Motivation: The Power of Opportunity

I think each one of us has had the experience of coming up with a great idea for a product or a way to do something, only to see someone else do it and make a ton of money.

Here's mine - A few years back I went through advanced training in hypnosis. One of the tools the trainers used to teach us about the state of hypnosis was simply a large sheet of paper covered with all these lines and shapes. You simply stared at two little dots in the middle long enough to make the lines turn into a 3-D image. I wrote in my notes this idea - "take these things, colorize them, and have shapes like dinosaurs, planes, etc." I put the notes away after the training. A year later, my wife and I were walking in the mall, and there's this huge crowd outside a frame shop, staring at my idea in the window. Only I hadn't done anything about it. Arrrgh!

The point is this - all of us are presented with numerous opportunities every day of our lives. Opportunities to create, to build, to connect or just to love someone along the way. And yet we usually miss them. Why? Is it because we're too busy, too tired, too something? Maybe. What I really believe happens is that we are simply not prepared to see them, much less take advantage of them.

In the opportunity part of the BRAAVO seminar, I used to use the quote that "luck is the coming together of skill and preparation." I thought it was sort of a lame quote for what I wanted, but it was the closest I could find for the notion of preparing our minds for opportunity.

Then one day as I was preparing to present The BRAAVO Approach to a businesswoman's group, I had an appointment that afternoon with a 15 year old young man. As we talked about what he had done the last week, he shared with me the following quote from a movie he had just seen. Here's the quote - "Chance favors the prepared mind." Yes! Just what I needed for my seminar.

It turns out that this is a quote from Louis Pasteur, and Steven Segal used it in Under Siege 2.

I guess you get your wisdom where you can find it.

If chance favors the prepared mind, then so does opportunity

Here's another quote, author unknown, "The pain of discipline is always less than the pain of regret." It's important to understand that there are times when growth and change can be painful. I can't promise you that growth and change will always be easy, just worth it. While disciplining and preparing our minds to take advantage of the opportunities in life may take work and even be painful at times, it pales in comparison to the pain of "I wish I woulda-coulda-shoulda."

"OK, so if opportunity favors the prepared mind and the pain of discipline is always less than the pain of regret," you may be asking, "tell me again how to prepare my mind to seize the opportunities that come my way?" Excellent question! All of the BRAAVO suggestions are simply in service of preparing your brain for change. Believing in yourself, taking responsibility, asking good questions, taking action, and having a clear picture of where you are headed can set up a very interesting situation. It almost seems as if life is ready to reward us for all our hard work by presenting us with opportunities to achieve what we want.

"But what if I've already let so many opportunities slip by me? What do I do now?" Another good question! First let me welcome you to the club. We've all let opportunities slip by us, with varying degrees of pain and regret. The good news, if you can stand one more quote, is this - "Life never closes one door without opening several others."

Now, to put some hands and feet on walking through these doors of opportunity. At the risk of being redundant, here are the five key steps -

Believe that you can do it
Take Responsibility for doing it
Ask the right questions
Take all the necessary Actions
Have a clear Vision for where you want to go

If you have noticed that we have come full circle here, then you have really been paying attention. The first five steps of the BRAAVO Approach prepares your mind for opportunities, and then you follow the first five steps to take advantage of the opportunities.

I realize that this may sound almost too simple. I guess I could complicate it for you, perhaps add in some psychological mumbo-jumbo, but why?

Now go for it!

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