As you have read previously, I am attending a webinar this week entitled The Millionaire Affair (http://themillionaireaffair.com/). Each day we are treated to an interactive presentation from a successful entrepreneur. I will be writing a summary of yesterday's wonderful speaker, Wendy Moore, in my next post... but first there is something I just have to get out of my head.
The first day of the series, everything went wrong and yet the experience was wonderful... so wonderful that I wrote a blog post about the unexpected lesson in failure ( http://abysstales.blogspot.com/2010/01/unexpected-lesson-in-failure.html ). Later that night, I was talking to a friend about my wonderful, positive experience and something happened. She got very negative and defensive. Now, I'm not writing about this to bash her in any way... I understand completely where she was coming from (many people fall into the same pattern)... but it's been on my mind ever since and I wanted to get those thoughts out of my skull and into the world where they might be more useful.
What she said (not an exact quote, just the general idea) was, "I saw that webinar event on your Facebook page and wanted to go too, but they scheduled it at such an inconvient time that it's impossible for me to do it because I have to work. You should tell them that next time they should schedule it at a more convenient time so more people can go."
Impossible... inconvient... and apparently not fair to everyone! But what I said that night and will expand upon here, is that it was possible for her (and anyone else in the world) to attend and she had choosen not to. You see, this webinar is an opportunity. It could have been held on a weekend in a convention hall in Vegas at $1000+ per attendee based on the presenters and the worth of the information they are providing. Instead, it is being broadcast to a global audience for FREE... online... one hour a day... for 2 weeks. That's actually a lot more convenient for most people. It is definately possible to make adjustments in a schedule to accomodate at least one or two of these presentations, even if you can't attend them all. It is maybe even possible to convince your boss that it would be valuable to them as your employer to alter your schedule a little to let you gain the knowledge these individuals have to share... thus making you a more educated and valuable employee. It is a personal choice not to even try.
Opportunities come into our lives every day, yet they are usually inconvenient or seem impossible to take advantage of, so we grumble and groan about the opportunity passing us by and how the good life is out of reach for us. That does not have to be the case. We each make the personal choice whether or not to make that opportunity a priority. If it becomes a priority, then we will go to great lengths to rearrange our life to make it a possibility. Once in opportunity becomes a possibility, we can turn it into the potential for growth and perhaps it will be what you look back on as the opportunity of your lifetime. One of the biggest differences between those who are living their lives on their own terms and the people that grumble about how unfair things in life are, is the ability to prioritze and choose things based on those priorities.
You make thousands of choices every day on how to spend your time, money, thoughts, etc. You make these choices based on what is important for you in your life. Accepting that you have the control over these choices is the first step on the road to making your life what you want it to be. When an opportunity comes along you need to put it to the test. Will it benefit you? Is it aligned with your long term goals? Is it more important than another obligation you have at that same time? If it is of equal importance, can you rearrange things to take advantage of both? Is it perhaps a better opportunity for someone you know (if so... pass it along!!)? There are many things to consider when an opportunity presents itself but is inconvenient, but the first thing to recognize is it would never come across your path if it was impossible... no matter how inconvenient it may be. Sometimes you just need to get creative in order to get to the door to open it when opportunity knocks.
If you didn't take advantage of an opportunity, maybe it just wasn't important enough to your life for you to make it a priority... not every opportunity is right for everyone. Keep on the lookout for the next one. In the mean time, get to know yourself and your goals well enough to be able to prioritize the things that are most important in your own life... then you won't be so quick to want to follow someone else's life choices and feel bad when you don't. We all have to walk our own path in life, and though we may walk together at times, none of us are on the same path. Find your path and make sure to take advantage of the opportunities that will help you along your way.. no matter how inconvenient or impossible they may seem.
If you found this discussion interesting, you will enjoy a blog post by Derek Sivers. He will be our presenter on Thursday and posted a blog today about how there are always more than two options. It follows along the lines of what I have been thinking for the past 2 days... http://sivers.org/options
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