The Opportunity Deception
As entrepreneurs, you and I have a built in need to seek out opportunities.
Sometimes we even feel that we have a gift or heightened ability for being able to recognize opportunity.
That is really where the deception begins
If you think back to when you first discovered that entrepreneurial spirit, you probably felt pretty strongly that the real key to success was your ability to recognize opportunity.
Well. If you’re like me, you probably spent A LOT of time recognizing opportunity. Be honest with yourself. How many “million dollar” ideas have you had? A few, I bet.
How many of those million dollar ideas have actually turned into a million dollars? Not so many, if I had to guess.
What is the biggest obstacle or reason they didn’t turn into a million dollars? I’d be willing to bet it’s because you had another million dollar idea that took its place.
The ability to recognize opportunity is certainly not the key to success
We get smarter. We soon discover that in order to be successful we can’t just recognize the opportunity, we also have to act on opportunity.
Take Action! Right?
Well, I found myself taking action several times a week in the form of pulling out my credit card to buy the latest whiz-bang-secret-Ninja-loophole easy button secret strategy.
Sound familiar?
Sometimes we think that we are pushing our business forward, towards success, but in reality we are following the next shiny object.
So recognizing opportunity and then taking action on that opportunity a very common trap that we fall into.
So what is the real key to success?
That’s the million dollar question for sure, but I will tell you that my success, my business and personal life, really changed and began to grow exponentially when I learned how to ignore opportunity.
Yep. Ignore it, stop reacting to it.
That was the real key, at least to MY success – when I discovered the ability to recognize an opportunity but not take action on it or to recognize an opportunity and maybe even tell the person who brought me that opportunity that it was a great idea with a great chance of success but ‘I just don’t have the bandwidth to take it on.’
When I learned how to do that … things started really exploding rapidly.
The fact is, a lot of people can recognize opportunity. How many times a week do we see that next big ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity come around. More importantly, how many times do we take action on that opportunity at the expense of the previous opportunity?
Think about this for just a minute. How many projects do you have about 80% finished? Right now. How about 90-95% finished?
What would happen if you ignored some seemingly incredible opportunities so you can get that one thing finished? I would guess from experience that if you can get that one piece of your business finished, really focus on completion… That’s when you’re really going to start seeing growth and rapid success in your business.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Leave a comment below and share your thoughts on the Deception of Opportunity and how it can be avoided.