When I was a teenager, I knew a cute, adorable blonde-haired girl named Leah. We never dated or anything (mostly because she had excellent eyesight, and we always met in well-lit areas).
Leah died in her 30s from a brain tumor. She left behind a husband and three children.
Best I can tell, life is about one-third luck, two-thirds discipline and talent. And I combined discipline and talent for a reason: A lack of the former suffocates the latter.
Because talented people are a dime a dozen. You meet ‘em everywhere. Including, alas, Skid Row: There’s no shortage of highly talented failures.
A highly talented person who’s also highly disciplined is much rarer.
And a lot of times, their discipline was the byproduct of loving, patient, faith-based parenting. That’s another big factor, too: There’s luck involved in where you’re born, what your childhood was like, and the values of your friends and family.
You can be a great parent and still have horrible kids. To quote Captain Picard, “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness; that is life.”
There are no guarantees.
But great parenting is an enormous advantage. It’s why we obsess over it. Great parenting wins a helluva lot of 50%-50% balls. It optimizes our children’s chances for success.
Sadly, the opposite is also true. Some kids were so deeply damaged by their childhood that they never recover.
The ghosts of childhood haunt their minds until the day they join them. It’s a dreadful, soul-crushing fate.
Which is why, of course, we invest our time, our money, and our freaking sanity in being the best possible parents. We pour our hearts into it!
And then, hopefully, our kids have enough talent and discipline to chase their dreams.
But even then, there are no guarantees. Plenty of talented, disciplined people fall flat on their faces; plenty of dreams remain unfulfilled. The stars just never aligned.
That big break never broke their way.
And many were broken by its absence. They played by the rules and did everything right, but walked away from life’s casino empty-handed.
Because luck is the ultimate curveball. It’s destiny’s “Get Out of Jail Free” Monopoly card. Like World War II veteran Lamar Gillett, the only P-35 pilot who successfully downed a Japanese Zero, sheepishly admitted, “It’s better to be lucky than good.”
Good luck can give you fortune, joy, and a wonderful family. Bad luck can take it all away.
Leah was a good person who had bad luck. She lost everything.
Even though she didn’t do anything wrong.
Some people believe luck is significantly less elusive than we think — that seemingly once-in-a-lifetime opportunities abound around us, but it’s up to us to identify and seize them. It’s a philosophy summarized by the saying, “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.”
In other words, the better prepared you are, the “luckier” you’re going to be.
Which is absolutely true. We’re not aimless, driftless, inanimate objects; we’re creatures capable of action. “Fate is what you make of it. You can make the best of it, or you can let it make the best of you.”
So instead of waiting for a helping hand, get off your arse and use your own. Because there’s no other alternative, bro!
Life — like fate — is what we make of it.
(Well, two-thirds of it, I think.)
The band Journey does the best job at navigating the murky line between luck, fate, success, and failure — and what the heck we can do about it. Because, on one hand, it’s true: “Some will win, some will lose. Some are born to sing the blues.”
Not everyone gets a “Happy ever after.” Some fairy tales never come true.
And some of our children are destined to be cautionary tales.
But on the other hand, the song is called “Don’t Stop Believin’” for a reason.
PRediction: Discipline is a prerequisite for talent to flourish. It’s also a prerequisite for health and fitness.
People who have disciplined lifestyles are (generally) happier, healthier, and more successful than those who don’t.
It’s one of those slow-moving lessons when you’re younger, because the link between discipline and success isn’t always obvious.
Because, sure, you know you need to study for your high school algebra test. And you know if you don’t train and practice, you’ll do worse in sports.
But you also know plenty of classmates who seem to do minimal work — and they get WAY better results than you do! They simply have more talent. (Or they’re lying about how hard they’re preparing.)
It can fool you into thinking that hard work isn’t that important.
Same thing happens when you’re beginning your career: You’ll see knuckleheads in leadership roles, examples of workplace nepotism, and doofus classmates rocketing up the corporate ladder. Lots of times, the consequences of discipline — or the lack thereof —don’t emerge ‘til later.
Because, in your 20s, the consequences of a garbage diet, overdrinking, a lack of sleep, and an abundance of “late-night debauchery” aren't always visible. So you gained 10 pounds since high school — so what? You still look good! And you still have ample energy to roll out of bed and be at your desk on Monday morning.
But by your 30s — and especially by your early 40s — it catches up with you. And after that, it accelerates. (And how!)
As George Orwell wrote, “At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.”
The key, then, is to be disciplined with the behaviors that are conducive to a long, happy, healthy life.
PRojection: The best way to stay young, healthy, beautiful, and happy is to be disciplined — and the best way to be disciplined is to ritualize your positive behaviors.
The origin of man is mud; it’s in our nature to cling to our surroundings — to assume the shape of our environment. So, when we’re surrounded by people who live clean, moral, healthy lives, we tend to do the same.
And when we’re not, our temptations rise.
But we can’t fully control our environment. Which is why we must develop a gameplan for ritualizing positive behavior: Find a way to motivate yourself to act in your best interest.
For example, when I was in my mid-40s, I needed a kick in the butt to begin working out regularly again. My solution was having a list of podcasts that I’d only listen to when I was in the gym — and I’d only visit my favorite neighborhood pub on the days I worked out. (Which led to me working out five days a week, but that’s another story.)
That was eight years ago. I’ve so successfully ritualized my workout routine that I’m still at it in 2026 — and I actually look forward to hitting the gym!
Good food. Exercise. Professional growth. Family connections. Personal friendships. Faith. Community. Eliminating vices.
Ritualize the behaviors that optimize your chance at happiness — and raise your children to do the same.
PRaise: And in the ritualization department, an unlikely ally is AI. (I mean SI — ‘cause I certainly don’t want the president to consider me an enemy.)
Chatbot technology is rapidly improving, but it’s still prone to hallucinating, spewing fake data, and giving sycophantic feedback. Which means, when you’re using it for work, finances, or health, you had better verify everything it says before you accept anything as gospel.
It’s an impressively imperfect technology: One minute it’ll astound you with its genius, the next it’ll infuriate you with its dishonest gibberish.
But if you’re the kind of person who needs a kick in the tush, a chatbot’s sycophantic nature can be an asset.
Download the ChatGPT, Grok, or Claude app. Tell it your fitness goals — and that you need help staying motivated. You might be pleasantly surprised by the results: Today’s SIs excel at telling us whatever we want to hear.
Use it to your advantage.
Remember, ritualizing positive behavior is half the battle. (Or half of two-thirds of the battle? I’m a writer, not a mathematician.)
PRedators: With all the weight-loss drugs now on the marketplace, there’s been public blowback. Some consider using Ozempic and/or GLP-1s to be “cheating.”
Same goes for hormone replacement therapies, including TRT. Critics point to the health risks — and those risks are real. Lots of health experts insist TRT isn’t necessary for most people, because the risk-reward calculation is more risk than reward.But you’re not “most people.” You’re you. An individual.
And staying unhealthy is risky, too.
Would it be better for an obese person to lose 50 pounds via diet and exercise? Well, duh. Of course it would.
But if taking a pill gets your weight under control, take the pill! (With a physician’s supervision, of course.)
Feeling young and staying healthy is a destination. Multiple tactics will optimize your probability of success. And that’s all they are: tactics.
So don’t limit yourself to the tactic that works for “most people” — and don’t make perfection the enemy of progress.
Master the tactics that work for you.
Ritualize positive behaviors. Be mindful of your surroundings. And position your children for the happiest, healthiest, most successful life possible — not just with your words, but by your example.
And hope you’ll be lucky.
I wish Leah were still here. She was a wonderful person.
