As I get closer to the end of my working life (though retirement is still a few years away), I sometimes look back over my career and try to examine if I have been successful or not.

While I like to believe that during my career I have achieved many successes for my respective employers,  there have certainly been some setbacks along the way (I can’t hardly bring myself to label them as failures!).

I used to keep a plaque on the wall of my office that said “Never, Never, Never, Never Give Up!” When there have been setbacks/failures, I have often been able to turn them into successes not necessarily because of my great management or leadership skills but because I seem to possess a good amount of persistence.

In other words, what I lacked in leadership ability, I made up for in doggedness!

While persistence has served me well, I have observed that there’s another important factor to leadership that has worked well for me.

Luck!

Admittedly, it’s likely that some–probably a  lot–of any success I’ve achieved in my career can be attributed to luck or blessing or whatever you want to call it.

While I like to think I’ve been a successful leader, maybe a lot of times I’ve just been lucky!

While I like to think I’ve made many great decisions in my career, maybe some good things just happened and I followed along.  Or,  maybe a colleague had a good idea that I grabbed onto. Or,  possibly a mentor gave me some good advice that I listened to and did what was recommended.

So, I said all that to say this. When I look back and evaluate my my life as a parent, I don’t know that I’ve been so successful, but I’ve certainly been lucky.

Because, if I wasn’t so great a parent the first time around, I’ve been given a second chance to be a parent and that’s lucky.

And, if I’m doing  better as a parent the second time than I did the first time, it’s because I’m blessed with beautiful children to raise.

Lucky and blessed!