This post is inspired by Gary Wotal, who wrote "If you can think it in your head, you can accomplish it." I usually do not like positive posts, because they are often simplistic. No, it is not enough just to want, even if you want it very strongly, not enough to make yourself believe that you can do something...but on the other hand, if you do not learn to want and set your eyes on something that is difficult to achieve, you will not achieve it. The goal is a direction, and usually with way more steps than one. And to hit the target, that is far, you have to aim high (actually it was said by Gary Keller).

I read Gary's post, and obliging memory brought to the surface the story of our dear friends from the years in the Arctic.

They left for Israel a year before we left for US. There were 4 of them going: our friends Yuri & Julia, who were in their mid 50s, Julia's mom, and their younger son, who was still of school age.

They got to Israel, and while Israel was eager to accommodate all of them, there was a shock that every immigration stumbles upon. It is a multi-faceted problem with a huge number of people who suddenly became nobody. They were uprooted in one place and get into another with no roots there, with no language skills, no marketable skills (as there are hardly any marketable skills without the command of the language)... In a heartbeat parents changed from people who know everything to people who know nothing. Children were learning both the language and life much faster... People were not prepared to that metamorphose.

Our friends are very rational people, with great sense of reason, equal only to  their great sense of humor. So, one evening they sat at a table and had a rational discussion.

The question was of biblical importance. What to do? Yury and Julia could get on the welfare trail and skip from one program to another, as so many others did. In Israel if you are 'old' enough, you could survive on the subsidy, but no fat. No luxuries like cars, etc. The other option... what was another option? Well, Yury did not know Hebrew, so expecting him to make a brilliant career in Israel at 55 or 56 was overly optimistic. In Russia he was an electric engineer and worked as a chief electrical engineer at a huge coal mine. Not something needed in Israel.

So, the only other option was ... to have his own company, and offer some of the practical applications of his research done before he moved to the Arctic. Of course, he was a very smart man, but still, tell me how many people would seriously consider shooting for a company, when they couldn't say two words so that anyone understand them?

His son, who was 15 at that time, told me that great story, as they sat at the table, and were talking about it, and decided ... that Yury would have his own company. It was obvious that there was nothing that they could do to make it happen, No money, no language skills, no experience, nothing... But they aimed high. And kept it in their head. And then there were incubators, similar to US, where you get some grant, and opportunity to do something, and Yasha, Yury;s son was an interpreter and a promoter at his anything but timid 16. Then there was a proposal of a machine, that could be useful in automotive, and other fields, then there was a group of Israeli engineers-investors, who poured money in to the enterprise, where Yury was a minor owner, and the chief engineer, and then they finally sold the first machine (I think it would be more appropriate to call it electro-magnetinc press) in the United States, and Yury came to US to help set it up and train personnel to operate, and it was at Ford Motor Company, then there was a machine made for Japanese automakers, then Yury was invited to US for a symposium and he made a speech in English (he is an extremely brave man)...

It was never easy, the company was always barely surviving... but it lasted nearly 20 years. Yury never became rich from it, but all these years he was a chief engineer, and had a company car, and had a place to go and do what he liked to do, and what he knew, and knew better than anybody else there.

What Yasha stressed is that it was not a chain of wonderful events that just happened to his father, who is one of very few people who made it like him. He does not have any magic. He still stumbles with his Hebrew. And though so many say it was luck, it really was anything but luck. Luck does not fall upon us, unless it is a multi-million dollar lottery jackpot. Here it was not luck. It was the goal set at an empty table in a empty room. And then everything was towards this goal, in steps so little each time, that it was difficult to see the goal, but each of these steps not only brought them closer to the goal, but opened new horizons, and new perspectives.

In retrospect, luck is simply a fair reward for doing everything to achieve your goals.

P.S. Yury has trouble hearing, so I usually talk to Yasha. Last time I asked him about Yury, and he laughed. What happened?

- Oh, nothing, Yury is working on a new start-up company...