How to be in the RIGHT place…

… at the RIGHT time.

Last issue, I talked about how luck is, in my opinion, vital for embodying as an attitude if you are to have the best chance of making your dreams a reality. If you’ve not read it, here’s the link.

The LUCK factor

I’m a reader and enjoy reading biographies written by all manner of dream-makers; from rock stars to entrepreneurs to adventurers. All have walked such varied paths to manifesting their dreams. One constant in all of them is luck. Of them being in the right place at the right time.

We often hear it; how he/she got lucky, they were in the right place at the right time.

So, how do you make sure you’re in the right place at the right time?

I believe it’s about creating the circumstances so you ARE in the right place, at the right time (or, at the very least, stand a good chance to be).

If you actively work hard to bring about these circumstances, then your ‘luck’ can increase considerably.

By way of example, here’s a chapter from my own life back when I was a fresh-faced twenty year-old, recently graduated and wanting to make my living as a professional magician.

Now, I could have learned how to do magic and then stood on a street corner and hoped that someone of influence with the right connections would stop, watch me, enjoy what I do and then take me under their wing and pay me to do magic for a living.

Long shot, right? (Although, read on as one of the world’s most famous magicians apparently did precisely this rouse to get discovered, but his thinking was strategic and not quite as random as it might first appear.)

Instead, I began to investigate where the people who make the bookings for entertainers live and work. In other words, I was already beginning to engineer myself being in the right place at the right time.

Alongside this, I was researching and building up a list of industry contacts.

Before long, I’d created marketing materials and had built a database of potential agents, bookers and talent scouts (pre-Internet, God Bless the local library and Yellow Pages back then!).

Then it was down to blasting my marketing materials to all (limited each time to whatever my postage budget happened to be) and following up with a phone call a few days later.

Guess what? Not one of those agents booked me.

However, I was creating the attitude and circumstance of being in the right place at the right time.

Map; check. Watch; check. Two key components of making sure you’re in the right place at the right time. Know where you’re intending to get to and when you need to be there.

I sent one of my brochure’s to the entertainment team at LegoLand in Windsor. It just so happened that another agent had let them down and they were desperate for a magician to start immediately.

They called; I went to see them. I performed magic for them and got booked for 7 months straight, Monday to Friday, 5 shows per day between 12noon and 4pm. Boom! Overnight, I was making my living as a full-time magician.

With that momentum, I then went back to some of the agents who had, at the very least, taken my call. One was particularly friendly and I had got on well with him. When I called him the second time to tell him I was now a full-time pro and working at Legoland, he was impressed and booked me to trial a family show at a wildlife theme park near London on a Saturday.

The management team came, as did the agent, and I performed my show. I got the gig which just happened to be another full-time contract every Saturday and Sunday, 2 shows per day, 1pm and 3pm.

This was perfect as it provided a good living and meant my evenings were free to pursue other shows.

I was now working 7 days a week making my living with my dream job. (Remember, when we get paid doing what we love, it’s not ‘work’ it’s paid play. Why not ‘work’ all week?)

Was all this down to luck of my being in the right place at the right time?  

Well, sure, I could say it was pure luck that another agent had let Legoland down and so they were desperate for another magician. Likewise, the agent who took my second call, agreed to give me a shot at the wildlife park which was ‘lucky’.

But, as I quoted last time (The LUCK Factor) the harder I work, the luckier I get.

With a targeted, diligently delivered strategy, with dedicated time, energy and care, with a good product and good marketing materials, with the embodied attitude of being ‘lucky’, you can effectively create the circumstances, so you are in the right place at the right time.

In the above example, I can extrapolate that:

1 – had I not had effective marketing, I wouldn’t have been given the chance to make my luck happen

2 – had I not made the effort to research and build a database, the opportunity to perform at Legoland or the wildlife park wouldn’t have arisen

3 – had I not put the countless hours in to hone my skills and make sure I had a good and suitable product for the client and solved their problem, I would not have been given the gig. [Here’s the link to where I discuss this vital part of your proposition…]

Toilet Tissue Teachings!

To give yourself the best chance of being lucky, of being in the right place at the right time, I’d encourage you to:

• Hone your product to make it as effective as possible with the best chance of commercial success.

• Create clear and concise marketing informing the potential client how your dream product will solve their needs.

• Make sure you move in the RIGHT circles, live in the RIGHT area (it’s no good wishing to be a famous Hollywood movie star if you live in the Outer Hebrides. You need to live in Hollywood!) and put the RIGHT information about you and your dream idea, product or service out there.

• Make sure you’re talking to the decision maker and not someone else further down the chain of command.

• Finally, put in the hard graft to establish contacts, build and tend to relationships (more on this next time) so you create the circumstances where you can be in the right place at the right time.

Do all the above and, as I have shown (and replicated many times throughout my life), you can effectively create the circumstances where you are in the right place at the right time.

Before I sign off, in a bid to ask for your support of my writing and of the information I pass on for free, here’s the story of the magician who did indeed stand on the street and make himself a superstar. This story is for paid supporters only (I always give away the main article content for free upon publishing). This is just a little icing on the proverbial cake for those kind souls who support my writing. If you’d like to support me, it’s as little as 50p-ish per week, less than 10p per day. Thanks for considering!

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See you again in a week or so. In the meantime, here’s the magician who manufactured being in the PERFECT place at the RIGHT time. But it took a while to get the circumstances to align. Did the effort pay off? You bet. He’s now a global superstar of magic. Here’s what he did…