DW's Blog

Making Your Own Good Fortune

by DW Green — March 3, 2021

“Luck is where hard work meets opportunity.”

What is the more productive notion of good luck? One that is defined by totally random factors outside your control, or a matter of probability that can be increased—though not guaranteed— by the right decisions and the right preparation. Obviously, the latter. This is why successful, yet mysteriously “lucky” people seem to gravitate toward it.According to the wonderful site Quote Investigator, versions of this idea date back at least to the sixteenth century in the proverb “Diligence is the mother of good luck.” In the 1920s, Coleman Cox put a modern spin on it by saying, “I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have.” (That saying has been incorrectly attributed to Thomas Jefferson, who said nothing of the kind.) Today, we say, “Luck is where hard work meets opportunity.” Or is it typically flipped?Today, you can hope that good fortune and good luck magically come your way. Or you can prepare yourself to get lucky by focusing on doing the right thing at the right time—and, ironically, render luck mostly unnecessary in the process.

How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything

by DW Green — February 24, 2021

Play with your full effort.

It’s fun to think about the future. It’s easy to ruminate on the past. It’s harder to put energy into what’s in front of us right at this moment—especially if it’s something we don’t want to do. We think: This is just a joke; it isn’t who I am. It doesn’t matter. But it does matter. Who knows—it might be the last thing you ever do. Here lies Dave, buried alive under a mountain of unfinished business.There is an old saying: “How you do anything is how you do everything.” It’s true. How you handle today is how you’ll handle every day. How you handle this minute is how you’ll handle every minute.

Read More – What’s your comfort zone?

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by DW Green — February 3, 2021

Is Nothing a good thing to do?

I really like the phrase Carpe Diem. Wonder why that is? Maybe it’s the sound of the words. Maybe not. Carpe Diem is a Latin aphorism, meaning “Seize the Day.” Then there’s Veritas Nunquam Perit meaning “Truth never dies.” Or Veritas for short. “Truth.” So much for Latin!You will only get one shot today. You have only twenty-four hours with which to take it. And then it is gone and lost forever. Will you fully inhabit all of today? Will you call out “I’ve got this,” and do your very best to be your very best?What will you manage to make of today before it slips from your fingers and becomes the past? When someone asks you what you did yesterday, do you really want the answer to be “nothing”?And then again, its been said, “Nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.”Carpe Diem, just the same!

Read More – What do you want?

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by DW Green — December 30, 2020

Attention is a habit.

Winifred Gallagher, in her book Rapt, quotes David Meyer, a cognitive scientist at the University of Michigan: “Einstein didn’t invent the theory of relativity while he was multitasking at the Swiss patent office.” It came after, when he really had time to focus and study. Attention matters—and in an era in which our attention is being fought for by every new app, website, article, book, tweet, and post, its value has only gone up.Attention is a habit, and letting your attention slip and wander builds bad habits and enables mistakes.You’ll never complete all your tasks if you allow yourself to be distracted with every tiny interruption. Your attention is one of your most critical resources. Don’t squander it!