"Luck is the residue of design" - Branch Rickey (Fmr. Manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers)
Do you ever believe 'luck' is truly that - a serendipitous moment where the stars align at just the right moment to create some fortunate event? I've never believed that luck is really random. I think people work hard to 'position themselves' to take advantage of certain situations. While it may seem like 'random' to the naked eye, it's really not. I'm not a big fan of Gladwell, but some of the points he brings up in Outliers have some validity - such as the fact that kids born in the first 3 months of the calendar year have a statistically better chance of playing professional hockey due to the age cutoff and size advantage.
Is it luck that Steve Jobs created 4 of the most influential technology products in history (Mac, iPod, iPhone & iPad)? Is it luck that Jobs invested in a little graphics arts studio called Pixar in the 80s (for $5M) and nearly went broke keeping it running before making the feature film Toy Story, which became (at the time) the most successful animated movie of all time? Most people don't know that the majority of Jobs' fortune came from Pixar and NOT Apple - he sold Pixar to Disney for $7.4B USD in 2006, and became its largest shareholder.
HAYLIN - I've never met anybody that worked really hard for something and didn't find "the residue of design". That's what I adore in you....that's what I adore about you - the determination and commitment to go 'all-in' for what you wanted; I adore that all of this is for your dream. You're not 'trapped by dogma - living with the results of other peoples' thinking'. I hope you always live for your own dreams because they're special....simply because you can call them 'your own'.
Everything I know about your journey so, the success you’ve achieved and what the ceiling is on your potential....it's incredibly difficult not to be inspired and mesmerized. But that's how it's supposed to be because everything of value in this world is hard to get, or else everybody would have it. Just keep going and always remember that you are so SPECIAL and ACCOMPLISHED...and the best part is knowing how you’ve been such an incredible mother along the way. These things don’t "just happen" - you made them happen. I genuinely wish us the world because I know you'd know what to do with it.
I also know we’ll have tough times ahead because everything worth fighting for is; but I’m willing to stay the course with you knowing that the dots never connect looking forward; they only connect looking back - I truly believe that. Being overwhelmed is one of the worst feelings in the world because of that looming fear of failure. You'll fail because all humans do. But I'm confident you'll "fail fast" - you will learn, you will grow....you will power through it all to find 'luck'. And one-day long from now, you'll look back on all of the work you put in and say..."I wouldn't change it for anything" because it shaped you into who you are and you did it on your terms. It was your dream....and all of those things that magically fell into place was just the residue of design - nothing more; nothing less.
-MJL