I’m an opportunity jumper.
I am. And I think it sounds bad to say, by the way, but it’s true.
Dictionary.com defines opportunity as:
- a favorable, appropriate, or advantageous combination of circumstances
- a chance or prospect
I was listening to an audio this week, and one of my mentors was teaching about awareness.
Nothing that we want is outside of our ability to make happen. We simply lack the awareness of our ability to make it happen. All advancements on the planet have been possible since the inception of humanity because natural law has not changed, we just took time to become aware of it. And we have no idea what we may still become aware of in our lifetime.
What does this have to do with your business?
Anything you want is available to you through awareness. Things that you don’t yet know you want, for yourself and for others, will become available to you through awareness.
Opportunity finds us
New awareness for me has always come in the form of making a decision to say yes to an opportunity. It hasn’t always looked pretty. Sometimes the opportunity has looked like a big ol’ problem. Like things literally breaking all around me, or having to charge an event on 3 credit cards because I didn’t make my sales.
Focused attention
Those things that looked like big problems actually contained the nuggets for a new awareness that quickly had my business results skyrocket – because I chose to look for them. The problem was the catalyst for me to focus my attention, which is a necessary step to create a new awareness.
The opportunity is not always a breakdown. Sometimes it is about an opportunity showing up someplace, to invest in your business or your personal growth, or to uplevel something about your personal life that causes you to grow.
The accidental opportunist
As I said, I’ve been an opportunity jumper. At first it was accidental – I happened upon and said yes to things, shaking and terrified, all the while going, “who am I to do this?”
Then I became a conscious competent, actively seeking out my next opportunity. If I am not committing to something that makes me nervous on a regular basis, I know I will feel it in my business results three months later, guaranteed.
Here are just a few examples of opportunities I’ve taken (in addition to all of the ones that stemmed from miscellaneous breakdowns :)):
- Registering for a 4-day event when I didn’t have any idea what happened at events and had never attended one.
- Taking a free strategy session at the event even though my ego mind was telling me it wasn’t for me, I wasn’t ready yet.
- Committing to a yearlong coaching program at that event at a price tag that was more than I had ever made in my business to date.
- Signing up to speak on stage at an event which then caused me to register for training to be a better speaker.
- Buying the URL for a telesummit and promoting it before I knew how to run one or whether anyone would participate.
- Signing my first hotel contract for my own event, when I had no idea how to market or fill it, but I knew I would learn.
- Signing my second hotel contract when I’d spent all the money from my first event.
- Hiring a team member before anyone would have thought I could justify the commitment. Then hiring another one.
- Making a 5-figure coaching investment the new minimum acceptable norm for me.
- Renting a house without considering the price tag, choosing simply because I liked it.
- Choosing to do my events a little differently than I saw people in my industry doing them, and going for it.
- Releasing clients simply because I didn’t look forward to talking with them, trusting that ideal ones would take their place.
Now, from one level of awareness this can look crazy. When I began ‘opportunity jumping’ I felt a little crazy. Really, can I do this? Who am I to do this? But it has worked out beautifully. For two reasons.
- I honored my gut.
This was tricky at first because I didn’t know how my gut communicated so I was all confused about whether it was right once I did it, but only through doing it did I create an awareness of how my inner knowing worked. Seventy percent of us know instantly whether a decision is right. Instantly. - I made decisions and made them right.
Once I committed to a decision, I would then choose to believe whole-heartedly that it was the exact right decision for me. I watched the people around me drop like flies- only the ones that entertained conversations about why the thing they had committed to wasn’t good enough or wasn’t right. Those people went out of business. I always choose to find the opportunity, no matter what, and it has served me well.
Creating Opportunity
I continue to focus of my business this year on creating opportunity. I’ve benefited so much from saying ‘yes’ to (and paying for) opportunities others have created for me. This is one of the reasons I love my Amplify 12-month business coaching program and my Alignment Breakthrough Experience personal 2-day retreats.
These programs are a brilliant opportunity for people to step into a new world of decision-making. And it also holds me to an exciting new level of modeling the way.
I remember the first person I interviewed for the program. She said, “I don’t know if it is for me, but I felt called to fill out the application, and I figured that either way, I would find the opportunity in going through the process.”
I loved that attitude. You can’t transform if you don’t show up. If your gut calls you to something, trust the process, and know that you will come out the other side better for it. And then there will be a next thing that scares you. And another. And you’ll make some decisions from a place of your Truth, and you’ll make some out of fear, but with the right awareness you’ll find the Truth in those ones too. But you’ve got to show up.
Other people have applied to the program and then didn’t follow through on the opportunity to speak with me. Such a loss. The conversation itself is transformative. I recently checked in with a woman who I’d spoken with a year ago to see if I could be of service. She wrote me a lengthy reply about the difference our one conversation had made for her, even though our work together didn’t go beyond that. She chose to show up fully and trust the process.
We always get what we need when we need it. Transformation happens one opportunity at a time.
If you are ready to “try on” opportunity jumping there are just a couple of days left to apply for one of two spots I’ve opened in August for the private Alignment Breakthrough Experience, my new venture with my soon-to-be wife, Kimmi Ward of Big Mission Photography. Check out all the details here.