Bernie also tells students that excuses are irrelevant or to use the technical term: bullshit!
We use excuses to cover up the fact that we did not put in the required effort to deliver. This lesson is relevant in all parts of your life. There is no excuse for being late, for not handing in an assignment, for failing an exam, for not spending time with your family, for not calling your girlfriend, and so forth.

There is a big difference between trying to do something and actually doing it.

Istead of being pushy to prove that you deserve it, try to learn from the interaction.

I recently learned from Jeannie kahwajy, an expert on interpersonal interactions, that her research shows that those who demonstrate that they are willing to learn can turn negative situations around very effectively. Jeannie ran experiments involving mick interviews by recruiters of job candidates. The recruiter was primed beforehand to have a negative bias toward the candidate. Of three groups of candidates one was instructed to prove they should get the job, one was told to learn from the interaction; and the final group, the control, was given no specific instructions. She found that the recruiter's negative bias was reinforced for both the control group and the group that tried to prove they should get the job. However the candidates who set out to learn from the interaction reversed the recruiter' negative bias.

The sooner and franker... the better.

I've spent countless hours kicking myself for stupid things I've done. However I've also figured out that learning how to recover from those mistakes is key. For instance knowing how to apologize is incredibly important. A simple acknowledgment that you messed up goes a long way. There is no need for long speeches and explanations. Just say "I didn't handle that very well. I apologize."

The sooner you do this after recognizing your mistake, the better. If you wait a long time to apologize, the damage continues to grow. 

Craft the story now so you'll be proud to tell it later :)

I realized afterward that thinking about how you want to tell the story in the future is a great way to assess your response to dilemma in general. Craft the story now so you'll be proud to tell it later. 

The importance of every experience we have with others.

Essentially your reputation is your most valuable asset- so guard it well. But don't be terribly demoralized if you make some mistakes along the way. With time it is possible to repair a stained reputation. Over the years I have come up with the metaphor that has helped me put this in prespective: every exprince you have with someone else is like a drop of water falling into a pool. As your experiences with that person grow, the drops accumulate and the pool deepens. Positive interactions are clear drops of water and negative interactions are red drops of water. But they aren't equal. That is a number of clear drops can dilute one red drop, and that number differs from different people. Those who are very forgiving only need a few positive experiences- clear drops- to dilute a bad experience, while those who are less forgiving need a lot more to wash away the red. Also for most people the pool drains slowly. As a result we tend to pay attention to experiences that have happened most recently, as opposed to those that had happened a long time ago. This metaphor implies that if you have a large reserve of positive experiences with someone then one red drop is hardly noticed. It's like putting a drop of  red ink into the ocean. But if you don't know a person well, one bad experience stains the pool bright red.
You can wash away negative interactions by flooding the pool by positive interactions until the red drops fade, but the deeper the red, the more work you have to do to clean the pool. I've found that sometimes the pool color never clears, when that happens, it's time to stop interacting with that particular person. 

As we have seen we can manufacture our own luck by working incredibly hard. And focusing on our goals. But we have many other tools at our disposal, including being open to opportunities that come our way, taking full advantage of chance occurrences, paying careful attention to the world around us, interacting with as many people as we can and making those interactions as positive as possible. 

Richard Wiseman of the university of Hertfordshire, in England, has studied luck and found that "lucky people" share traits that tend to make them luckier then others. First, lucky people take advantage of chance occurrences that come their way. Instead of going through life on cruise control, they pay attention to what's happening around them and therefore, are able to extract greater value from each situation. They're more likely to pay attention to an announcement to an special event in their community, to notice a new person in their neighborhood, or even to see that a colleague is in need for extra help. Lucky people are also open to novel opportunities and willing to try things outside of their usual experience. They're more inclined to pick up a book on an unfamiliar subject, to travel to less familiar destinations.
No surprisingly, lucky people tend to be extroverted. They make more eye contact and smile more frequently, leading to more positive and extended encounters. These actions in turn open the door to more opportunities. Lucky people also tend to be optimistic and to expect good thing to happen to them. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because even when things don't go as expected lucky people find ways to extract positive outcomes from the worst situations. Their attitude affects those around them, and help to turn negative situations into positive expriences.

You need to put yourself in a position to be lucky.

I called my son, Josh during his first semester at collage to wish him luck on his final exams. His response was, "there is no such thing as luck. It's all hard work. " [...] the harder you work the luckier you get. His mantra was a stark reminder that you need to put yourself in a position to be lucky. Even if there is low probability of success and a tremendous amount of competition, you can maximize you r chances by being well prepared physically, intellectually, and emotionally.