I wrote the book Get Back Up: From the Streets to Microsoft Suites because I honestly thought that my story of overcoming many obstacles before eventually achieving success would be an inspiration to others. While I did get quite a few comments from people who found the recount of my life to be motivational, there were also a number of readers who told me I was lucky.
Lucky? I didn’t feel lucky as a kid when I was born into a family of nine on welfare. I certainly didn’t feel lucky when years later I went crashing through a door closed by a drill sergeant, lacerating my wrist, necessitating a long stay in an army hospital and resulting in a subsequent discharge with a service-connected disability. Years later, despite the fact that the priest who saw me in the ER after I crashed my car into a tree said I was lucky to be alive, I didn’t feel very lucky. To me, luck would have been missing the tree entirely.
Even my job at Microsoft was considered luck by some. After all, they would say, you were lucky enough to get a job at Microsoft when they were still a young company about to begin a multiyear growth spurt. The fact that I was turned down four times before I finally got an entry level job didn’t seem to matter to these skeptics. It also didn’t matter to them that not everyone who was hired by Microsoft received stock, or that the only way you were going to get more was by working hard and producing great results.
I didn’t just hear these remarks about my success but about other people’s achievements as well. You also routinely heard this kind of talk about star athletes. He is gifted. He was born with that talent. While it may be true that some people are born with more talent than others, we often see lesser athletes have more success than their more talented counterparts. Might practice and work ethic have something to do with it? It’s just my opinion, but I really believe that success is within everyone’s grasp. You first have to believe it is possible and then you have to be willing to do the work.
I just didn’t get it. I know that my success was based on a lot of hard work and tenacity. Why would anyone discount that? I thought about this for some time. As I began doing some speaking and mentorship, I thought about what my message or mission would be. I came up with the following statement: “I help people recognize and break down the self-imposed barriers to their success.” I think the key words in this statement are “self-imposed.”
Why am I saying self-imposed? Let’s get back to that ‘you were lucky’ comment. Why would people say that? Maybe it’s because it relieves them of any responsibility for the way things are. I didn’t get an ‘A’ because my teacher doesn’t like me. I didn’t get that promotion because I refused to kiss butt. I didn’t get that bonus because I wasn’t on the right project.
These are all excuses. Somebody in your class is getting an ‘A’. Somebody at your work is getting a raise, promotion, bonus, or all three. Why isn’t it you? Is that somebody working harder than you? Are they putting in more hours and getting better results? The only way you’re going to determine what it takes to be the one getting the rewards is to not abdicate your responsibility for your success. Find out what your boss and the company value and then do those things better than anyone else. Don’t count on or blame luck for your success or failure. Unless you’re playing the lottery, luck has nothing to do with it.