Opportunities for Success
"Opportunities, many times, are so small that we glimpse them not and yet they are often the seeds of great enterprises. Opportunities are also everywhere and so you must always let your hook be hanging. When you least expect it, a great fish will swim by." -Og Mandino
My friend Ed is worried about a career dilemma he is facing. He's been employed with a company for several years, but he now has two opportunities. One involves partnering with someone he knows to start a business of their own. The other involves working for a large company and injecting his unique, but well-developed and proven techniques into their business. I'll bet you thought Ed's career dilemma involved a layoff or loss of his job after reading the first sentence. Instead, it involved opportunities. Success tip number one: opportunity always exists, no matter what is going on in the environment.
"There are opportunities everywhere, just as there have always been..." -Charles Fillmore
To enable yourself to find the opportunities around you, you must be able to see them. Those who encounter opportunities like my friend Ed are focused in such a way that they can find them. As in most aspects of success, your focus is the key. If you decide to focus upon what you do not have, you find more of it. If you decide to focus upon what you want, you will move in that direction and find more of that. Note that if don't consciously decide where you're going to focus, the environment will decide for you.
You might believe that this environment is bad for opportunity. Your can make that choice, but it's not true. There is opportunity in every environment. In his book Small Radio: Yesterday and in the World of Tomorrow, Emerson's co-founder Benjamin Abrams wrote, "The Emerson Model 25 was presented to the public late in 1932 when the country was at the lowest depth of the depression. But the overwhelming response of dealers and consumers to that set was a magnificent contradiction of despair. Orders poured in from every section of the United States. For more than a year, the demand was far greater than our ability to manufacture." Success tip number two: To discover opportunities, chose to focus your attention so that you can find them.
"The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes." -Benjamin Disraeli
Preparing yourself for opportunities is important. While there are an infinite number of opportunities around them, the best ones to grasp are those suited to your skills, talents and abilities. Guard against the tendency to be distracted by opportunities in areas for which you are not prepared. When you are not properly prepared for an opportunity, you will usually not be able to make the best use of it. Planning for this by developing your skills requires time and effort, but it will ultimately serve you well. In addition to his work, Ed took classes to become a better communicator. He also chose to serve on committees in professional organizations in his field where he was able to network. Success tip number three: select opportunities for which you are prepared and prepare for the opportunities you want to select.
"Give it a strong clear picture of what you want and [your] creative power starts to work magnetizing conditions about you; attracting to you things, resources, opportunities, circumstances and even the people you need, to help bring to pass in your outer life what you have pictured." –Claude M. Bristol
When seeking opportunities, look for creative ways to work with what is already there. One of Ed's opportunities involves working with an existing company that may need the skills he has developed through practice. It's a creative opportunity for him to exercise his talents in a new environment. In The Legend of Honeywell, Jeffrey Rodengen talks about how W.R. Sweatt used creative methods during difficult times. "There were many in the Depression who felt compelled to withdraw new ideas or minimize their creativity. But Sweatt pressed forward to revolutionize industry." Sweatt designed new, alternative products which helped his business become an industry leader. Success tip number four: use your creative talent to find and explore new opportunities to differentiate you from competitors.
"Security is not the meaning of my life. Great opportunities are worth the risks." -Shirly Hufsteddler
Grabbing opportunity involves taking risks. You can minimize the impact of some risks by making sure you are well prepared and by investigating and comparing the upsides and downsides of different opportunities. Ed knows that the two opportunities he is considering contain unknown elements. One involves the risks of starting a new business. The other involves bringing new ideas to a company that may initially resist them. So he is evaluating his skills in light of the challenges presented and is actively researching elements of both situations and comparing them to his current situation. Success tip number five: be realistic and take calculated risks. Research the opportunity effectively and consider your skills and abilities in light of the risk involved.
"Opportunities multiply as they are seized." -Sun Tzu
Ultimately, the key to seizing opportunities is in acting. Without taking action, opportunities are lost. While preparation is key to effectively grasping an opportunity, over-preparation is key to missing it. You will rarely be completely prepared for new opportunities. However, I have found that grabbing an opportunity, even before I believe I am completely prepared for it, usually results in my learning a great deal very quickly. I have also noticed that grabbing one opportunity brings skills and abilities I didn't know I had. Success tip number six: Be ready to grab opportunities that you feel prepared for; taking action on one opportunity often produces the resources you need.
Have a great month!
