Every interaction is an Opportunity

“Opportunity knocks at the strangest times, It’s not the time that matters, but how you answer the door.”

~ Steve Gray

It is tempting to be constantly on a quest for BIG opportunities – waiting to be at the right time at the right place. After all, if you want to make it BIG, you need to encounter a BIG opportunity right?

WRONG!

Most of the times, you can capitalize on everyday opportunities and evolve them into bigger opportunities as time goes by.

While you are waiting for that ONE big opportunity, many other opportunities may be passing by everyday. These opportunities appear in the form of ordinary everyday interactions.

Every interaction with someone is an opportunity first because that someone has invested a piece of their life with you – in the form of this interaction. Your opportunity is simple – to give them the highest return for their investment of time, energy, money and mainly their mindshare.

Think about interactions that seem simple:

• That email you were sending to your prospect
• That phone call that you were going to make to your vendor
• That lunch meeting with your partner
• That coffee meeting with the new hire in your company.

However simple the above interactions seem, one thing is clear – at the end of those interactions, the person who was interacting with you will make an assessment about you. What that assessment is (positive, negative, lukewarm, excited, wow), depends solely on what you put into that interaction. It is also deeply influenced by who you are to that person and your personal brand in general. Since those things (who you are and your personal brand) can’t be changed significantly in that interaction, let’s assume that you are in good standing with the person and your personal brand is reasonably good.

So, here is the key:

You have won in a big way if the assessment that the other person created of you is WAY bigger than what assessment he would have created in a typical interaction with someone similar to you.

For example, if you are a financial advisor, someone who interacts with you has a general idea of what an interaction with a financial advisor will look like. You now have an opportunity to raise the bar for that interaction and create a Wow experience.

Imagine the number of interactions you are going to have right after you read this book. How many of them are you treating as opportunities to make a difference? Opportunity is a two-way street.

It is easy to misunderstand the meaning of the word “opportunity” as it generally connotes the opportunity is for YOU. In reality, “for you to grow, you have to be a BIG enough opportunity for others to grow.”

To be more precise, a good opportunity is a two-way street where you have an enlightened self-interest to contribute and benefit, both at once