OPPORTUNITIES ARE GUIDED BY PROBLEMS

Albert Einstein said, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” This principle of opportunity knocking at the least likely moment is something that must be learned by firsthand experience. You can take someone’s word for it, but when it happens to you, it’s a revelation that you will never forget.

Opportunity 1 - Every situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity.
Did you hear about the employee who used to walk his dog in the woods? By the end of the walk, the dog’s fur would be full of burns, stuck securely in the tiny hairs. One day he looked closely at the annoying little burrs and saw something truly inspiring. As a result, he invented what we now call Velcro!
Another employee apparently had a bad day in the glue factory and had made up what everyone thought was a bad batch of glue. The problem was that it had only marginal stickiness. A little thought into the matter and “sticky notes” were born!
Another gentleman, who sold potato chips to grocery store chains, was having marginal success in getting the store to allocate much shelf space for his product. One day his daughter came home from school with her science project. She had to go in the forest and collect leaves from the various species of deciduous trees, and when she returned, she had the leaves neatly stacked one upon the other. It gave him an idea that would change the balance of power in the potato chip wars. He came up with the idea for stacking potato chips in a can. The can took up less space than bulky bags filled with air and he was able to get more products in the smaller space than his competition. The wave of Pringles was born!

Opportunity 2 – Improve skills removes barriers, while shifting paradigms moves mountains.
You can wait for something to come along to shift your paradigm, but chances are you won’t like it, or you can artificially shift your paradigm to help you see other options. Though some artificial shifting of paradigms may appear silly to some, the effects are helpful. For example, when I was selling printers I would sometimes ask my self what I would do if I got a call from a kidnapper who had kidnapped my wife. I would then tell myself that the ransom was of the day and it had to be within normal profit margins and no one could know about the kidnapping. Failure was not an option, so I came up with prospects who I hadn’t thought of in months and other opportunities that might be worth pursuing. I would then go after those opportunities like my life depend on it, and regardless of whether I made a sale that day, I got myself out of any ruts and started the pipeline moving again. Try shifting your paradigms artificially. You might be surprised what you come up with.

Opportunity 3 – The bigger the problem, the greater the opportunity.
Here is a testimony of someone whose first daughter was born with a down’s syndrome and a sizable hole in her heart. They didn’t tell us any of this until we had her home for a few days and being new parents we really didn’t know anything was wrong. When I finally found out, I was devastated! It completely took the wind out of my sails. For me, it was especially frightening because it was the only thing that I knew I feared might happen to me, and it did.
Suddenly, I was parent of one beautiful but handicapped little baby girl. Early one morning I laid her on the living room floor and just looked at her while I asked God for His perspective on things. Immediately I realized that God loved me regardless of my level of perfection, or lack thereof. He loved me unconditionally and I had no right to do any less for my daughter. Second, I realized that this trial felt as though someone had taken a backhoe and dug a huge hole in my heart. I knew the hole would fill with water. The question for me was. “Am I going to let it make me better or make me better?” I chose the latter. I believe that the adversity had the potential to give us wisdom beyond our years if we would embrace the package it came in. So I embraced my little one and cherished each and every day of the eighteen months we had her. She died six days before Christmas in 1979 and great was the loss of her beautiful life.

Opportunity 4 – You rarely exceed your own expectations.
I often tell salesmen not to let their company limit them with their sales quota. Always set your own expectations and reach for those. The computer company I worked for used to have sales quota of four major orders per month, though the national average was 3.2 per month. I set my goal for twenty orders per month, and though I never hit it, nobody ever got upset with me for getting twelve to sixteen orders in a month. Before my first year was over I was asked to be a manager, so I never got to hit my goal and often I wished I had stayed on a little longer just so I could have hit the goal.
Another example was Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. He was going for a world record and a goal medal in the long jump. On his first attempt he committed a foot fault and had to try again. He committed a similar fault the second time and only had one more opportunity to jump. He slowly walked down to where he would need to land to win the gold medal and placed a red scarf on the sand, and then slowly walked back to the starting point. Unbeknownst to him, his coach kicked the scarf a foot further. Jesse took a good run and jumped without committing a foot fault, landing right on the scarf, a full foot further than was necessary to win the gold and set a world record. I can’t prove it, but I bet he would have landed on the scarf if his coach hadn’t moved it because you rarely exceed your own expectations.

Opportunity 5 – Others see us the way we see ourselves.
When the twelve spies returned from their reconnaissance mission in Canaan, ten of the spies from were spooked by the giants and said, “We were like grasshoppers in our own sight” (Numbers 13:33). They saw themselves as grasshoppers, so the people of the land saw them that way too! If you walk into a room with a confident, successful individual, others are more likely to see you in the same light also. Learn to see yourself the way God sees you. If you don’t know how He sees you, consider what He did for you in the work of the cross. You will find that the father has a profound love for you and created you with a destiny. Get a hold of that and carry that perspective into the day!

QUOTE FOR TODAY
“Each problem I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.” – Rene Descartes

INCREASING THE SPEED OF THOUGHT

You've probably heard the joke that it's okay to talk to yourself as long as you don't answer yourself. Many times, in our culture, we find it strange to see someone sitting alone and apparently carrying on a conversation. But in actual fact, the only real difference between this person and ourselves is that we speak to ourselves without saying anything out loud.A lot of people feel that it's perfectly natural to hear your own voice speaking words inside your mind. In fact, everyone that I have ever asked has responded that this is exactly how theythink. Psychology tells us that the human mind operates with pictures, and that every thought is conveyed inside the mind as a picture or a series of pictures. Yet most of us think out our thoughts using words and language.Many ancient systems of philosophy have taught that this "chattering monkey" limits your thinking, and restricts you from ever finding "enlightenment". Zen and other forms of Buddhism strive to eliminate the flow of thoughts in the mind in order to allow the mind to perceive "satori", or the ultimate state of existence.Sometimes, when I am particularly focused on my thinking, I notice that a complete thought flashes through my mind, and then the chattering monkey starts up to describe the thought that just went through. One thought after another flash through my mind,and all of them get described with words, as if I had to explain to myself what I had just thought. And each time a thought goes through this process of being described, the next thought is put on hold until the words stop.It is at this time that I wonder "What would happen if I could stop the words and let the thoughts play themselves out in my mind?" After spending several minutes on this effort to stop the words, I realize that the time between thoughts is reduced to virtually nothing, and more and more thoughts speed their way through my mind. And the more I'm able to stop the words, the quicker my mind operates. Even in a state of wordless thinking, my mind clearly understands everything that takes place. I've actually tried to stop the words entirely. While it does speed up the process of thinking tremendously, it does have an unpleasant side-effect. I lose the ability to hold an intelligent conversation with another person. Here's what usually happens: I'm sitting somewhere letting my mind run freely and unrestricted. The level of my thinking is taking on enormous proportions, such as analyzing the ultimate nature of Life, or the intricate similarities between atoms and galaxies.Then someone approaches me and asks a simple question. My mind immediately presents a dozen different ideas relating to the question, and there is a very intricately detailed picture of the whole subject. And I'm stumped as to where to begin in order to respond to the question. Although I believe that it's possible to achieve a state of quiet mind while retaining the ability to communicate effectively, I have not felt it was ever a good time to go through the process. Mostly because of ego, as I never wanted to appear to be less intelligent than I was. What I have done, however, is to set aside time periods where I work to turn off the chattering monkey in order to focus my mental energies more effectively on a specific task. Although not as ideal, it seems to be a good compromise. And over the years, I believe that I am moving towards the ideal. Each session where I eliminate a fair portion of the chattering monkey, I gain sharper insights into the world around me, and the subject that I focus my attention upon at the time. Over time, this has given me a deeper understanding of many subjects, which in turn has increased my level of intelligence. I recognize which pathways of thought are effective since I have had the opportunity to let my mind travel a greater number of pathways.This results in quicker thinking, even when I'm not working on quieting the chattering monkey.In many situations, this has proven to be of great use, as I am now able to learn a subject in about half the time it used to take, and I am also able to quickly analyze a situation and find the similarities between this new situation and one I've studied previously. Only in the last couple of months have I started to learn about setting up websites and working with server scripts, cgi's, and MySQL databases. I may not be an expert yet, but that will only take a little more time. Not only can I work with all these things, but I can customize many aspects of the things I'm working with.There is a quote from Abraham Lincoln that sums up the importance of learning to speed up your thinking. The quote is "If I only had 6 hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend 4 hours sharpening the axe." You're going to spend the rest of your life learning and analyzing situations. Be smart and spend some time sharpening your mind. Set aside specific times where you quiet your chattering monkey. Give your mind the freedom it needs to quickly move from one thought to another. You'll be amazed at what you can accomplish.

PURPOSE, A WORTH FOR LIVING

I have sometimes seen people being asked the purpose behind certain things that they do. Some people often answered that they have no reason for such action. You must have a target in mind before you embark on anylife adventure. Achievers and heros often use their mind before their hands. Here lies the key of purposeful living and the secret of success. Alife without a specific purpose is a life without focus. When you are focus-less you will definately be valueless.
Don't ever venture on any journey without a purpose because it will end in commotion. The result is always a failure. It is simple case, if you don't know what you want, you won't get it.
Be challenged to live a purposeful life then you are welcomed to the gathering of distinction where success is being earned.

QUOTE FOR TODAY
" If a man has no purpose for living he is not fit to live." - Martin Luther King

THE GOAL OF LIFE

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." - Jeremiah 29:11.

For many people in the world, real meaning in life is the next vacation, career success, or stepping up the income ladder. It is a life based on pleasurable experiences. Many a human being has toiled their whole life to gain a pleasurable lifestyle only to find a life that is empty and meaningless. You only have to watch television for one evening to discover that advertisers want us to believe this is the goal of life. The work-to-play theme is consistent with most advertising messages.Solomon was a man who had nothing withheld from his appetite. He was a great builder, a great businessman, and a great lover of women. Every imaginable pleasure was his. Nevertheless, he was to discover that these things alone could not satisfy the human soul.
A recent trip to a beautiful island left me grateful that God had allowed me to understand the futile trap of the work-to-play lifestyle. It is great to experience times of refreshing and visit beautiful places as long as we don't fall into the trap of thinking that these experiences equal a meaningful life. God's beautiful creation can so easily become a prison of emptiness if Jesus is not in the center of it. The apostle Paul said there is only one way to find meaning and purpose in life:I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power for us who believe... (Ephesians 1:17-19).Knowing Christ brings the only real meaning and purpose to the human soul. Spend time today getting to know the Lord in a more intimate way. Then you will discover real meaning and purpose in life.

FAILING FORWARD

The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of failure. There is no doubt in my mind that there are many ways to be a winner, but there is really one way to be a loser, and that is to fail and not look beyond the failure. Even an optimist has a very difficult time learning how to see failure positively. How a person sees failure and deals with it, whether he possesses the ability to look beyond it and keep achieving impacts every aspect of his life. Yet that ability seems difficult to acquire. Most people don’t know where to start looking to get it.
Failure is far more common than success; poverty is more prevalent than wealth, and disappointment more normal than arrival. Training for failure is a great concept and it’s the idea that prompted me to write this piece. The objective is to help you learn how to write this piece. The objective is to help you learn how to confidently look at failure in the face and move forward anyway. In life, the question is not if you will have problems, but how you are going to deal with problems. The increase of divorce, separation, heartbreaks and even some forms of nervous breakdowns is evidence that many people are training for success, when they should be training for failure. Failure is far more common than success and therefore, deserves more time in our daily lives.
I don’t know what problems you are facing in your life right now. But whatever they are doesn’t matter. What does matter is that your life can change if you are willing to look at failure differently. Every person has the potential and indeed capacity to overcome any problems, mistake or misfortunes. All you need to do is to learn to fail forward. If you are ready to do that, then let us go. Think about a recent setback you experienced. How did you respond? No matter how difficult your problems are, the key to overcoming them doesn’t lie in changing your circumstances. It’s in changing yourself. If you are to do that, then you will be able to handle failure. You should make a commitment to do whatever it takes to fail forward.
One of the greatest problem people have with failure is that they are too quick to judge situations in their lives and label them as failures. They need to keep the bigger picture in mind. You should always keep in mind that failure is not the following:

People think failure is avoidable – it’s not
People think failure is objective – it’s not
People think failure is an event – it’s not
People think failure is the enemy – it’s not
People think failure is irreversible – it’s not
People think failure is a stigma – it’s not
People think failure is final – it’s not
Remember, “it does not matter how much milk you spill as long as you don’t lose your cow”. The problems come when you see only the spilled milk and not the bigger picture. People who correctly see failure take it in stride.

QUOTE FOR TODAY
“I can accept failure but I can’t accept not trying.” – Micheal Jordan

ADVERSITY THE BEST TEACHER

You will never make a cogent contribution in life if you have never graduated from the school of adversity. A man once said, "those who run away from adversaries never meet with advancement". You need to face the reality of adversity for your advancement to be announced.
Adversity makes a man to think wisely. It awakes the mental faculties of every serious mind. These are some of the possible questions adversity can prune you to; why am i in this level? What can i do to get out of here?
Adversity doesn't come to destroy a man, it comes to build him up. It is a factual saying "the best time to know whom a man is, is when he faces adversity". Your adversity is breeding ground for your lifting. Always view adversity with a positive mentality because adversity is an adventure to your advantages.

QUOTE FOR TODAY
"There is no education like adversity" - Benjamin Disreali

HOW IS YOUR BUSINESS DOING – Do you need a new strategy?

1. Do you see the truth about where your business is compared to competitors in the same market? Is there a need for change?
2. Conduct a market survey/flexibility reports
- Customers, non-customers and lost customers
- See if things can be done differently and how to meet the buyer’s needs
- See what to stop; what to do differently and what you can create so you can stand out. In other words, how can you change/improve your brand or strategy?
3. Draw a picture of where you want to be. That is, your new and improved vision. (This is based on the results of your research) You could present them to existing, old, lost and non-customer. Ask for their feedback. That will help you come up with a strategy on how to actualize the vision.
4. Draw a table that shows where you are and where you want to go. Go further to find how to get there. Discuss with everyone in the company and come up with one page strategy. Support in every way moves to take the company to its desired place. The idea is for leaders to
- Think differently
- Make moves that may not have been made before
- Be confident about them
- Forget the competition and focus on the consumers