This past week I presented a teleconference topic on seizing opportunity. As so often happens, something else showed up that coincided with that topic and is perfectly relevant to add here. (If you'd like to join us for upcoming Focus on Results teleconferences (free except for long-distance charges) send me a note to john@johncarroll.com and I'll make sure you get the notice with the details.
Here now are the quotes on opportunity that showed up, thanks to our friend Bob Kelly and his monthly KellyGram. Learn more about Bob at www.wordcrafters.com
Quotes on opportunity:
Look sharply and you will see opportunity; for though she is blind, she is not invisible.
-Francis Bacon
Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death. -James F. Byrnes
The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because, when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers. -Walter P. Chrysler
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
-Thomas A. Edison
We are all continually faced with a series of great opportunities, brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems. -John W. Gardner
Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.
-Napoleon Hill
To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life. -Samuel Johnson
It's when things are going badly that you should build. Why wait for things to pick up, and for everything to cost more? -Ray Kroc
One can present people with opportunities. One cannot make them equal to them.
-Rosamond Lehmann
We are surrounded by insurmountable opportunities. -Pogo (Walt Kelly)
The tragedy of many lives is not that our talents are few, but that too frequently we do not use the ones entrusted to us. We pray for bigger opportunities but do not make use of the opportunities that lie in our paths. -Virgil A. Reed
God's best gift to us is not things, but opportunities. -Alice W. Rollins
Do what you're afraid to do. When you run away because you are afraid to do something big, you pass opportunity by. -W. Clement Stone
Opportunists take now for an answer. -Bob Talbert
Opportunities are swarming around us all the time, thicker than gnats at sundown. We walk through a cloud of them. -Henry Van Dyke
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Guess for Success
When times are good, we usually guess what it is we may be doing right. Often the truth is that we’re riding a wave of economic activity that rewards even the mediocre. In the first sign of a downturn, however, the mediocre fall off quickly and wonder what happened. General Motors serves as a prime example.
In setbacks and failure, by contrast, we’re better able to connect what we’ve done to the results of having done it in a certain way at a certain time with a certain set of customers or clients in a certain business climate. Yes, the lessons come at a cost. Ideally we pay just once, learn the lesson, get our card punched and go through graduation and forward to the next series of lessons. If, however, we miss the lesson, we’re bound, as history has proven, to encounter the lesson once again, usually at a higher cost than that of the earlier round.
So what’s the opportunity? Because some have a bit more time on their hands now, they can check the rear view mirror. Do this yourself. What was it about the current business climate that you didn’t anticipate? Most would say the severity or depth and the length of time of the current downswing. In many cases, if not most, there was the lack of an alternate plan, not unlike the disaster recovery plan many organizations create and update in anticipation of a natural or technological disaster. It’s sort of a worst case scenario you would put in place specifically for a sudden, steep drop in orders.
Some will learn the lessons contained in this sort of economy; others will not. Some will take advantage of the great opportunities contained in this economy; others will simply bewail their misfortune and whine away the minutes, hours, days, weeks and even months until some pundit somewhere pronounces the end of the drought.
In this time of tumult and upheaval, I remain convinced that all bets are off and both organizations and individuals are re-evaluating virtually everything in their personal and professional lives. Those on the sidelines will miss an incredibly high value series of chances. The leaders, on the other hand, will choose to adapt, to move into new areas and new ways of serving or to so refine their offerings and delivery of those offerings that they are among the first out of the gate and doing business while others are still hibernating their lives away.
In setbacks and failure, by contrast, we’re better able to connect what we’ve done to the results of having done it in a certain way at a certain time with a certain set of customers or clients in a certain business climate. Yes, the lessons come at a cost. Ideally we pay just once, learn the lesson, get our card punched and go through graduation and forward to the next series of lessons. If, however, we miss the lesson, we’re bound, as history has proven, to encounter the lesson once again, usually at a higher cost than that of the earlier round.
So what’s the opportunity? Because some have a bit more time on their hands now, they can check the rear view mirror. Do this yourself. What was it about the current business climate that you didn’t anticipate? Most would say the severity or depth and the length of time of the current downswing. In many cases, if not most, there was the lack of an alternate plan, not unlike the disaster recovery plan many organizations create and update in anticipation of a natural or technological disaster. It’s sort of a worst case scenario you would put in place specifically for a sudden, steep drop in orders.
Some will learn the lessons contained in this sort of economy; others will not. Some will take advantage of the great opportunities contained in this economy; others will simply bewail their misfortune and whine away the minutes, hours, days, weeks and even months until some pundit somewhere pronounces the end of the drought.
In this time of tumult and upheaval, I remain convinced that all bets are off and both organizations and individuals are re-evaluating virtually everything in their personal and professional lives. Those on the sidelines will miss an incredibly high value series of chances. The leaders, on the other hand, will choose to adapt, to move into new areas and new ways of serving or to so refine their offerings and delivery of those offerings that they are among the first out of the gate and doing business while others are still hibernating their lives away.
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