If today is any indication...

I really don't want to argue with you. You certainly are entitled to your point of view..

I do think the plan is what gives you the highest opportunity for success.

If you make a plan to do whatever it is that you're going to do, are you planning for the worst that can happen and for the best that can happen and you have experience that you understand the range of possibilities, then that gives you the very best possibility of having success.

It does not guarantee it, but it does give you the absolute highest probability of success.

I think the thing I question about your point of view is that you are comparing someone that has made a plan like I have said, with someone that literally had no money and no plan and they bought a $5,000 truck and the chips fall where they may. Those are complete different Polar Opposites.

Yes the person with no plan and no money that bought the $5,000 truck may succeed, but if he succeeds he ONLY succeeded because of luck. If iuck isn't there, much like a person that goes to the craps table because luck is not under your control, he has put his future into the hands of forces that he has no control over. If the luck is not with him it's over for him and he has a much much much smaller percentage, a very tiny small percentage of possibility of success.

If he fails, he should say well the odds were against me and it didn't work I should have had a better plan.

Now the person with the plan, if something unfortunate happens, that you would consider bad luck, he already has a plan for that and he has experience and he can work around it the best way that he can because he has a plan and he has resources and he has many many more options than the person that just dove in head-first with no care in the world.

So comparing the two is really not a reasonable comparison.

Something like a pandemic that doesn't even happen once in a lifetime, is an act of nature and it's something that is so rare that you have to deal with it as it comes. Now the person that has a plan that has money that has resources that can park his truck for a while that can work on his own truck whatever, that person is going to fare much better than someone who dove in head-first relying completely and totally only on luck to pull him through.

As I said before luck is very relative.

It is a factor, but not THE factor.

 

I think that's great!

I don't know what your level of experience was before you went into this, but it's more difficult to do what you did and have the right timing and come out on top of it. I'm glad it worked out for you.

And for what it's worth I think everyone that has gone into this business probably has varying degrees of a plan. Meaning not everyone went into this with a half a million-dollar credit line and every option that there could be. I'm sure some relied more on their wits, I'm sure sure some relied more on their experience, I'm sure some relied more on their mechanical ability, I'm sure some relied on their ability to have contacts. I'm sure there were some that were some pretty smooth talkers that relied heavily on that.

And just to quickly tell you my story, I bought a really nice tractor that had a blown engine quite a number of years ago it wasn't really worth very much and I got an outstanding deal on it when I bought it at that time. It' sat for quite a number of years as I ended up becoming caretaker for both of my parents.

When it came time to put it together I was fortunate enough to believe in my own mechanical ability. I had another truck that I bought that had bad frame rails but it had an engine that was a Cummins Recon engine that did not have a whole lot of miles on it. I had to do quite a bit of work to that engine to make sure it was Dependable but the engine itself thank God was in good shape.

I was very fortunate I was able to pull the engine and transmission out of that truck and I sold off the whole rest of the truck in pieces and I came out ahead.

And when you talk about God ironically I was blessed that as I was putting that truck together I made a friend who has been working on those engines and those trucks for the last 30 years and he's a complete and total 100% expert on everything regarding those engines and my truck and trailer. And he has been there for me and helped me every step of the way.

And I was fortunate that I was able to work my truck and trailer over from front to back to the point when DOT got under my truck he told me that truck lon the outside ooks like a 1995 but that truck underneath is like brand new.

I suppose someone could look at that and think but I was lucky and maybe in certain ways I was, but I have never ever I thought of that even once until this thread came up.

I am not Dogma religious but I am quite spiritual and I thoroughly believe in God and through all of this I have felt quite blessed and very fortunate and thankful.

So I would never consider that luck because to me luck is some random occurrence that is insignificant in who or how it happens.

To feel blessed and fortunate and thankful has such a deeper meaning.