Opportunities are everywhere. Truly they are.

Do you ever wonder why some people seem so lucky – always having opportunities fall into their lap – when you feel like this never happens to you and the opportunity is never there in front of you?

As the saying goes, ‘You make your own luck’.  That’s because luck is about putting yourself in the position where the opportunity you want is available to you. THE KEY IS KNOWING WHAT IT IS YOU WANT. Without this information, the best opportunity in the world could be right in front of you and chances are you won’t see it.

Our brains do so much work behind the scenes – and helping us to recognise opportunities is just one of the amazing ways it works.

I call it the ‘yellow car syndrome’.

When we say, “I want to buy a new car”, our brain says, “Thanks – great plan. Let me know when you see one you like, and I’ll get to working out if that’s the right one for us”. And not much happens. You might stumble across the car you want but chances are time will pass and there won’t be a new car in the driveway.

However, if you say “I want to buy a new car, and it has to be yellow” then suddenly everywhere you go you see yellow cars. Our brains are going “Hey there’s one! Is that the one we want?” Our mind recognises an opportunity when it appears and is pointing it out to see if it’s the one we want.

The real key to this though is knowing what you want. Without this vital bit of information, how will you ever be able to identify the opportunities in front of you? When you know exactly what you want, it changes the conversations you have with others, or the points you pick out of an article, or your approach to a problem. It moves you from blindly going about your day, to having your brain ticking away in the background assessing each situation – essentially on the hunt for those ‘lucky’ opportunities.

So what does this look like?

When I’m working with a client looking to change careers, the conversation goes from:

“I want to change career, but I don’t know what I want to do.”

To

“I’m looking for new opportunities that focus on doing these things that are really important to me.”

That works just the same for any of us in business.

For example, if the aim is to have more money in the account by the end of the year, the conversation goes from:

“I want to make more money in 2023.”

To

“I’m looking for opportunities to increase the profitability of my business.”

The difference is there can now be multiple opportunities for that to happen. More sales, price reviews, new markets, better systems, collaborations, better marketing – the list goes on.

The second statement invites discussion, the first – well that just has us all nodding going “Yeah, me too!”  When you think about what you want, it is not about focusing on the outcome (making more money) it is being open to thinking creatively about how you get there.

To find out more about how Justine helps her clients through her business Orange Fox, visit her website: www.orangefox.co.nz  or email her justine@orangefox.co.nz

 Print This Post