Life doesn't give us a lot of breaks.

(Of course, we can control lots of that by making our own luck. Did you know, incidently, that made luck comprises 92% of all luck experienced by people like you worldwide? More on that another day.)

But yes, life is hard. What makes life unspeakably better? Having a great teammate. What makes life even more rewarding than that? Being a great teammate. (Okay, it's definitely more work to be a great teammate than to just have one. But teammates are like friends. If you want one, you'll want to start by being one.)

There are some signs that distinguish you as a great teammate. Find these and work will be blissful. Embody these and you will find lots of luck in your future. A few I've found in my travels, in no particular order:

• You're prepared! You're ready for meetings. You know what we're going to talk about. You know a couple related things we should be talking about. You have some great questions. What's more, you have some great solutions! Maybe you don't have solutions. In that case...

• You are present. What that really means: you're open. You're receptive. You're listening actively and giving your everything to this meeting. After all, we're here to create something right? Some zone out, some ask questions for the sake of asking questions and not to find answers (as "proof," really a peripheral cue that holds little water, that they are active and contributing - as a side note, a good way to spot these? These questions will often be not entirely relevant to the train of thought at hand, bringing up some part of the story that isn't very helpful right now). But you, my friend, are concise, thoughtful, and speak with clarity!

• You don't bullshit. Pardon my French, truly, but this is a very important point in my book. If you spend our time telling me why you were going to do it but didn't, recounting all the external factors that conspired against you, here's what you're actually doing. You're wasting your time. You're wasting my time. You're draining your credibility. The more you do it, the lower it goes.

• Related: You're accountable. You take ownership clearly and unequivocally when you make a mistake. And you change your behavior to make it better. You know life happens to all of us, and it's those who control their response to life who succeed? We all make mistakes. What really shows your character is what you do after you make a mistake.

• You get things done early. Asking me about that thing I'm going to need done by the end of next week. I probably have it on my work queue. But there's a chance I forgot about it. For starters, you're getting it back on my radar! Secondly, just knowing you are there having my back on that is huge. Thanks for the reminder, trusty partner!

• Related bonus: you're creative! Getting things done early is a recipe for innovation, strategic thinking, success. When you get things done early, you don't do them in a stressed state. Stress causes narrow-mindedness, mistakes, drag on morale. Early finishers are salves for stress. Ahhh.

• You're consistent. You have internal rules you follow and that makes you reliable. You have a code, which makes you predictable. That helps people, like your boss and teammate, know how to plan you into projects. As a side note - you are rarely heard saying things like "oh, just this one time." Because you know how habits work - and how letting up can go downhill fast. Conversely, you're also flexible enough to not be a drill sergeant. So if you do say that phrase, you actually mean it.

Of course there are plenty more, which I'm sure we will get into in these pages in the future. But this list is based on my own preferences, and these tend to be important ones for me.

Keep in mind, by the way: everyone has their own preferences for what they value most in a coworker. These are just mine. Seth Godin covered this insightfully in one of his early Akimbo podcasts.