You Can Be Lucky Like Me

By Dr. Ron Deigh

The telling of my story has a twofold purpose. First, it is to record my autobiography. The second is to illustrate that I have been quite successful in life, even though I have frequently experienced extreme misfortune, and I firmly believe that anyone who truly wishes to do so can do exactly as I have done. Wayne Dyer refers to mistakes as experiences that shaped my life. Perhaps your experiences are many, like me, but I assure you, they can definitely be exchanged for success. I firmly believe that You Can Be Lucky Like Me!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: May 21, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504332675

Dr. Ron Deigh

Dr. Ron Deigh, now a retired community college professor of biology, previously served as a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Veterinary Corps. Dr. Deigh is married to the former Ylda Luna, a successful professional interpreter in her own right. He has two lovely daughters and two wonderful sons-in-law, both of whom are the proud parents of a son and daughter, Dr. Deigh’s beautiful grandchildren. Following his Bachelor of Science degree in biology from the University of California, he earned a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from the Ohio State University, and thereafter a Masters degree in public health from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. Additionally, he was a distinguished and outstanding District Governor of a prominent international service organization. All of this success came, despite deep-seated feelings of rejection and exceedingly low self-esteem, after he, along with his four siblings, were abandoned by his parents. He spent his formative years in an orphanage. Luckily, a loving family rescued him, took him home, and eventually adopted him, thereby helping to put him on the road to success. Dr. Deigh and Ylda now reside in the beautiful San Joaquin Valley of California.

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CHAPTER 1

What Lucky Means to Me

S o what am I implying when I tell you that you can be lucky like me? What do I mean by my use of the word lucky? As a youngster, I believed that luck meant carrying a lucky stone or wearing a talisman and that somehow the object had the power to grant wishes, so long as the person possessing it believed in it. As a Christian, however, I was discouraged from believing in luck. My mother would tell me that luck and anything associated with it, such as amulets, charms, fortune-tellers, palm readers, or even playing cards, were all non-Christian and of the devil. So out of respect for my mother, I never placed my faith in anyone or anything associated with luck.

However, as my thinking has evolved through the years, I have come to view the meaning of luck as something quite different. I now view luck as an invisible positive energy that exists within us and all around us that always works for our benefit.

Also, a word that I never previously associated with luck is prosperity. As a Christian, I was always encouraged by my parents to memorize Bible verses. One verse in particular, and one of the most memorable to me, is Everything I do shall prosper. I learned this verse as a youngster, but I never really understood the actual meaning of the word prosper. As I began to read other spiritual books in addition to the Bible, I often encountered this word—so frequently, in fact, that I decided that I needed to look up its meaning in the dictionary. I was quite surprised when I found that the word luck was included as part of its meaning. An online dictionary defines it as follows:

Prosper: to succeed; to achieve; to be of good fortune; to experience a stroke of good luck; or events and circumstances coming together by chance (luck) to bring positive results.

This was a real shocker to me, since I had been taught that luck was non-Christian and evil. But now, based upon my receptive attitude toward learning, and based upon my search for truth, I have modified my views and my beliefs as regards to luck.

Obviously, I have given a great deal of thought as to what luck is and how luck affects my life and the lives of others. I have also come to appreciate some ideas about what luck is not. Certainly, luck does not mean that when you wish for something or want something, you are indeed going to receive it, just because you believe in luck or are wearing a talisman. In other words, wishing for or wanting is really not a part of being lucky. As a matter of fact, being in a state of wanting or wishing could have a negative effect. I remember reading this quote by an anonymous author: Want what you have because if you don’t want what you have, when you get what you want, you’ll want something else. The way I relate luck to this quote is that each of us must remain in a state of acceptance, meaning that we must accept what is in our lives right at that moment. Even if we might be facing unwanted or unfavorable circumstances in life, we must still take action to do what is necessary to change those circumstances and, at the same time, accept what is currently present in our lives. This means that we are in complete surrender to what is and that our state of mind is not affected by any outcome.

Additionally, luck does not mean that if our wishes or wants do not come to fruition, luck is not working. As an example, on two occasions when my wife and I purchased tickets for a raffle to win a house, all of our thoughts and beliefs were aligned with winning. We were fully expecting the announcer to read our names as the winners. It didn’t happen. We didn’t win, but our state of mind was not affected by the outcome. We were in a complete state of surrender and acceptance. Our beliefs regarding luck were unchanged. Luck is not about winning a raffle or the lottery, although that does actually happen. Instead, luck is knowing that life will always grant you what’s best for you at that moment. In the above examples, the actual winners of the houses were much more in need than us, so our failure to win was actually success.

By the way, I still carry a lucky stone with me, not only to remind me to have an attitude of gratitude, but also to make me continually aware that with that attitude, I will receive the luck that will be right for me at that particular moment. I also have no doubt that there is positive potential energy in both living things and inanimate objects, such as lucky stones, and that one who is open to receiving it will indeed be a recipient of the benefits of that positive energy. I like to share that same concept with others, and as such, I collect and frequently distribute lucky stones. Some of the recipients of my lucky stones tell me about their resultant good luck after receiving my gift.

I recall that one of my biological sisters, Terry, once gave me a gift of a four-leaf clover. I carried it with me for years, and I still keep it in my desk in my home office. Since then, I have searched for and found several four-leaf clovers, and I have often given them as gifts to others. As faculty advisor for a college student service club, I frequently joined my students as they participated in community service and fundraising activities. On one such occasion, as I was visiting with some of the students in a grassy area, I happened to find a four-leaf clover. One of my students asked me for it, so I gave it to her, although I truly wanted to keep it for myself. I then bent down again in the same area and found another four-leaf clover. This one I kept, and I still have it.

As alluded to above, my wife and I share the same attitude toward luck, and in fact, we often win drawings, raffles, door prizes, and the like. On one occasion, when we purchased tickets for a fifty-fifty drawing, the gentleman selling the tickets commented that there would be little use for anyone else to purchase tickets because he knew we would win. And we did!

As another example, my wife and I attended a district conference in Illinois, at which we were asked to buy a ticket for a chance to win a flat-screen TV. My wife queried the seller as to how would we get it back to California if we won. The seller of the tickets, thinking our chances of winning were minimal, said to us sarcastically that he would personally ship it back to California for us. Knowing that it would be for a good cause, we purchased a ticket anyway. The drawing was held at dinner the following evening, and I, as guest speaker, was asked to draw the winning ticket. You might imagine the surprise that filled the room when I drew our own ticket! We decided to just donate it back to the district, at which time they sold another hundred dollar’s worth of tickets, adding to the total that would be donated to their scholarship fund. When they drew the next winning ticket, I realized that the TV went to the right person.

Just a few months later, we purchased a couple of tickets for a local California community service club drawing for another flat-screen TV. We weren’t present when the winning ticket was drawn, and in fact, we had even forgotten that we purchased the tickets, so we were quite surprised when they called us to tell us we had won. Our own community service club just happened to be planning a fundraising event as well, so we decided to donate our newly won TV for the grand-prize drawing. This let us gather even more donations for our own scholarship fund. My wife and I obviously made good use of the luck and positive energy we shared between us, which resulted in yet another situation with multiple winners!

As I reflect on my life, I can cite many examples, both large and small, as to how lucky I have been. More of those examples are included in the upcoming chapters. Luckily for me, I have also found a life partner who shares my understanding of the positive energy associated with luck. And she shares the same types of good fortune as a result of the knowledge we share of how to create and enjoy a lucky life.

My wife is currently in the process of becoming a professional interpreter. She recounted to me that she realizes how lucky she has been all her life by being asked, for example, to assist her parents and other family members with language-interpreting issues. She appreciates how lucky she is to have learned Spanish as her first language and then to come to the United States as a young girl and have the opportunity to learn the English language as well. It seems that her whole life has been preparing her for this new profession, although she was certainly not aware of this future result. She tells me that when she interprets for other people, she feels that she is somehow fulfilling her purpose in life. She had spent many years in the medical field, and although she was very successful, she never actually felt that such a career was her true calling. When she finally decided to follow this new profession and to do those things necessary to accomplish that objective, she experienced the very common regret that she wished she had known long ago that a person with her amazing talents could pursue a career as a professional interpreter. Life has granted my wife and me many opportunities to accomplish such objectives, and that is among the reasons that both of us are of the opinion that each of us is the luckiest person on earth.

You will notice, as you read further, that I use the word success and at times, other words, such as prosper, in effect, as synonyms for luck. So then, what does it mean to be successful or, said another way, what does it mean to become prosperous? I think Deepak Chopra said it best, when he wrote, Success is a journey, not a destination. One does not simply wake up one morning and say, I am successful! The following chapters will illustrate how adverse situations, whether caused by ourselves or caused by others but affecting us, can be overcome, and we can then experience good fortune and even turn those adverse situations into successes. And it follows that one can be successful in all of the various aspects of one’s life, including relationships, education, career, community service, and even competitive hobbies, such as chess, golf, softball, and tennis, just to name a few.

CHAPTER 2

Making Mistakes Is Part of Life!

H ave you ever heard the expression, We all make mistakes? Surely, you have. With no one is this statement truer than it has been with me because I have certainly made an unimaginable number of mistakes in my life. However, as Wayne Dyer says, There are no mistakes, only experiences. And this is one reason that I consider myself absolutely successful, primarily because I have learned that having failed, even many times, does not make me a failure. A classic example of this paradox is Thomas Alva Edison, scientist and inventor. I’ve heard, and perhaps also read, that Edison failed hundreds of times before his ultimate success in inventing the electric light bulb. Could anyone possibly say that the great Thomas Edison was a failure? I think not! Edison is credited with saying that he didn’t actually fail those hundreds of times, but rather that he found hundreds of ways that the electric light bulb would not work.

Failure, or perhaps misfortune would be a better term, started early for me. In the very beginning, I was disowned by my biological parents but then rescued and adopted by a loving family. I failed many times at various levels as a student, but it was only temporary; I have also seen straight A’s on my report cards and transcripts. I have failed in career choices, but then in later years, I excelled in my professional life. I have also had the unfortunate experience of having had very good friends turn against me, and for no apparent reason, but I have then established lasting relationships with new friends. Several times, I have failed in marriage, but then I finally found a wonderfully compatible partner, and since then, I have enjoyed sheer bliss. I have made investments in what initially appeared to be quite promising ventures, only to find out later that I had been scammed. Thankfully, as a result, I have learned much better ways of investing my money. And most importantly, at this point in my life, it would appear that I have also discovered the best ways of investing my time, my loyalties, and my love. All of this has contributed to the great success I enjoy today in virtually every aspect of my life.

Why have I had the good fortune of realizing success over and over again? How do I know that same success can happen in your life as well? First of all, as I mentioned previously, having failed, even failing quite frequently and quite miserably, does not mean that one is a failure. And secondly, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that God, or the universe, if you prefer, has provided me with all of the tools necessary to consistently convert total and abject failure into complete and utter success. This is why I consider myself lucky. And, of utmost importance, because I know that I am certainly no more richly endowed than the average human being, this is also how I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that You Can Be Lucky Like Me!

CHAPTER 3

From Where Does Failure Come?

A nyone who has listened to motivational speakers, such as Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra, or read inspirational books such as The Secret, knows about the concept referred to as the law of attraction. This so-called law states that everything that happens in our lives, whether it proves to be good or whether it might be shown to be bad, has been attracted by us through our purposeful actions or thoughts. Most of us, myself included, could perhaps have some difficulty in fully accepting this concept. Surely all those bad things that happened in my life were not of my own making! Surely I did not create my own failure! It just wasn’t my fault!

I’m reminded of an invitation I recently received from a close friend of mine to attend a presentation, the title of which was: "Mistakes Have Been Made, But Not