You might have heard that now is a terrible time to be young.  But guess what? If it is now and if you are young, you have no choice. You didn’t choose this time to be young; it chose you. This is a terrific example of one of the primary tenets of life: you choose some things, and some things choose you. It’s what you choose and the process that you use in making those choices that determine the course and character of your life. Luck by Design will help you to make better, more informed, and wiser decisions about the things that you choose. It will help you to be better at handling, acknowledging, and embracing those things that choose you. It will help you know, understand, and deal with the facts and challenges that you will face. It will also help you to live a happy, prosperous, and fulfilling life—however many years of it you have ahead of you. No doubt about it: that’s a lot to ask of one book.

Chances are you’ve read a self-help book or two. In most of them, the author makes a basic assumption—you are broken. Therefore, all you need to do is read the book, follow the steps, and you will be fixed. This book challenges that assumption with the following simple truth: your life is not a problem to be solved. Instead, it is a miracle of an opportunity to experience all the unexplored aspects of your being. This book will show you that the solutions are in your hands and they are in your hands now. And more: the solutions have been in your hands since you became a conscious being. Luck by Design will help you to access your own capabilities and competency, not by rote “how-tos” but by digging in to find your authentic self. What it requires of you is deep and personal honesty, courage, commitment, and fortitude. Easier said than done? Yes and no. Yes, because if you could do it, you already would be. And no, because the focus and control over your life is not something to be found on the outside; it’s all on the inside. Like anything else you’ll encounter in your life, the potential for change, growth, and learning is in your hands—and another choice that you have. If you don’t like what’s happening in your outer life experience, then now is the time to review, revise, and reclaim your right heading.

Who Should Read This Book?

In my work at Men’s Wearhouse over three decades, in my family life, and in my volunteer activities, I have seen that the children of Baby Boomers have a perspective and world experience that is vastly different than that of their parents. In writing this book, I have had the children of Boomers in mind as the primary audience. So if you are starting college, in college, beginning your working life, or climbing up the ladder of your career, as you read Luck by Design, you will find practical solutions to everyday situations and problems.

You’ll find advice that comes from my experiences managing people in your parents’ generation of workers and in your own. You’ll find work advice and life advice that will help to draw luck toward you.  It’s not an Easy button, but a way of life that can be ever improving.

Who Am I, and Why Did I Write This?

My formative years were about as far removed from today’s digital age as could be while still living in the United States. I grew up in a middle-class Jewish family in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, a small coal-mining town in decline as the coal industry was sliding out of favor nationally. My father owned and ran a local retail store, Boston Hardware, as had his father before him. It was a family enterprise, and all of us, including my siblings and our mother and aunt, helped out.

I was not a great student. In fact, I was a rather poor student at the private high school I attended in Freeland, an even smaller coalmining town ten miles from Hazleton. A wealthy coal-mining family had founded the school, Mining and Mechanical Institute (MMI), to educate the miners and their sons. MMI’s motto was, “Making men individuals.” It was certainly the case for me, although I doubt that I was the kind of “individual” that MMI had in mind. At MMI, I discovered that I had an eye for the arts but was overwhelmed by a math- and science-dominated environment in which, no matter how hard I tried, I failed (or came very close to it). I had an ear for dissent, which I was always ready, willing, and able to try. I also had a mouth for trouble, which I was constantly in. My behavior was a simple response to the complicated issue of barely surviving academically and feeling like I was not living up to the expectations of others (the school and members of my extended family), despite my best efforts.

Thankfully, survival turned into success. In September 1968, I enrolled at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey—my father’s alma mater. It was the beginning of an experience as completely positive as high school had been utterly negative. It was both the time (1968–72) and the place (a very liberal university) that piqued my interest, enthusiasm, and creativity. My formal education and the many things I learned outside the classroom opened up avenues for exploration that I continued to follow for the rest of my life. Rutgers helped to show me my potential, instead of belaboring my weaknesses. Positive as the experience was, I didn’t acquire any academic honors, other than a BA in English and a great interest in (and little practical knowledge of ) advertising.

My degree in hand, I returned to Hazleton to work at my father’s store. It had never been explicitly stated, but for some time I had thought that it was going to be my destiny to take over the store one day. After about a year, however, I realized that this was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Although my father was a patient and understanding teacher, I was a restless kid who just couldn’t adjust to small-town life after my college experience. I had an incredible urge to go out into the world and make my own mark. Buoyed with my BA in English and an independent study paper written whileat Rutgers, titled “The Psychology of Television Advertising,” I was confident that Houston advertising agencies would be clamoring for my talents. So in 1973, I moved from Hazleton to Houston, Texas, with all of my worldly possessions in the trunk of my car and about $300 in my pocket. It was a bold and impetuous move, which somehow I did with a lot of confidence.

At age twenty-two, I had decided that I was willing and able to live my dream—or at least what I thought at the time was my dream. I struggled a bit, made a few false starts, and soon found a closely related dream that set me on a career path for the next twenty-nine years of my life. It was a path that enabled me to retire long before standard retirement age—and without any financial worries. By moving to Houston when I did, I put myself in the right place at the right time. My decision to move and then acting on that decision came from a place of deep personal trust. Although I could then barely fathom this place, and certainly could not verbalize it, what I did was act upon that trust rather than think about it, procrastinate, or second-guess myself. I was in touch with my higher self, mostly  because I was very young and very open.

Did I realize all of this at the time? Of course not—and that’s not the point. The point is that I knew that something was going on, and my inner voice told me to pay attention. And most important, I listened. Doing that allowed me to rewrite the rules that had been placed on me by others up until then. I allowed myself to be open to what I wanted, and I began to write my own rules. These rules and some of the stories of my life are laced throughout the book, told not for the sake of my story but to help you develop your own.

I’ve often been told how “lucky” I have been in my career. For a long time I questioned the idea myself. However, one day I finally realized that it wasn’t luck at all. I made one thing happen (moving to Houston), which, after a few more steps, landed me at the door of Men’s Wearhouse back when it was just one store with a hand lettered sign. I was with Men’s Wearhouse as it rose from obscurity to a nationally known business. Dumb luck? More like some luck! Or, as the innovative Major League Baseball executive Branch Rickey once said, “Luck is the residue of design.”

In this book, I share with you some of my own design in hopes of helping you create your own luck. You want to win the lottery? Go ahead, buy your tickets. It’s a great fantasy—but little more than that. Luck by Design puts wheels under your wagon and enables you to be off to your destined adventure. This book is all about helping you learn how to create your own luck, by design.

What’s Here, and How Can You Use It?

Now that you’ve got some background on the purpose of the book and on me, how can you use it? First is the obvious: read. As the American writer Samuel Clemens (better known by his pseudonym, Mark Twain) has been quoted, “The man who does not read . . . has no advantage over the man who cannot read.” Understand that holding the book in your hands will not increase your luck. Flipping the pages will not increase your luck. It’s reading the book and putting it to use that will help you design luck for your life. Many of the ideas here I’ve run past a wide-ranging group of people I like to call my advisory board. These are people whose ages range from seventeen to forty, with circumstances and questions that may be very similar to yours. Over the course of the book, you’ll learn more about how they enlightened me.

Now that you’ve nearly read the preface, ahead are nine chapters, a postscript, and a reference list. But first, here are a handful of tips before you read on:

1. Take your time. Reading the book is not a race. Reading it and using it well is a process.

2. As you read, you’ll find a number of places in which you’re told to stop! This is not a test; there’s no one standing nearby to demand that you shut the book. It’s just that you’ll get more from your reading if you actually take the time to stop and actively consider the questions raised.

3. Each chapter has at least a reminder or two in the margins. These exist to reinforce important points, in case you miss the overarching one, which is to be present while you read and to attend to what you read as you read it—just as you attend to your life as it unfolds.

4. I’ve had successes and made my share of mistakes over the years. Some of these are encapsulated in the “Lesson Learned” sections that conclude each of the chapters, starting with chapter 2. Reading them may just keep you from repeating some of my mistakes.

5. I’ll also be supplementing Luck by Design through my website, www.richiegoldman.com, which will include a Q&A section, a reading list with books that should be useful to you on your journey, and further tips. There you will also have the opportunity to share your design with me and with the other readers of this book.

How you use the lessons in Luck by Design is up to you. My advice?  Keep an open heart and an open mind. Read on. Enjoy the process.