Opportunity VS preparation

I believe that when an opportunity presents itself, it means you’ve done some preparation. You’ve put yourself in a position that has enabled the possibility thats now in front of you.

Education is a vital part of opportunity as there are good opportunities and bad ones, however, we really never know the full extent until we stop the preparation and speculation and put our feet in the water to find out. Things that come without a cost or risk are things that would probably be best to stay away from, unfortunately if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. The saying Risk VS reward is a valuable perspective and having mentors, friends, family etc are great people to have in your life to ask for opinions of the opportunities; but only if they have experience, or their opinion is just as good of a guess as yours.

I was once told that “If someone makes you make a decision on the spot, to walk away if its a big one”. We’re in a world where anyone can sell and there are large reward metrics linked to sales, but very many understand the whole offer, or even your life and where you’re at and what you’re wanting to do. Also with the development of AI, people can put something together very quickly without knowing the foundation its built on. You have the right to be educated, aware and informed on what you’re stepping into.

Perspective to your “life” as a whole is important when taking opportunity. Iv’e failed at many investments, business ventures, ideas, friendships etc, but they have never cost me everything. In other words, the opportunity wasn’t a gamble; it wasn’t un educated, but I was willing to give it a try for a potential return. I try not to keep all my eggs in one basket as they say. The larger the opportunity, the harder i find this is as it will usually ask more of you; which is why its important to know yourself and who you are, what you stand for, what you value, what you want to achieve in your life and are willing to invest your time and efforts into.

So when Opportunity presents itself and you have done the preparation, and you take it, don’t look back, go all in and enjoy the journey. You’ll be in for a ride. Don’t compare your basket with someone else’s, but learn and develop the journey.

I recently had an opportunity that took multiple random pieces falling into place to open a window for me to work remote in Europe for 6 weeks.
A treatment for my ankle in USA, friends opening their house up to me, a work trip in London and one in South Africa, a 6 week window between events, and I had to decide if I wanted to take the opportunity, or stay the same; and I had a week to decide and 3 weeks to plan it. I can stay the same, or I can continue to grow were my thoughts.

If it makes me nervous, then I usually like to take a step towards it as it means its an unknown and I have something to learn. In this case, a new part of the world, culture, food, languages, lifestyles etc. But, I had to make sure I could still maintain responsibility of my job, work across timezones without too much conflict of meetings and action, and not be a terrible financial decision that would effect me afterwards due to the 2:1 ratio of exchange rate.

The reality of the decision is that I put my life into storage units to counter some of the financial risk, I would be traveling 9 months of the year without a home base, a lot of unknown factors while traveling. But it was also a first hand experience to learn and see how a large part of the world operates. I also wanted to see first hand where my lineage comes from. My mothers side comes from English background and my Fathers side German. Neither of these places I had experienced, and this was a great way to see it all.
I checked with the team I work with and they were all on board. I wasn’t going to be impacting business functions too much. And I wasnt going to have to take out a loan to do the trip. The timezones we’re the biggest inconvenience due to an 11 hour time difference. A lot of 10pm - 12am meetings. A couple of 3 am starts, and what would usually take 1-2 days to get things done were taking 3-4 due to timezones.

I managed to write a large portion of the trip off as work due to the conferences which saved money. Spend time in a culture where “Hustle and work 24/7” isn’t a way of life, and see some extremely beautiful places in the world.

This opportunity was one that I was grateful to experience. I learnt a lot about myself and more on how i’m wired. Things that I enjoy and things that I really don’t care about. Its always nice to be reminded how much you appreciate the people in your life, and being in a foreign place for 6 weeks really causes some frustration, annoyances, and makes you appreciate a lot.