An opportunity a day…

“Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday’s success or put its failures behind and start over again. That’s the way life is, with a new game every day, and that’s the way baseball is.”

– Bob Feller (American Baseball player)

An apple a day keeps a doctor away and an opportunity a day keeps all your troubles away.

You must be thinking I am nuts to think about creating an opportunity a day. That would mean 365 opportunities in a year. OK. if you decide to NOT count the weekends, then it’s about 261 opportunities in a year.

That’s humanly impossible, you say.

Let’s play this game a bit. What would be reasonable?
50% target: about 130 opportunities in a year?

No?

25% target: about 65 opportunities in a year?

No?

10% target: about 26 opportunities in a year?

No?

5% target: about 13 opportunities in a year?

Most people won’t pursue more than a handful of opportunities that they have designed in a year. They “react” to opportunities that are presented. Some of them even resent when opportunities are presented and complain that they have been “working” a lot these days.

Anyway, I was not suggesting that you work on a hundred opportunities in a year. I was not even talking about opportunities for yourself.

What if you looked around and see what opportunities people in your network are pursuing? What if you make a serious attempt to give a helping hand to a few of these friends?

More often than not, you can use your strengths (meaning at a low cost to you) to help others in your network – provided you know what they are working on and where they are going in life.

For that to happen, you have to stop talking about what matters to you and start listening to what matters to them.

Yes, an opportunity a day (for yourself) may be a stretch but you can definitely focus on helping someone with an opportunity every week.

If you are worried about where you will find the capacity to help with an opportunity a week, don’t worry, everyone has a secret advantage. You have one too. It’s just that you might not have tapped into it.