WHAT'S UP CRUSADERS!?! I'm hijacking Courtney's posts while she is on vacation.

When motivation fails me, and I don't immediately understand why I must do something, or don't even feel like doing a required task, there is one fail-safe that works wonders:

I sit back and put myself into a mindset by asking myself: "Okay, I don't feel motivated and I don't even have the motivation to find a reason to get motivated. Hmm. Okay, well do I need to be motivated every minute of my life? No. Sometimes work is meant to be hard -- I don't always need motivation. I must trust the process -- the rewards and reasons will come later. Trust the process."

Most of the time I have solid motivation. But there are times when the mind & body just don't want to cooperate with my daily routine. Sticking to my daily routine is the only solution for those times when motivation is lacking. In order to win, to be #1, we need to consistently execute even when we aren't motivated. The greatest artists don't sit and wait for inspiration --- they get to work even when they don't feel like it or aren't motivated. Albert Einstein said it best: "motivation is for fools!"* 

*Einstein may or may not have said these exact words.

You may recall from the book, The Happiness Advantage, the experiment by professor Richard Wiseman to examine luck and why some people are always in the right place at the right time, while others consistently experience ill fortune. I found a blog that elaborates on the characteristics of lucky and unlucky people as a result of his research.

Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there rather than just what they are looking for. His research eventually revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient, “never say die” attitude that transforms bad luck into good.  

Unlucky people are generally more tense than lucky people, and this anxiety disrupts their ability to notice the unexpected. As a result, they miss opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to gatherings intent on finding their perfect partner and miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through newspapers determined to find certain types of job advertisements and miss other types of jobs.

So here are four tips for becoming lucky:

1) Listen to your gut instincts – they are often right

2) Be open to new experiences and breaking your normal routine

3) Spend a few moments each day remembering things that went well

4) Visualize yourself being lucky before an important meeting or phone call

Remember that the happiest people in the world are not those who have no problems, but those who learn to enjoy things that are less than perfect.

~ Professor Richard Wiseman, University of Hertfordshire

Originally released in 1969 as a basketball shoe, the adidas Superstar was one of the first sneakers to feature an upper made entirely of leather. The shoe, which also became known simply as "shell toes" because of the distinctive rubber toe cap, quickly became a classic.

Popularized and worn on the court by NBA Hall of Famer and Lakers legend, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, the iconic silhouette is regarded as one of the major influences in the rise of modern day sneaker culture. Similar to the Jordan 1 that I've written about before, the Superstar had the style and versatility to make the transition from its intended purpose as a performance shoe on the basketball court to a streetwear staple.

By the 1980's, the shoes had become so mainstream that legendary rap group, Run DMC had started wearing them on stage in a very unique way - no laces and the tongue hanging out over the top. The group even released a single on their 1986 album, Raising Hell, called My Adidas. (Try reading that without saying "my adidas" the way he does in the song.)

Not long after, the group signed a deal with adidas, marking the first time in the history of sportswear that a shoe company partnered with a musician to sell sneakers - a practice that is now widely used across the industry.

Now, nearly 50 years after the original release of the shoe, it remains adidas' highest selling shoe year after year. In fact, in 2016, the Superstar was the highest-grossing shoe across all brands for the entire year. This milestone for the classic sneaker marked the first time in more than a decade that a Nike shoe didn't earn the top spot (though Nike did have the other 9 shoes on the list).