How, in your own lives can you find and more importantly create opportunities?
In the Chinese langauge, you have the character representing crisis and the character representing change. When these are combined you have the character representing opportunity. Now why is that? Why is it that when crisis and change merge you have opportunity?
Because when crisis and change merge you have disequilibria. You have changing laws or changing conditions. New needs and problems are created and often it is up to the entrepreneurs to fill those needs.
Whenever you experience new things or the world around is changing, there will always be lots of opportunities. Here are some tips for finding, creating, and taking advantage of opportunities.
- You must live your life who'lly and fully as an entrepreneur. Your job isn't being an entrepreneur. You ARE an entrepreneur. You must keep your eyes open at all times.
- The more you travel to other regions and countries, the more opportunities you will see. Often in other places things are done differently or there are good products that haven't yet reached your country.
- You must be a networker. The more people you talk to the more opportunities you will find out about. It is not just what you know but also who you know and how well you know them that counts.
- You must be in it for the long run. You cannot be discouraged by setbacks or mistakes. You must have perseverance, learn from your mistakes, and keep going. As you learn more and gain more experience you'll be able to see and be prepared for more and more opportunities.
- The world is filled with opportunities just waiting to be found by an energetic and intelligent person.
- Too many people wait for opportunities to come to them. Don't. Don’t wait for the opportunities to come to you. Create the opportunity for yourself. This is what entrepreneurs do. We see a need or a problem and from that derive an idea. Then, through doing all those steps I listed a few minutes ago we create an opportunity that hopefully will be validated in the marketplace.
- You must have the opportunity mindset. You must be looking for and evaluating opportunities constantly. You must make time to talk to others about what opportunities they are pursuing. You must become magnetized towards opportunity.
Let me conclude this section with a quote from one of my favorite authors. His name is Napoleon Hill and the quote is "Every adversity comes with it a seed of equal or greater benefit." "Every adversity comes with it a seed of equal or greater benefit." Another good quote is, "There is no person worth remembering that lived a life of ease."
You will be discovering many many opportunities for learning, for partnership, for collaboration during your lives. From the adversity of life there will come many benefits and opportunities. Take advantage of every one of them.
Ryan Allis is the founder of http://www.zeromillion.com, a leading entrepreneurship resource with over 3000 articles, 100 interviews, and a free monthly newsletter The Entrepreneurs' Chronicle. Ryan is the author of the book Zero to One Million.
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