What's "Luck" Got to Do with It?

Pardon the play on your song La Diva Tina Turner...

but really?!?!?

After a most recent conversation with a fine singer/actor from Toronto - Ms. Marnie Kersten (yes I have her permission to use her name!) I write this blog entry...

What does luck have to do with anything?!  

Many of us who work in this business in some form or other has been told how "lucky" we are. What does that mean? Who says it? Why?

Perhaps luck is a small component - being in the right place at the right time to get an opportunity to seize on an opportunity...but...luck?! really?!

I believe we create our own luck.  And how do we do that? We do it through HARD WORK, perseverance, focus, building craft, sacrifice, alot of tears, alot of soul searching, alot of questioning, having more questions than answers, desire, passion and sometimes just pure stubbornness!  

This is not being lucky - this is about creating an atmosphere in which to create the luck we claim.  Sometimes we have to take work we'd rather not, just to be working in our business. Again, from the earlier blog today "what kind of ho am I willing to be" or as a student, Barbi McCulloch more eloquently told me today, and I quote her and will it use it often :

"every musical work day for me is a different window with a different shade of red light"

Success is about hard work, and maybe a little luck that we WORK to create.  We might be in the right place at the right time, but that means then we still must DO THE WORK.  If we don't, we will be dismissed and moved past.  Luck only works if we have something to offer.  If you are standing in line for an audition and get the job and have never built your craft, have nothing more than natural talent and don't know how you will sustain 8 shows a week, how lucky are you really if you crash and burn? Watch that luck kick you in the butt and leave you standing all alone!

Often we get this statement "you are so lucky" from colleagues who are not finding their path for whatever reason.  Remember the source. It is a way, in my opinion, to project onto the person who is finding success, and take the pressure off the person making the comment.Another way to make an excuse or go into denial about their process.  Perhaps the comment has to become a question - "why are you so lucky" so that you can tell them simply that luck is created only when you are willing to work for it.  Maybe you won't get a break, but you don't have to make excuses either. Hard work is REAL.  Commitment is REAL. Willing to sacrifice is REAL.  

Perhaps the "answer" to "you are so lucky" is simply saying: "Am I? No, I am real.  What about you?"

Just a thought...