Be Ready for Opportunity

Opportunity is everywhere and available to all of us. We only need to open our eyes to it. Then, it’s up to us to recognize and take hold of it.

It took me decades to understand this concept about opportunity. There was a time when I would say, “Wow, that person is so lucky to have such talent. Imagine being born with that kind of opportunity in life? How did she get to be so lucky?”

I don’t have the scientific backing on this, but I would say with utmost confidence that a majority of people have pondered those very questions, too.

Luck and Opportunity

Let’s face it, it’s hard not to look at someone like Tony Robbins, an incredibly popular and successful success coach, and think of how lucky he is to have been born with such a gift. People pay him astronomical amounts of money to listen to his advice, and all he has to do is stand up on a stage with a headset and talk. Wow, such opportunity!

He makes motivational coaching look so easy. He walks that stage, flexes his strong jaw, and gets everyone pumped up with what seems like natural flow. How lucky he is to have such ability.

Here’s the thing

If you focused the majority of your time on becoming a success coach, logic points out that you would eventually gain the ability. What we focus on the most, by the very virtue of the physics of energy, will begin to emerge. This is powerful.

Tony Robbins is not lucky. He is focused. He is prepared. He is committed to his talent.

Behind his brilliantly-delivered coaching sessions are years upon years of determined focus. He didn’t become a world-class coach by focusing on the latest television show or drinking his productive hours away at a bar. He did so by concentrating his efforts on that goal daily, and making it one of his top priorities.

In my novel, Tangerine Twist, a story about a musician who hits the big times, the lead character Becca James is completely out of her element and struggles with finding her footing under the wave of success that hits her overnight. Why is this? Well, she wasn’t prepared. She also didn’t truly believe such ‘opportunity’ would ever come into her life. 

Ready for Opportunity

So how can we apply this to our own lives right now?

To rise to our fullest potential takes commitment. We need to slip into a productive mode of preparation so when we meet up with opportunity, we can stand before it with unshakable confidence. On our way to this point, we’ll traverse paths that will surely test our resilience. This path will be nothing short of adventurous because anything less will never allow us the chance to grow persevering roots. Expect these challenges and plan to embrace them. Let them teach you the rigors of controversy, the humility of defeat, and the glory of accomplishment. A path full of obstacles is a great gift, for they serve to get us out of comfort just far enough to stretch past our limits.

Along this path, we’ll surely encounter fallen branches that will twist up at our ankles and threaten to trip us. We’ll be blocked by boulders capable of stopping our momentum if allowed. We’ll come across raging rivers that will force us to contemplate our journey, teasing us to lay ourselves down on the side of its banks and ease into our familiar comfort of safety. We will need to choose to either admire the opportunity rising on the horizon past this river or engage with it by plunging in with everything we’ve got, ignoring the least resistant path.

Anything less than tripping, climbing, and tackling the flow may result in our losing the opportunity to see what the other side of this obstacle has to offer. Digging into the challenges and discovering their weaknesses allows us to develop strengths that would otherwise go untouched and untrained.

Don’t fear the road that has no footprints yet. For ours may very well need to be the first set.