“Opportunities seldom knock on the door”. Have you come across this quote? On the other hand, I guess the opportunities of the current world knock often.

This tech-age suggests that we can not only create opportunities but also do so when we want to.  Advances in the economy, technology, and education tremendously aid us. Age is no longer a barrier to do what we want to. If you are rejected by a university this year, you can immediately take up one of their courses online thereby never depriving yourself of education from that university. Want to kill zombies or run with dinosaurs, put on a VR headset. Without hitting the gym, you can become stronger than Dwayne Johnson with an exoskeleton suit. These are examples that clearly define this tech-age as a time when opportunities can be made to knock on the door when needed. 

But I feel that more than creating new opportunities, it is the opportunities at hand that matter more. 

Why so? Look at sports.

I was in England during the FIFA World Cup and Wimbledon. This year has given us unexpected and wild twists in both these sporting seasons. Roger Federer walked in like he was about to win his next grand slam. The world-renowned teams like Brazil, England, Germany, and Portugal felt like it would be a battle amongst themselves for the cup. Ultimately at the end that did not happen. The winners of both the sporting season did show exceptional talent. In the pretext of going out there and creating new opportunities, the well-trained and experienced stars missed out a lot and it costed them dearly.

Yes, the opportunities at hand matter more.

But wait a moment. You could argue by saying that there are a lot of examples of people or organisations that have proven to be amazing and successful by creating opportunities for themselves. Apple went ahead by creating the iPod+iTunes combo to rock the music and mp3 player markets. Well, they even created a new market. You can quote many such examples from the business world on how new opportunities defined the growth of organisations. If these are new opportunities created, there must be another side to the story.

That is in the form of a missed opportunity.

If you have a Netflix Subscription, please do watch the first episode of “Genius – Jobs Vs Gates”. In that, you will find that Jobs had a peek at Xerox’s R&D lab. Xerox originally came up with the GUI. Jobs took that and created the Mac. The rest is history. Xerox missed out on the opportunity. 

England could have brought it home, had they shot goals right into the post. There were many a change missed. 

(Watch the video)

So all I ask you is not to miss out on opportunities at hand by assuming that better ones are waiting for you. Do not miss an opportunity. Step-by-step, one utilised opportunity would lead to the other. By doing so, you will dent ‘your’ universe, if not the ‘the’ universe. 

Continue reading “What matters is the missed opportunities.”