Getting lucky is often about getting out of your comfort zone and opening yourself up to new and different opportunities.  You can get lucky by listening to different people’s points of view and then looking at the situation from their perspective.  You can also get lucky by putting yourself in situations and locations that are different from your norm. The internet, along with interactive maps, news from around the world and social networks that can connect you to people in countries across the globe has given us the tools to really jump out of our comfort zones but according to Ethan Zuckerman in the TED Talk below, we’re really missing out on this opportunity as a nation.

The talk is a little long but worth watching when you have the time.

According to Ethan’s talk, in the 1970′s, 35% of the news American’s consumed was international compared to only 12% in the 2000′s.   He showed a picture created by Alisa Miller that portrays the world according to the news that we consumed from each country in July of 2009.  I was able to get a similar version from February 2007 below.  Alisa claims that today, we want to know more about the world than ever before and yet, the media is showing us less and less.  In other words, the media is luck blocking us and trying to dumb us down.

The picture sort of reminds me of the old “World According to America Poster”.

With all the tools available online to reach people from around the world, people choose to spend the time with their local friends and other people they meet that share their interests.  Even when people use social networks to discuss world news, they mostly discuss it with their friends and people with the same or similar perspective.  You don’t see people friending strangers from other countries to hear their perspectives on what happens to be their “local” news.  This leads to us discussing our own thoughts and what our media wants us to know.  This can be very dangerous as we end up thinking that we are worldly and up to date but really we have no clue about what is really going on in the world around us. Zuckerman feels that it is unfortunate that more people in North America don’t speak Chinese.  After all, it is one of the leading and most important languages in the world. He points out a Chinese organization that devotes their time to translating news and information into Chinese and feels that America should do the same.  Ethan is a co-founder of Global Voices, which aims to share news and opinions from locals in nations across the world in many languages. Lucky people are the ones that take the road less traveled and in a world that we have the tools to reach the corners of the world, we should push through the media’s wall and pave a lucky path.  Not many people are doing it so here is your lucky break!Similar Posts:

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When you sit down and turn on your computer, do you know exactly what you are about to do or are you just turning on your computer because it is something to do? I constantly find myself sitting down at my computer without a clear agenda and goal in mind only to end up checking everything online that can possibly be checked.  My email, my website analytics, my stock portfolio, my social networks, and anything else that may pop into my head at the time.  What I find is that I end up using wasting a ton of time because I don’t have any agenda or plan to follow.  I could probably get away with checking my email three times per day and checking my analytics and portfolios once or twice per month.  I use social networks for a few reasons so the frequency of my using them would depend on the situation.  I use them to stay in touch with people, to network, to promote myself and to learn about new features and applications.  The point is that myself, along with much of the rest of the world gets lazy when we are in front of a computer.

Productivity is not Measured by Hours Some people feel productive if they sit in front of a computer all day long and answer a few emails.  A great day would be when you participated in a long chain of emails that came to a conclusion.  In reality, that “productive” day could have been accomplished in a fraction of the time it took but so much time was wasted between each check of the email that it seems like you never stopped working.

Productivity is measured by accomplishments For me, a productive day is a day where I waste as little time as possible and accomplish something that will bring me closer to a goal.  Sometimes that goal is finishing a project or a major piece of a project for a client or securing a new client altogether.  Sometimes it’s doing something to promote myself or my business.  No matter what it is, it is measured in accomplishments, not time spent on my computer or number of emails answered. The same can be applied to your personal time.  When you come home from work, do you turn on the TV? Do you go online to surf the net?  I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with doing either of these activities but I am saying that you should know what you are getting into.  For example, instead of just turning on the TV, consciously decide “I need to relax so I’ll watch 2 shows”.  Instead of just going online, decide “I’ll check the news and then see who’s online to talk to for the next 30 minutes”.

Unless….. Unless… you just want to “waste time”.  But, if you’re reading this blog, you probably don’t want to waste time.  This blog is about getting lucky and finding opportunity in everything that we do.  You can’t find opportunity when you keep doing the same thing over and over.  As the Albert Einstein so eloquently put it, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.  When we turn on the TV, we end up watching the same types of shows, often while zoning out.  When we spend time on social networks, we end up spending time with the same friends and sharing the same type of content with each other.  If you want to get lucky online, participate in new conversations on open networks like Twitter or finding new types of content through sites like StumbleUpon.  Just make sure that before you log on, that you decide what you will be doing and for how long you will be doing it.  Otherwise you just get sucked in. If you have an agenda before starting something, even as simple as checking your email, you will end up saving yourself a lot of time that otherwise would have been wasted.  Then you can squeeze more activities into your day, be more productive, accomplish much more and get really lucky. Pic: Grahambones Similar Posts:

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Thanks http://www.flickr.com/photos/nosha/ for the pic. Everybody has heard the saying that “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” or something similar.  The traditional way of understanding the saying is that when you are holding a prize in your hand, you shouldn’t throw it away to find out what’s behind door number two.   Our subconscious minds take the saying a little differently though.  They say, “A bird in my hand is worth more than the same bird in your hand”.  When you own something, it takes on a completely new level of value.  You form mental and emotional attachments to your property incomprehensible to everyone else. I’ve been keeping my eyes open lately for a potential house to purchase.  An ongoing theme that I’ve seen so far is that people feel that their homes are worth more than they really are.  As a buyer, I look at the home as a piece of land, a structure and a whole bunch of living space.  The sellers look at it as a home with memories.  A place where they grew up or raised their children.  The place where they held parties and had great times.  You can’t put a dollar amount on memories but then again, you can’t sell them either so they are worthless to the buyer.  When selling your house, you have to be realistic about how much the actual house is really worth and not what it is worth to you. On a smaller scale, we as human beings are just as bad.  There are many things that we would never buy (or never buy again), but if we already own them, we cannot get ourselves to get rid of them.  Think about your old comic book collection or clothes that you haven’t worn in years.  I thought about this recently when looking at my collection of domain names that I own.  There are some domains that I continue to pay $8.99/year for that I would never even think of buying if I didn’t already own them.  There are many domains that I own because of an idea I had that I never pursued or because of an old project that is not in existence anymore. To see the extent of the value gap between owners and potential buyers, watch this video by Dan Ariely, where he speaks about what Duke basketball season ticket holders are willing to sell their tickets for and what non ticket holders are willing to buy them for.

Lucky people get passed the inexplicable emotional attachment to the bird in their hand and think realistically.  Unlucky people think that they may make some money off of all the old “stuff” they hoarded for all of these years and continue to pack everything away.  The amount that you will make off of the sales and the frustration you go through to sell it are not worth the money you are spending on storing and maintaining your possessions. Looks like I am going to do some spring cleaning.  What are you going to do about those birds in your hand?  Let me know in the comments.Similar Posts:

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If you’ve been following this blog, you will know that to get lucky, you must open yourself up to as many new opportunities as possible. Keeping your eyes open to see any changes that can lead to new opportunities and listening to as many people as possible to hear new points of view that can lead to new opportunity. It seems pretty obvious that if things aren’t going as well as you would have hoped, you would open yourself up to new ideas and new points of view. If that’s the case, why are so many businesses and organizations banging their heads into the same wall over and over again?

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” –  Albert Einstein

Being new in town, my wife decided to help out some local organization by joining committees for their fundraisers. She was full of excitement knowing that she was not only going to be helping out her community but also, she will be able to share some of her ideas to make the events even more successful. They welcomed her onto the committees with open arms but to her surprise, they were unwilling to listen to any of her ideas. Even though they complained that they lost money of some events and would love to raise more money on others, they were determined to not only redo each of last year’s events but duplicate them completely and have the same people run each part. My wife sent them an email saying that she was disappointed that she wasn’t involved more than just running errands that nobody else wanted to do. Here is the response that the committee leader sent to my wife:

Hi, First of all, i apologize for not including you more in this.  Most of the year to year things, carry on from year to year, so the ones who have dealt with these things in the past continue to do them year to year.  Most of the committee does nothing more than helping to set up, dealing with the night of…I think because the core committee can do this with our eyes closed already, we didn’t bother to set up any “real meetings” with the rest of the committee.

“Who is wise: He who learns from all men.” – Ethics of Our Fathers

When will people learn that if they want change, they will have to open their eyes and start doing things differently and most of all, listening to other ideas and points of view. If you never want to get lucky, go ahead and continue doing what you’ve always done with your eyes closed.Similar Posts:

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