When we think about opportunities we encounter, it’s often with the perspective that the universe is being generous to us.

It’s not necessarily something we can create ourselves – it’s from the outside in.

But I’ve found that I have MUCH more influence on the opportunities which come to me than I ever thought possible. It starts with a surprising perspective which sounds like a contradiction:

My first principle is to be inflexible as well as flexible. What does that mean? Well, I want to be inflexible in my grounding principles such as:

  • Care and love for my family
  • Optimism
  • Honesty and fairness
  • Service

Then I choose to be quite flexible in how I apply those principles. It might be through my work, or other areas of my life. It might be with other people, or satisfy my introvert tendencies by being alone.

The opportunities will tend to come from those places where I have flexibility. For instance, someone mentioned to me the other day that he had been involved with a support group for his business – similar to the groups I led back in 2019 and 2020 focused on supporting coaches’ businesses.

It felt like there was an opportunity in there somewhere. Not that I have time right now to lead such a group myself, but … it could be valuable for others. So we had coffee yesterday, and came up with an approach where we could create a self-leading group, because that can actually work very well in this situation.

For both of us, it’s an opportunity to serve by combining together our experiences, and deliver value to our community. And it won’t be much work for either of us.

I bring up this example because the how is quite surprising. And it came from the fact that we were aligned on our goals and principles, and flexible with whatever ideas might arise.

It’ll improve lives.