OPPORTUNITY FINDING: A PERSONAL MUSING

For me, opportunity finding or the ability to discover opportunities is a learnable skill set.

Firstly, you need to move your butt, because action and exploration breed opportunities.

You have an idea. It's just an idea and will remain so if you don't do something about it.

Go for it! Seize the moment! Kick a***, to put it bluntly!

Exploration allows you to move into unbeaten tracks. As an explorer, you will most likely encounter new discoveries, which may also help to enhance or tweak your original idea.

It may also give you the momentum or impetus to tweak your original idea.

While exploring, enjoy the spontaneity. Take what comes!

Oftentimes, we get too entrenched in our daily habitual routines that we forget there is a wonderful world out there.

Sometimes, it is good for the mind just to soak in what is happening around you. Have a sense of curiosity. Walk the streets. Check out corners. Smell the roses.

Learn to be comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity.

The world is never black and white. There are always gray areas. There are no right or wrong answers. Only what works for you or me.

To be frank, it is not easy to embrace uncertainty and ambiguity. For me, I have learned just to welcome them with open arms.

I often like to use the word 'perturbation' (many thanks to Nobel laureate Dr Ilya Prigogine!) to describe my life experiences with uncertainty and ambiguity. Perturbation gives me two choices - I can move to a higher order or I can go into entropy.

In reality, this is the university of hard knocks. Your degree is a fortitude to see and deal with more and better opportunities.

Try to be flexible in the way you approach things. This is very important.

You can stay focused on your desired outcome, but you must always remain flexible in your approach.

Flexibility allows you to try out different approaches. See the world with fresh eyes.

Hence, you can get to do more experimentation along the way.

Best of all, more learning experiences. In other words, more opportunities.

Creativity guru Roger von oech likes to use the analogy of racing drivers to describe mental flexibility. I like that.

Scan the environment beyond's one's horizon. That is, more exploration. Definitely, more food for thought.

This also includes reading, especially reading selectively, widely and deeply. Books, magazines, newsletters from the fringes, observing, listening, looking out for abnormalities, talking to people in social settings, checking out the Internet, attending conferences, are all part of the game.

Once in a while, get out of your comfort zone and move to the edge, into the stretch zone, so to speak.

New learning takes place at the edge.

I read from somewhere that Mother Nature works this way. A baby eagle takes its first step forward to the edge of the nest. Mother eagle gives it a nudge. More nudges as baby eagle stands at the edge. Mother eagle gives a final nudge. Baby eagle drops down from the edge with her wings fluttering furiously. In the next instance, it regains its posture and assumes its flight mode and then flies off happily.

Until you go over the edge, you just don't know you can fly!

The world is yours! It's full of opportunities.