November 24, 2014 - Opportunity or Difficulty?

"Do you see difficulty behind every opportunity... or opportunity behind every difficulty?" - Dan Zadra

I am working with a number of people in one of my “time for money” jobs that see challenges only and never opportunities. Its not an easy thing to do but when you are a 95%’r instead of a 5%’r the forest outweighs the trees.

I remember years ago when I was working full time at Plant-Prod. One of the sales guys there, a guy I really respect and remain friends with to this day, always said “within every challenge lies an opportunity.” I used to think – bullshit. Some times there are only challenges.

Over the many years I have been working, my mindset has changed and improved. In fact, I think it changed drastically about 16 years ago when my wife developed breast cancer. I remember lying awake in bed thinking of our two kids – 6 and 4 – and what would happen to them if the worst happened to Linda. Over those few days I completely changed my mindset.

I was determined to be the driving force of a successful family at that time. I went to every appointment with my wife. I used to put a poster on the fridge outlining what she needed to do that day to stay healthy. We worked our way through it all.

In the middle of it all, when Linda was being treated for bacterial pneumonia, I met an elderly couple. We exchanges stories and both said that no matter how bad things got, there was always someone off in worse shape. We were both talking about each other! Linda and I have often talked about what a “good” experience the cancer was.

I recently listened to an interview Darren Hardy had with a veteran of the Iraq war – double leg amputee. Darren asked this guy a tough question and that was would he want his legs back. After a long description, the vet said not if it meant he would not be where he was emotionally and doing what he was doing then. This guy helps house US war vets. 80% of US war vets are from Vietnam, Korea and the Second World War. Is he seeing his difficulty or the opportunity?

I am in a completely different mindset than I was a few short years ago. My co-worker came in today (I am working as a consultant here, building a business plan) and gave me an entirely new business plan template. I’ll be 100% honest with you, I was a little pissed off as I have been working on this for a LONG time. Well, I accepted her request without (I think) showing my “displeasure”. She then explained she was looking for funding and the funder only used this template. Well there you go. Now I am digging in to this and it is a really cool thing!

So my advice to myself is feel anger if you must. But let it go, completely go once you recognize the emotion. Evaluate what you are experiencing and really look to see if there is an “equivalent benefit” as Napoleon hill would say. Today, I found the seed of an equivalent benefit in the new way of looking at business models. Now, I will be able to thank Cathy for showing this to me.

Take care of yourself and be kind to people.