Good Luck Bad Luck
A farmer had a plow horse. One day, it broke through the fence and ran away. His neighbors lamented his bad luck. “Bad luck, good luck, who knows?” said the farmer. Soon the horse returned with several other horses. His neighbors lauded his good luck. “Good luck, bad luck, who knows?” said the farmer. While training one of the new horses, his son suffered a broken leg. His neighbors again lamented his bad luck. “Bad luck, good luck, who knows?” said the farmer. Then the army came into town to draft the young men but left the farmer’s son because of his leg. His neighbors once again lauded his good luck. “Good luck, bad luck, who knows?” said the farmer.
I don’t believe in luck, but if we are going to use the word then we must agree that luck is paradoxical. Bad luck can be very good, and good luck can sometimes be very bad. Fate (another type of circumstance out of our control), whether considered good or bad, is a matter of perspective. Ultimately, each of us must choose how we perceive the world around us and the things that happen.
One definition of wisdom is seeing things from a broader perspective. Wisdom is the characteristic of understanding and responding to reality in a balanced way. Buck Owens and Roy Clark sang a song on the TV show Hee Haw (1969—1992) called “Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me!”. The chorus stated, “If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all”. This is a funny overstatement of a position many people take—that it is circumstances holding them back.
A wise leader learns (it’s a continuous process) to look at the circumstances as neutral from a broader perspective and to manage their response from this viewpoint. “Great,” I hear you say, “How do I get some of this wisdom then?”
Experience is one of the leader’s best teachers. Life gives us many opportunities to go through something, have feelings and thoughts about it, respond to it, and then (in time) see the event from a distance and in a larger context. Leaders pay attention. Find a method that helps you retain these experiences. Journaling works for me, but you must find what will help you recall how you were feeling in the moment and then what the reality turned out to be.
Great leaders read—a lot. Fiction, non-fiction, history, biography, just about any narrative that contains situations, descriptions of feelings and thoughts, and then outcomes and “the rest of the story”. When you read, your brain engages in ways similar to how it behaves when you are living through these events yourself. Reading is a virtual way to have experiences you would otherwise never have (nor survive). Note: listening to audiobooks works too!
Wise leaders (or those gaining wisdom) spend time with wise people. Sometimes we call this mentoring. Having mentors opens the door to a sandbox where you can discuss and consider the results of various responses to a situation. A mentor is also another source of virtual experience as your mentor may have already gone through something similar.
In our opening story, the farmer was wise; his neighbors were immature. He had the experience to know things can work out in many ways, and this understanding balanced his responses. Healthy communities are led by people with the wisdom to know there is no such thing as good luck or bad luck; there is only the reality that is created by our response. Being wise is better than being lucky any day, and it is the Bison Way.