There's nothing like a minor malady to whip your ass into shape.

Even during my non-blinking days, I knew there would be a gift somewhere in the Bell's Palsy experience. Having three weeks of downtime made me more itchy than ever to get up and running again, and with more of a consciousness to be true to myself.  As a result I took three major steps to help me get closer to my goals: 1) I started seeing a fabulous chiropractor, who's teaching me about the body's connection to emotions, 2) I enlisted the help of a comedy coach, who's teaching me SO much about performing, and 3) I participated in an Amazon promotion and spent a whopping $35 on marketing my book, which has resulted in more Kindle sales (and borrows, which I also get paid for) in the past three weeks than in the past year and a half. 

Yep, two and a half weeks after the promotion ended, Bastard Husband: A Love Story is still on fire--yay!  I picked up a few new reviews, and last week I got an email from a sweet woman in Connecticut expressing her thanks for being such an inspiration.  Awesome.

I've said this before, but I think it's something you can't hear enough: You have to shake up your energy. And a great way to shake up your energy is to seek out new people to be in your life, as I did with my chiropractor and coach. And you know who these "new people" are, at least in the beginning? Strangers.

I can't stress this enough: Reach out to strangers. Make it a point to talk to people you don't know.  Find out what they're all about. Pursue relationships with people you meet through casual encounters. 

My chiropractor suggested to start each day asking the universe to send the right people to cross your path, people who can help you get closer to your goals.  At the end of the day, reflect on every person you made contact with, and believe that somehow they are helping you along--and that somehow you're helping them along the path to success, too.

I want to share one of my first blog posts, from July 2008.  It's kind of relevant to what I'm talking about right now.  And who doesn't want to attract good luck?

How to attract good luck

Last Sunday morning I was floating in the pool reading How to Attract Good Luck, a book written by A.H.Z. Carr and published in 1952. God knows where I picked up this little gem, but I know I bought it second hand; it still has the $2.00 sticker on the cover. I want to share some simple principles from Chapter 2, “How Zest Exposes Us to Luck.”

According to the author, in order to attract good luck, we must first be exposed to it. Carr states that most of the time a lucky episode occurs when somebody says something important to us, and that a high proportion of luck comes to us through strangers. “Between ourselves and those who cross our path,” Carr says, “chance throws out an invisible thread of awareness, a ‘luck-line.’ It is not too much to say that any new acquaintance to whom we throw out a luck-line represents a possible gain in our future luck and happiness.”

Carr goes on: “To say that to expose ourselves to luck, then, means in essence to come into healthy human relationships with more people.” This means the more luck-lines you throw out, the more luck you’re likely to find.

The author contends that “unexpected friendliness” is the secret of much of the luck of life and offers this verse from Edwin Arlington Robinson:

“There came along a man who looked at him
With such an unexpected friendliness
And talked with him in such a common way
That life grew marvelously different.”

Unexpected friendliness. Are you leaving yourself open to it?

I often say that writing is a lonely endeavor; the overwhelming majority of us are soloists. But think of the luck that could happen if instead of writing at home, we move to a café or other public place.

Unexpected friendliness. Are you offering it to others? That's the key, if you ask me. You're really, really lucky when you've been able to make someone else's life "marvelously different."