When I do happen to go to the Indian Casinos it is to host out of town guests or with a group of friends, it’s not that I expect to win, because I'm a realist. I simply view the money spent on gambling as entertainment cost, just as I would a concert ticket to the McCallum Theater or dinner out at the Ingleside Inn.
One of the basic concepts of gambling, which is based on odds, is that if you play long enough, you’ll lose. However, if you play long enough, you will also undoubtedly hit a jackpot or two along the way. It’s just the odds at work. So the truth is, when I recently hit a jackpot (which just happened to be in front of other people), I wasn’t so much lucky as I was living up to the odds I had created for myself.
One friend’s reaction was that I must be "the luckiest person alive," this assumption got me thinking about how often we ascribe luck to the actions of successful people in the workplace as well. When we see someone make it big, move up quickly or even strike it rich in the corporate world, one of our first instincts is to call them “lucky." Just like in gambling, I've found that achieving such results is more about taking advantage of the odds, rather than leaving the results up to luck.
Is there some good fortune involved? Probably. Let me use another example from the world of gambling: the California Lottery (I pass a billboard on I-10, coming home from the office each day, and it is a night lit beacon to the latest jackpot totals). You can't win unless you buy a ticket, and you're very unlikely to win unless you buy a lot of them.
Successful people look at life as a controlled lottery, and their objective is to buy as many tickets as possible at every opportunity they get. When we suggest that these successful people are merely “lucky,” we’re letting ourselves off the hook. We're chalking others' wins up to luck, rather than considering the things that we could be doing to appear as lucky as them.
Here are a few areas where you can buy tickets in your own career lottery to increase your odds of winning:
- Working Hard: Are you always going above and beyond your duties?
- Constantly Learning: What skills are you attaining, both on the job and off?
- Opening Up: Are you always meeting new people and opening yourself up to new experiences and viewpoints?
So, what career lottery tickets are you buying right now? Are you staying late to finish an important job when everyone else bails? There's a lottery ticket. Using a weekend to take a class that improves your skills? There's another. Networking at a non-work function? And another. The opportunities are endless.
If you really want to make more of your job, I suggest you start collecting those lottery tickets. Of course, it's sometimes necessary to be in the right place at the right time (that’s where a job with Riverside County in the Desert comes in). But if you’re always using your time, always growing and pushing, it's only a matter of time before the odds you've created for yourself, reward you. By doing this you’ll guarantee that you’ll be in the right place at the right time in the not-so-distant future. By always buying career lottery tickets, you will expose yourself to many more opportunities than you would if you just keep doing the bare minimum with your job… or life for that matter.
Thinking back to what my friend said the last weekend at the casino; I now realize he's partially right. Some people can be very lucky, but it takes a lot of hard work to stay that way.
I imagine that some of the people reading this blog are only passive job seekers. Even though, from all you have read or heard from friends and coworkers, you think a career with Riverside County in the desert, really wouldn’t be such a bad deal. By way of a gentle nudge toward actively pursuing a “Desert Job”, let me suggest that the more opportunities you expose yourself to, the better the likelihood you will have to find the right one.
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Ingleside Inn Story – I met Mel Haber when he first bought the Ingleside Inn many (many) years ago and set about bringing it back to life. The Chamber of Commerce used to have monthly mixers which they invited the Jaycees to attend. Not one to turn down free catered affairs; it was the highlight of my social calendar.
Later, I heard that he had opened Melvyn’s Restaurant at the Inn and it received rave reviews. So, I decided to impress a lady friend by taking her there for lunch.
When we were seated in a crowded and bustling main room, our waiter retreated quickly after handing us our menus. On to the other guest that were that waiting for his attention. Opening the menu I was mortified to find that there were no prices. And, I didn’t know if I had enough cash to cover what now looked to be an expensive meal. As a nervous sweat began, I realized that it was too late to just bolt and run, so I tried to think how in the world I was going to come up with the lunch tab. Back then I didn’t even have plastic, and it being three days before payday my checkbook was of little use, even if I had it with me.
When the waiter did come back, complaining to a lack of hunger I ordered what looked to be the least expensive item on the menu, and just hoped my guest’s appetite wasn’t too large. Not enjoying a single bite, I ate as slowly as I could to allow more time to figure a way out of this predicament.
More time didn’t help. As the room began to empty out, it became obvious that we couldn’t just sit there through the afternoon and into the evening. So, I had to eventually call to the waiter for the check. He had, thankfully, up to that point seemed to forget about us.
When I was finally able to get his attention, indicating that I was ready for the bill, he just nonchalantly replied back over his shoulder, “Oh… your lunch is on Mr. Haber.”
On that occasion I can say boy, was I lucky! Or, maybe it was the fact that as a twenty something young man I was respectful and open to meeting new people at any age, and showed genuine interest in his new project as he excitedly discussed it, during a causual conversation at the Chamber mixer. Whatever the reason, I was sure glad that particular lottery ticket paid off.