Your Best Shot

Why people fail to grab opportunities

We live in the best of time or the worst of times, depending how we look at the opportunities presented to us. We look at opportunities with different color lenses, based on our past experiences. Great opportunities are always overlooked and missed by the public at large, to the point of being ignored. The greatest opportunities are often disguised. Next time an opportunity comes your way, give it due diligence and try to see it with your mind and heart, not just with your eyes. Here are a few reasons people miss the greatest opportunities:

1.      Taking advice from the past. Never go to the past to get advice for your future, go to the future to get advice from the past.

2.      Taking advice from the wrong sources. Seek advice from people that have succeeded and not from those who have failed.

3.      Lack of vision. Lack of faith and lack of hunger lead to complacency and the fear of the future. Dreamers are in the minority.

4.      Wrong assumptions. Faulty thinking by focusing of what can’t instead of what can. We don’t know what we don’t know.

5.      Asking the wrong questions. Failing to ask what the upside is, what is the downside, and what is the return on the investment.

6.      Quick judgment. Letting the immediate, the instant overrule the long term benefits of pursuing the opportunity.

7.      Media infection. Lack of clear thinking and negativity infection leads to negative conclusions.

The next time opportunity knocks, give it due diligence; it may the opportunity you were looking for and did not even know it. It may be the best shot at living the life you always wanted.

Will you join my cause to fight mediocrity in the world?

Pass these nuggets on to others.    

We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give. Be a giver in a world of takers.

Be blessed and be a blessing to others.

Carlos Fontana, President of Phalanx

Co-author of the book Follow to Lead (The 7 Principles to Being a Great Follower)

Author of the book PRICELESS (Sixty-Six Simple Stories of Reflection, Love, and Legacy