Waiting for Life Changing Opportunities

Summary

• Life-changing opportunities are rare, so telling people to wait can help them find these rare moments.
• Waiting allows you to develop your skills, which leads to better opportunities over time.
• It's not just about always thinking the next opportunity will be bigger and better; we have to avoid the fallacy of "later."
• Deciding when to act is a personal decision, much like deciding to spend or save money.
• Saving up skills or resources eventually means you'll need to use them; the key is knowing when.
• Early in your career, you might take on too much, but you must learn to say no.
• Once you've mastered saying no, you need to balance and start saying yes to the right opportunities.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest implementing a few strategies to maximize your personal growth or your small business's success. Here’s a simple plan to get you started:

1. Develop Your Skills Frequently:
Focus on improving your skills regularly. Take online courses, read books, or join workshops. All of these are usually low-cost and high-value. Better skills lead to better opportunities.

2. Learn to Say No:
In the beginning, it’s easy to say yes to everything. But taking on too much can be overwhelming. Practice saying no to tasks or projects that don’t align with your goals. This will help you focus on what truly matters.

3. Know When to Say Yes:
Once you’ve mastered saying no, start being selective with your yes. Look for opportunities that align with your skills and long-term objectives. This helps ensure you’re investing your time and resources wisely.

4. Avoid the Fallacy of "Later":
Don’t always put off opportunities thinking a better one will come. Assess the potential of each opportunity as it comes. Sometimes, acting now is better than waiting for a perfect moment that may never arrive.

5. Personal Decision Making:
Treat your decisions like financial planning. Just as you save and spend money wisely, save your time and energy for the right moments. This personalized approach will help you know when to invest in opportunities and when to hold back.

This plan is straightforward and can be implemented without much cost. It ensures you’re focusing on skill development, making wise decisions, and not missing out on key opportunities.

Full Transcript

life-changing opportunities only come around on a very infrequent basis telling people to wait tends to increase the likelihood that they actually get exposed to a life-changing opportunity and waiting also usually means that you develop skills so your skills go up and then the quality of the opportunities that you get goes up but if it's always doubling down and saying my skills are going to get bigger there's going to be a bigger and better opportunity at some point that's not true what we have to avoid is the fallacy of later this is why it's a very individual decision which is kind of like the spend versus save because all you're going to do is once you save it is eventually spend it it's difficult because in the beginning everyone takes too much and so they have to learn how to say no but once you learn how to say no you have to say no less because at some point you have to say yes