As luck would have it….

In March, as we celebrate St. Patrick's Day and the Luck of the Irish, Iam reminded of a story from my career where luck and connectionstruly made a difference.

It was an incredibly challenging month, and the stress of it all took atoll on my health—I ended up flat on the couch with the flu for aweek! However, that did not stop me from trying to keep up withemails and instant messages while lying there with my laptop on mylap. Unfortunately, my out-of-office message did not seem to beeffective!

At one point, my teammate called me on my cell phone to ask if I hadsecured the tickets for a special event that John, my executive, usuallyattends every year. He had been inquiring about it. My heart raced,and my blood pressure rose because, to be honest, I had not eventhought about the tickets amidst all the craziness of the past fewmonths. John had not indicated that he wanted to go again.

To make matters worse, these tickets had to be purchased at least 5months in advance to attend, and the event was only 2 months away.I knew I was in trouble.

As I lay there with body aches and a rising temperature, I felt like afailure for not having the foresight to anticipate this situation. Then itstruck me that I had recently attended a networking session where Ihad met an executive assistant. She had shared a contact who couldhelp obtain “hard-to-get” tickets to various events. At the time, I hadbrushed off her information, but fortunately, I had saved her contactdetails in my networking notes.

I gave her a call, and again, as luck would have it, she answered andkindly provided me with the name and number of the person, AlexPramenko of Sports Marketing, so I immediately called him.We discussed my dilemma, and as I suspected, he told me the eventwas pretty much sold out – my heart sank. He said he wouldinvestigate it for me, so as I lay there in my misery, I hoped for a call-back.

As luck would have it, he called me the next day and said that hemanaged to secure not just one, but four tickets to the event throughhis own connections, and he could even help me with transportationand hotel accommodations! My heart and health improvetremendously with this news.

I called my teammate and told her that yes, everything was taken careof and that she could tell John it was in progress.As luck would have it, I had a connection through my networking, andthat connection had a source who was able to bail me out of a toughsituation.

Here is to luck when you need it!!