Practical Steps you Have to Follow to Get the Right Opportunities
Bigger guys also know and do this
I have always heard this statement, “opportunity comes but once,” but I would really love to ask, is that true?
This post is not here to debate that age-long phrase and if I am not mistaken as well — a belief system. But I would rather think that a more fact should be, “no particular opportunity repeats itself.” Anyone lost is actually lost, there are no two opportunities that are the same.
However, it would really be worthy to note what I mean by an opportunity in this post. And it is not necessarily from the pages of your dictionary.
What is an opportunity?
An opportunity is any offer or condition that one is going to benefit from. It can be a massive to minimum benefit, but this would certainly change something concerning you. The change can be in finances, business, career, family, or in whatever areas one desires it.
We all have one thing in common — we all seek an opportunity every day and any day. It is just that where and how it is sort really differ from the other. From wealthy individuals to people seeking to sort out daily bread. From big brands to start-ups all are on the lookout for an opportunity to penetrate the market with their products (both old and new) and also a means to fund their next big project.
As much as opportunities are being searched for, many people are not ready for what is more important than the opportunity they seek.
I think of an opportunity and I feel I find a good story to buttress what I want to share. It might not be an entirely new story to you being that it is that of a onetime richest man in the world — Bill Gates.
The Gate vs the IBM story
So Bill Gates gets a deal with IBM in the 80s, but prior before that Gates and Allen (a business partner) has been doing something amazing with codes.
IBM reached out to Gate to build an operating system for them.
I would cut all the long stories short by directing you to what Gates did, he developed for them what is known today as MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System), but the agreement from IBM was not to have an exclusive right over this product. And that became one of the game changers for Microsoft.
This is just a summary of the whole story.
Well, Allen and Gates have earned about $16,000 in revenue as of 1976, however, if they didn’t do something more. The IBM deal wouldn’t have been a reality and I wouldn’t really say they might not be a Trillion Dollar company yet. Maybe not so soon. But if they had lost the IBM deal because they were not so prepared it would take another novel innovation to put them where they are right now.
Don’t think Bill Gates is the only person these secrets I am about to share with you worked for. It worked for others and can still work for you when you understand what I am about to share and also apply them.
Hitting the right opportunity is not only when something mega which you have long expected happens. There are small opportunities that lead to mega results.
Have something ready for an opportunity
While waiting and planning, the best and the first thing to always do is to have something to keep an opportunity down. Grabbing an opportunity is beyond wishful thinking, it is a thing of action.
That is why Roman philosopher Seneca said, “Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.”
What makes an opportunity for you is that you had something to give in exchange. It could be an idea, an offer, a personality aura, and the list is endless.
Don’t just wait for things to happen, but work with the process to make it happen.
The worse thing that can ever happen to you is to get an opportunity and waste it because of a lack of competence or because of carelessness. First, you won’t be happy with yourself and the second is that you are building a bad reputation for yourself. That is why you need preparations before the actual thing you are expecting.
Human opportunities
Who are the human opportunities you have?
This starts from your self-awareness and preparedness to the people you have working with you in a corporate or job-related environment. Or to the quality of people you have access to.
There are 3 key roles I see people play in line with the journey to your getting an opportunity.
Yourself; being able to see an opportunity in other people and things, and master how to manage or make use of it.
Your team; the ability to see the potential in anyone and place them where they would be optimally productive and work towards the goals you are expecting.
Your opportunity providers; are people who would entrust you with some responsibility (as every opportunity comes with its own required responsibility) to deliver on or tell you how you can get it.
You need to know or have all these people before an opportunity could truly seem like one to you.
Ask the right questions
If you seek certain opportunities, you need to ask questions, ask questions around what you wish to do. Let’s say your desired ambition is to open a business in a new country (the opportunity you seek), may be physical; you need to start asking questions about the country’s policies on foreign businesses; you need to know their GDP, also the opportunities for you in that country.
Maybe the first step to asking a question is to visit their consular in the country where you are based. You would be informed beyond your knowledge scope.
The right questions will most times give you the right direction that will bring the right opportunities your way.
This also has to be applied when you wish to enter an agreement or partnership. Endeavour to ask the right questions as well.
Look for the right places
Guess what I saw yesterday, I saw a basketball-kitted 6 feet and some inches tall guy sitting in a lecture auditorium.
I know you are trying to picture what I saw ‘right?’ And you are wondering what the guy might be doing there dressed like that in complete kit and props. Even if he was a basketball player, the lecture auditorium isn’t the right place to be dressed like that. You know what? Your thoughts are as good as mine.
However, I saw this guy in the pictures of my thoughts.
That is how most people have been approaching opportunities — in the wrong places.
That is why the previous step says ‘you should ask,’ in case you do not know where to find it.
Not being in the right places can cause people to be delayed in their aspirations and have caused many others what would have been theirs. I know you wouldn’t want to be a victim.
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