Let's start with this question. Have you ever had it stuck to you by one of those hit-and-run types whose motto is "Business is Business?" Their trick is to never depend on return customers and to never try to do business tomorrow where they setup shop yesterday. It is a strategy best suited to those whose bottom line is merely the bottom line.
If instead, your bottom line depends on long-term relationships with your friends and family, customers and co-workers, be sure that they consistently get what they value and value what they get from you. The value factor is the key to a healthy bottom line.
Along with business based on value for value, achieving PPS also requires valuing planning and foresight. This is painfully obvious when business deals go sour, partnerships fall apart, old friends have serious misunderstandings, people accumulate too much debt, conflicts escalate, and when the bottom falls out. Failure simply does not play nearly as well as success.
Avoiding failure is not always all that easy; but it will improve your odds if you keep in mind that most any mess is easier to get into than out of. If your personal experience does not have you saying, "Ain't that the truth!" you have lived a charmed life or maybe you just do not get it. For we mere mortals, though, "What the hell happened?" and more importantly, "WHICH way is out?" are not uncommon questions. "I should have known better," and "I didn't see it coming," are not much help when you are stuck in the muck, with no way to escape. That is why you will do well to plan on how you will get out of the muck before diving in.
"But. . . ," says Doubting Thomas, "Anyone can have a run of bad luck and some people have all the luck," he adds.
Sure, some lucky ducks were born with silver spoons in their mouths. In life's great poker game, some people get better cards than others. It is enough to make you just sit down and cry. The old law-of-averages certainly does not apply to you. You wish. . .; and if cows could fly and if luck were really a lady, the world would be a fairer place. Even if it were not, at least you would get better cards. Keep on wishing. Maybe your luck will turn. Then again, maybe not. That is why simply going with the cards you are dealt is usually your best choice.
Still, it is a roll of the dice and you cannot do much about that fact of life, or can you? Grandpa had an opinion or two about luck and the laws of probability that may be well-worth your considering before you roll those dice.
It was bright-and-early one morning when Grandpa found an exceptionally fine sea shell on the beach. I flippantly commented, "That was just dumb luck, your finding that shell." He smiled and replied, "Yes, it was dumb luck for a guy who was already on the beach and looking before 6:30."
Sure, luck and maybe even dumb luck at times play a big part in a lot of things. Things happen and you cannot control everything. Even so, you can make a point to be on the beach before 6:30 and can make the extra effort it takes to improve the odds for your success. The old-timers like Grandpa have many techniques for improving their success odds and call them "smart luck."