Читать книгу 100 Steps Towards Success - Shehzad Amin PH.D - Страница 14

Every time things happen in your life that you cannot control, think of them as stepping stones to a better and bigger phase of your life. Often, opportunities come shrouded in the weighty matters of life. Those times when things aren’t going smoothly and well are the prime times for opportunities to manifest. An experienced entrepreneur knows the most barren of places come packed with the best of fertile opportunities.

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. — Winston S. Churchill

Opportunity. We all love that word. It is a word that inspires hope, as well as something we can wish upon to make our lives better. It is a single event that will smash into us, enlighten us, and take us away on its fluffy-feathered wings where we will live happily ever after. Unfortunately, that is not the case for most of us.

Real opportunities are like the sales people that knock on our door or call us while we eat dinner at night. We don’t want to open the door because we are irritated, we think we know how it is going to pan out, or we are too scared to say “no” when they ask us a question. Opportunity is just as much dependent on our views and attitude about the world as it is on our external circumstances.

When we actively change our thinking and perception toward a more opportunistic mindset, we can invite and take advantage of more opportunities in our daily lives.

Many people are perfectly capable of discovering opportunities that greatly benefit their lives, but they unknowingly ignore these opportunities. This is because much of opportunity is based on our way of seeing things.

Real opportunities are the ones that we don’t immediately see. They come by at the most unexpected, most inopportune, times. We are so obsessed with other distractions or our own opinions that we normally miss most opportunities that fall across our path.

When we do see opportunities, we treat them the same way as we treat the inappropriate sales people – with disdain and a bad attitude. Our attitude when opportunity presents itself determines whether that opportunity will make our lives better. Francis Bacon said that the wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. Benjamin Franklin, in answering a question posed to him (What is the recipe for successful achievement?)— said, “There are four essential ingredients, the most important being seizing opportunities.” Bruce Lee also said, “To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities. Opportunities are a lot like self-fulfilling prophecies. Don’t let your opportunity pass because you are looking through the wrong door. Even when opportunity knocks, a man still must get up off his seat and open the door.