Bloodhound by Choice

by Sean Purcell

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Author website

I was working with a local real estate agent yesterday on a strategy to achieve one of his goals.  When we were done he declared the strategy good and decided that, barring any bad luck, success might just find him this year.

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A few weeks back I was driving my two boys to school.  They are without doubt the most beautiful boys in the world and I speak with the absolute neutrality of an objective father.  At five and seven they are also completely present.  By that I mean they live in the here and now the way most children do.  The recent past has no more meaning than the near future.  Their focus and their conscience are in the moment.  It fills them with a constant sense of wonder and never ceases to amaze me.

So we are in the car and singing along to the radio when my seven year old sits up in the back and asks: “Daddy, do you believe in good luck?”  As an adult long separated from the freedom of childhood, I was twelve different place in my head when he asked the question and none of them were the present.  I absent-mindedly tossed off one of my favorite sayings to placate him.  “No,” I said, “I believe that the harder I work, the luckier I get.”

My son, however, pressed on.  “I believe in good luck Daddy, but I do not believe in bad luck.”  At this point I was blissfully reminded, once again, how very present children are and I snap out of my own thoughts.  I too get present and I pay attention.  I say to him “I do not think you can have one without the other.”  (At this point I must share a little background. I have taught my boys about the subconscious mind, calling it the “magic” part of their brain.  How it is always listening and recording everything we say.  How our thoughts have power and our words create our realities.)  I went on, “if you believe in the idea of good luck, I think you must accept the idea of bad luck as well.”  My son looked at me and said, “No Daddy.  I believe in good luck, but if I believe in bad luck the magic part of my brain will be listening and bad things can happen.  So I CHOOSE not to believe in it.”

Brilliant.  He chooses whether or not to believe in something.  Everything we do is by choice; our life, our business and most definitely our results.  Success does not find us… it is a choice.