If a wonderful opportunity came your way today, how prepared would you be?
I was prompted to write about this after speaking with a friend. Amy told me that she had been invited to appear on a national radio show. She’s an architect and the show was a perfect fit for her. Plus, the audience is huge.
As I was about to congratulate her, she explained that she refused the offer.
“I just couldn’t do it Jim. I’d be too nervous”.
It happens to us all
I’m sure all of us have, at some point, refused an opportunity because it took us a little too far from our comfort zone. I know I have. The thing is, everything is difficult, before it becomes easy. To get to the point where things are easy, we need to push through the difficult part.
The problem with avoiding opportunities like that, is that we fail to give ourselves the experience required, to overcome the fear. We need that experience, for example, to become comfortable and confident on radio, TV or public speaking. Then, when an opportunity comes our way we can eagerly snap it up.
Justin Timberlake and 200 million viewers
It reminds me of something I saw a couple of years ago. It was a very brief conversation, between Justin Timberlake and one of the hosts of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest. The host was deliberately trying to make Timberlake feel nervous, ahead of a live performance.
The show’s presenter asked him if he knew how many viewers were about to watch his performance. He replied, “No”. The presenter said, “Around 200 million people”. Timberlake replied, “Ha. That’s cool”. He then got on stage and sang as if he were performing in front of a dozen close friends, rather than almost twice as many TV viewers as the Super Bowl!
It turns out that Timberlake has been performing to millions on TV since he was just 11 years old. So, he pushed through the hard part years ago. Today, he’s comfortable with the TV cameras and the thought of millions of viewers tuning in. His performance was fantastic.
Creating unstoppable momentum
Opportunities come in different sizes. Smaller opportunities come with very little upside, but they’re usually within our reach. However, the best opportunities almost always require you to stretch. To push yourself.
Every time you embrace a great, challenging opportunity, you become more prepared for the next one. The more prepared you are, the easier it gets. The more opportunities you accept, the more opportunities you attract.
You create momentum. Unstoppable momentum.
This momentum leads you to an increasing number of bigger and better opportunities. And that’s exactly what you need, for your business to reach its full potential.