appeal to pet owners in the community. The same is true for authoring columns in daily or weekly local papers. An entertaining and informative blog for pet owners and animal lovers may catch on quickly and develop a loyal following if it's well done. And how appealing is your Facebook page?
The moral? That charming leprechaun is more likely to find you if you give him a chance. Make your own luck through innovative ideas, hard work and perseverance, and you'll catch his eye before the next St. Patrick's Day rolls around.
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