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(Life Series: Chapter 2) Opportunity can come when you least expect it, but not necessarily by sheer chance. Opportunity usually occurs from decisions we’ve made regarding past opportunities taken. Join us as we discuss ways we can create opportunity in our lives, recognize when those opportunity arise, and exploit those opportunities, hopefully leading to other opportunities.
Episode link: https://play.headliner.app/episode/15943692?utm_source=youtube
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Welcome to the Reschooled Podcast, the show that discusses all the things that schools
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may have missed with your hosts, AJ Couty and Jason Gordon. Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. We are the Reschooled Podcast, the show that
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discusses all the things that schools may not have prepared you for, and they probably didn't. As always, I'm AJ sitting across me. Jason, Jason, how are you doing today
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Oh, it's a great day, AJ. I think it's going to rain later, but walked my girls to school
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got some exercise in. So good, starting off well. I walked to the car, then drove my girls to the school. That was my exercise
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We're pretty lucky. It's a two-mile loop for me to drop one daughter at one school
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another daughter at another school and make it back exactly two miles. So, you know, I do that
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I take the dog on the walk as well. So you can kill all those birds with just that one stall
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That's awesome. Yeah, no, I wake up, drive them, come back, start working
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That's our morning routine. Yeah. So what do you want to talk about today
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You know, today I think we're going to continue on with the live series. You know, that series we started last week was good
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was good. We, we, we found, you know, kind of a, an area I think we, we needed to talk about
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um, because we've really focused in on school or career, but outside of that, and we've
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and, and interestingly enough, you know, way back in our earlier episodes, we talked about the
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work, school, life balance, and yet everything for us has been work and school. So we're trying
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to add that balance in of life and start talking about life and kind of help you. That's, that's a
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good segue, I guess. Absolutely. Well, we're going to be talking about today in that live series
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the understanding opportunity. And I think this is something that's near and dear to your heart. Oh yeah, absolutely. Before we do, let me remind everybody, visit our website
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reschool.com. Check us out on social media handles and of course on your favorite podcasting app
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Most importantly, send us messages, right? Rate us highly. Let us know what you want to hear about
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Absolutely. Yeah. But what were you saying, AJ? Well, I'll say, you know, this is something that's
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near and dear to your heart. I think this is something that you talk about in your class too, or at least some of your classes about, you know, understanding opportunity, how to take advantage
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of opportunity, how to find opportunity, how to create opportunity for yourself
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Yeah, believe it or not, I actually wrote a kid's poem about it that I put it out there
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on social media. You have a lot of hats. Yeah. You have a ton of hats. Yeah, right. So, but yeah
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Yeah, this is, I mean, it goes further than career development, right
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It's all about being, you know, becoming whoever you want to be, right
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And the concept comes down to opportunity. So I basically took a more systematic approach to say, you know, what exactly does that mean type thing
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So yeah, yeah. So I'm glad you want to talk about this today. This is going to be a good topic
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Well, I do think it's also really relevant at this time right now, too, because I think there's a lot of burnout in career
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obviously school can be you know an issue can be a stressor and then life just in general you know
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people in college you're wondering about life career you're wondering about life
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you know as you're as you're aging you're wondering about life and this is just one
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of those areas that I think can at least put some perspective into your life and understanding
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you know how to make the most out of it so let's get to the quick question what is the biggest
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opportunity you've ever had in your life? Can you think of one
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Biggest opportunity. Well, obviously, you know, everybody can say, you know, getting married and stuff like that
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having kids. But early on, I would say the one that changed my career path, my life more than anything
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was going into the military. that was a huge one because it opened up a ton of doors afterwards
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that otherwise probably would have remained closed. So that was it. What about you? Do you have one
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Yeah, you know, you're talking about the marriage, you're talking about the kids. I mean, those are kind of the checkpoints of life
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I think a lot of people see it as. I would say probably the biggest opportunity was a school
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like a college team that I was a part of. I think I've mentioned this on past episodes, but, and, and, and honestly, it was an opportunity that started with my dad because he was the, because he was the, he worked at the college
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He was the Dean of School of Business and he was kind of the academic advisor for this, this club team
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So it was like a club, but it was a team in the sense that we, we competed
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So we had to go give presentations and stuff. And he was a, he was the academic advisor of that
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And I kind of saw that as an opportunity to, I saw what they were doing
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I used that kind of his spending time with him with, with what he was doing when I wasn't
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a part of it, when I was in high school and such, um, and understood what it was all about
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and realized kind of what I could do with it. Um, and what it can become potentially become
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And, and, and honestly, it was a lot of, you know, I get to travel, you know, I get to
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go do different things. I get to put myself in positions where I would have never had that opportunity, um, meeting
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CEOs and stuff like that. And so I would say that was probably outside of, again, the obvious checkpoints of life
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That was probably my biggest opportunity that I took advantage of and got a lot out of it
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I mean, I got to travel to, you know, two continents. Like I said, I got to do presentations, learn how to do presentations in front of really high profile people
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So I would say that would probably be my biggest one. Well, you said something interesting right there, you know, taking advantage of the opportunity
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So I think what we're probably going to talk about today is one, there's basically breaking down opportunity into understanding the creation of opportunities for yourself or how you find opportunities or how you come into contact with them
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Right. And then there's the whole aspect of, you know, once an opportunity does present itself, you have to actually recognize it for what it is
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And I'd say that's one of the biggest gaps in what people expect in terms of what it means to achieve something or to, like I say, take advantage of something that presents itself
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You don't realize what the opportunity is in itself, what it takes to take advantage of it, to get to that stage where you can really exploit the opportunity for all the benefits that it has to offer for you
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So anyway, yeah, that's a good segue in into our first topic here
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So what do we have on the docket? What's our first topic? Yeah
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So the first question I have, and I think this is kind of what you're leading into, is what do you mean by opportunity
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Like when we talk about taking advantage of opportunity or opportunity this, what do you mean by that
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Let's define it first. So if we were to look at it in, say, our career school life thing, right
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We all have these goals. We all have these objectives that we want to achieve in life We have these ideas of what we could be our potential things like that Wherever that comes from it could be your upbringing it could be your environment
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it could be your social influences, those types of things. But we all have this idea of things
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Now, you understand that to do any of these things, there's generally a path to get there
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It's not just here's one thing you have to do and there you go. You've achieved what you want to
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If your dream is to win the lottery, that might be true. The only thing you got to do is
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is buy the lottery ticket and have the numbers come up. But if it's anything else, normally it's
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a whole course of conduct. It is a whole course of things that have to happen. Right. So when we're
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talking about opportunity, we're talking about the situation, the scenario, or maybe even a step
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in a path towards something comes up. Right. It realizes itself. It comes into existence
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because I'm cautious to use just that phrase, it turns up, right
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Because oftentimes it doesn't just turn up, right? There is a systematic way to create that opportunity
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Some people bypass part of the steps, right? And an opportunity presents itself a little bit easier for them than others
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just for any number of reasons, whether it's where you live, the family you were born into, your socioeconomic background
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any of those things play a huge part in what opportunities arise for you and what it takes
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for you to make those opportunities or create those opportunities for yourself
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Right. So anyway, when we say opportunity, we're just talking about something that leads you along the pathway towards what you'd like to achieve or who you'd like to
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become. It's not really how I like to find it. I don't know. Do you have a different concept of
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of opportunity? No, I don't. And I think, I think we tend to, and I think this is probably going to
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be the, the, the harder part of this topic for people. And this is kind of why we're, we're
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wanting to do this, this episode dealing with understanding opportunity. I think it's, it's
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really easy for people to identify opportunity in hindsight. I mean, we can always look back and go
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that was an opportunity or that was an opportunity I took. Um, and it led to this, this, and it
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And it's, it sometimes is fun to look back and go, okay, I am here because of the decisions
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that I made here, here, here, here, and here. These are kind of the forks in the road that I had, but those forks in the road come from
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a place of opportunity. Like those, those don't just pop up. They, they come from prior decisions that you made prior opportunities that you took
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advantage of even knowing or even not knowing that you, you, there were opportunities again
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until you look back at them. And so, yeah, I'm on board with the definition that you just said
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Like I said, I think the hard part is going to be looking at it from a perspective, perspective, a viewpoint, then a retrospective kind of hindsight viewpoint
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Well, that's a natural bias we all have. You've heard hindsight bias
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It's that Monday morning quarterback. you know after you see something you're like oh I should have
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I should have bought that bitcoin when it was 50 bucks a piece or I should have
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you know done you know done this or that that type of thing
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and you're like it should have been so obvious to me when in reality it really wasn't
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obvious to anyone. You know it's interesting because you're talking about that and I read there's you know some meme on
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social media or something I saw somebody had posted one of my friends had posted
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something and, or they commented on, I can't remember what it was, but it was really interesting
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because at face value, you look at it and you go, okay, that's an easy question or easy answer
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But then you look back and go, well, and the question was, is a, would you rather? So let's
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I'll do it on you. Okay. Would you rather receive $10 million just right up front? Or
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would you rather be able to go back in time and fix all of your mistakes
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oh definitely back in time well see and that's the that was a question that the person said that it
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was it was no brainer 10 million dollars and i got to think i was like well okay 10 million dollars
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be good but you know going back in time and fixing all your mistakes then it comes to what is an
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actual mistake is it is a mistake a missed opportunity or is it something you thought
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you were doing correctly so like my my mind went would be go to investing like is the fact that i
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missed investing in something, is that a mistake or is that just an opportunity that I missed
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And how would it change your life moving forward? I guess that would be, I answer quickly, but
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I'd be scared. So what if I did step back into my 20-year-old self and said, invest in this or do
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this? It probably would have changed things. I might not have followed the current path of my
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life and that would worry me right yeah exactly you know pretty content with where things are
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going or at least where they've gone thus far knock on wood right yeah what if it would have
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changed things for the worse yeah obviously the money aspect we know a lot of people
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are not contented by having money and you know that that's certainly not the happiness factor
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you know it doesn't necessarily bring fulfillment um yeah so i don't know i don't know yeah that's
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When I saw it, I was like, well, it's easy. And then I got to thinking about it more and more. I was like, that's not as easy as I thought
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And a lot of it has to do with, like you said, like, what is it? One, what is a mistake? And then two, how's it going to affect the life that you have now
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And if I had to go back, if anybody asked me if you could, if somebody asked me if we gave you $10 million
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would you go back and do, have to redo all the things you've done thus far in your life
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and my answer would be very much no. I mean, I look back on it and, you know, lots of people look
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back on the past fondly, right? You start to forget the negative things. We always look back
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and even something that was negative, we see it as more positive, you know? I've, you know
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and I spent a long time, I went through a time period when I was basically just writing down
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experiences from a life that I was like, well, I don't want to forget that. So let's, And I was writing it out and kind of memoir style
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And as I did just on the surface, I remembered it as being, oh, there was a neat experience
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I should write that up. But as I got into it, some of the feelings, the emotions, everything, my situation at the time came back and I started remembering that
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And by and large, everything just started becoming more and more negative. Like I started remembering like, God, this was painful
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God, this was so much work. God, this was, it did not have the outcome I thought it did
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It would, you know, the uncertainty of the period, I reminded me the uncertain, you know
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it reminded me that I didn't know where I was and what was going to come next. And looking back, it's easy because you've already walked down that path
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I'm like, oh my God, you, I don't think you could pay me enough money
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If I had to go through the exact same things as I did, I don't think you could pay me enough
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money to do it again if I didn't know, right? If I, if, if I didn't know what my future would hold
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Yeah. Like I love thinking now I jumped back in college and just do all this Yeah But if I did I wouldn know that I would get to follow on with a career or a lot of the life that I have now Right You know I didn peak in uh I didn
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peak in high school, didn't peak in college, didn't peak in early careers. This is as good
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as this ever gotten for me right now. Yeah. That part where you said, you know, would you go back
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if you didn't know the, the outcome? That's the, that's the, that was the key. Cause as you were
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talking, I was like, you know what? Knowing where I'm at now, I would go back and live, relive
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you know, from high school, you know, graduating high school to where I am now. I think, because
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I mean, of course the bad stuff, but I know where I'm at now. Not knowing what the outcome is and
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having to relive that, yeah, that would have been, that would be pretty difficult. Yeah, absolutely
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I wouldn't do it. I would take, I would take the 10 million. Yeah. Right now, just drop that in my
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lap. Well, next question, because now that we've defined opportunity, I think some of the listeners
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may want to know, you know, how can, how can you create more opportunities? So what are some ways
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that people can create more opportunities for themselves? And this is, this is from kind of two
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vantages. This is from a quantity and also magnitude. Like how can you make, get more
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opportunities and how can you get better opportunities? So to start with, you know
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we go back to the definition and say, everything's a stepping path, right? It's, it's, you know
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you're going to have different things that have to happen in your life to make it to where you want to go or who you want to be
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So you have to start by identifying those and say, what could potentially happen for me
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And then you break it down further and say, all right, these are the incremental steps to get there
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What do I need to do to bring those into existence? You identify some of them that are small, maybe fairly easy for you
16:40
That is, go to go to school. Believe it or not, that's a fairly small one
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It takes a lot of time. Yeah. But it's something you know you can do. Right. You know, you can make that happen. If you want to be a movie actor, a small step might be moving to L.A. or New York or somewhere like that. The harder step might actually be landing a role. Right
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There might be a million incremental steps like hiring an agent, you know, getting headshots done, whatever
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I don't know that much about that industry, but there's a ton of things that have to happen
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Right. But the one big thing is, well, you have to, you know, you have to land that initial part
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And there could be things that you could do to do that, whether that's go to additional training, practice sessions, make additional connections with people
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write a screenplay yourself that would be a big one right type scenario that you get shopped around
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and adopted right or you you pre-produce and do your own sizzle reel or short on it so you know
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all of a sudden people envision you or the producer envisions you in the um in the role type scenario
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so all of these small incremental things well but i would say this like you have to start with what
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you're dreaming of and break it down into however many steps exist to achieve or be what you what
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you have in mind. And then you have to start, you know, making those a reality. Some of them will
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depend 100 percent on yourself enrolling in school because you can enroll in school. You can get
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you know, student loans. You can show up to class. You can do all you can do all that yourself
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You don't need anybody else. Other things, you're going to need other people
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So it sounds like a perfect segue into or not a segue, but a recall from a past episode of your life board
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Yes. Your life plan. Yes, absolutely. And if you hadn't heard that episode, basically, we just talk about envisioning the future and all those steps that come about again
18:47
It also brings into that whole networking thing. Right. If you need somebody else, their help, then you need your network
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You need their assistance. You need something from them, right, to check that box, to take that step towards what you want to be
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So, you know, whatever you have in mind, again, for the creation of opportunities, you've got to identify all those check the boxes and you've got to do them
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Would you agree with this statement of most life plans, which require opportunities, require two sides
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It's yourself and somebody else. You're going to need help from somebody else. Absolutely
19:30
Very few people ever became what they could become or wanted to become completely on their own
19:37
Yeah, the whole self-made thing. And I've always kind of, you know, you talk about even what we consider the, what we look at in success typically goes to money
19:48
So if you look at the billionaires of the world, a lot of people say that they're self-made billionaires
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In reality, they're not. They've had some help somewhere along the line getting started
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And finance was just one piece. There's so many people that came into play, like the people that influenced your mindset, right
20:05
The people who just let you bunk on their couch, because if they hadn't allowed you to do that, you never would have gotten to move to that town
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The people who loaned you their car, the people who helped you move in, the people who introduced you to somebody
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So you got this opportunity. There's always going to be without fail, always going to be people involved, even if it's at the most bare basic level where they influence you
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even inadvertently, right? You're always going to need people, other people in the process. So
20:35
between the two, I'd say that's, yeah, essential. Well, my, my, my, uh, my answer to this question
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as you were talking, it's kind of popped in my head about, you know, how to create more opportunities for yourself, both in, in terms of quantity and size. Um, I'm a big, I'm a big
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believer of taking risks. I'm more of a risk accepting, accepting person versus a risk averse
21:02
And those risks typically are opportunities. I mean, we look at them going, well, that's a huge
21:07
risk. Well, that's an opportunity as well. I mean, it could fail. It could, it could succeed. And that
21:11
success could lead you on to the next step that you're, you're trying to get to. You know, one of
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the things that we, we, we took this class while we were at residency. Um, and it was, uh
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I can't remember the, the, the term or the title for the course. Um, it's a, it's a nonprofit
21:29
I guess, company that helps people understand how to, uh, make, how to, how to essentially
21:36
identify opportunities. It's kind of what gets to, they call it something different, but you know, their, their motto is, is fail early and fail often
21:43
you know the more chances you take at a younger age the more likely you can make up for those
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those failures but also it could lead to success and if you're not failing a lot then you're not
21:55
taking enough risk to get that opportunity to get that success so mine tends to be that risk side of
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it i'm the one that tends to look at things and go yeah there's a risk to it but perhaps this the
22:09
the success is, is more valuable than the risk that it comes
22:13
And so that's a very interesting topic. I want to ask you about this. Yeah. So I tend to be
22:18
what I've always thought of is terribly risk averse, but I'm in entrepreneurship, right? And
22:24
and that tends to be very risk prone at least people perceive it as such But here the thing that a lot of studies have shown now about entrepreneurs in particular
22:35
that they undertake something and they don't perceive the. So if you look at risk, risk is a probability of a negative occurrence
22:45
You may see an opportunity, right, that I call that I don't see as an opportunity because
22:53
I see it as having a high degree of probability of failure. You see the probability of failure as
23:03
lower for yourself. So you see it as an opportunity where I don't. Now, here's the thing. It's the
23:10
same for both of us. It doesn't change. But how we perceive something changes. So if you get
23:16
somebody who's very confident in themselves or just in how the world's going to go for them
23:21
they don't see something as a risk the same way that other people see it as a risk
23:30
So it's kind of that glass half empty versus glass half full, right
23:35
I look at what could go wrong and automatically equate that it might go wrong for me and I
23:40
wouldn't be able to stand that, where you would look at it and say, well, it could go wrong
23:46
but probably not. So I'm going to, and that changes what we see as actually being an opportunity or not
23:53
Yeah. Now I would say, and granted, I wouldn't take you as a very risk averse person, just knowing
24:01
your background of entrepreneurship. But at the same time, like you're talking about how we see risk
24:09
I can see where you're going with that. But I would also argue that it's not that I don't, I don't value the risk
24:17
as much as somebody who's risk averse, I would almost say that in my head, I identify it
24:25
I identify the same risk. So if you and I were looking at the same opportunity and we were
24:30
identifying risk, if you're very risk averse, you're going to identify a whole lot more risk
24:35
Whereas somebody who's not as risk averse, they're not going to look at a lot of these things
24:40
maybe as risk as much as a hurdle. It's just something I got to get through
24:44
like and that's how a lot of it to me is when i justify stuff i look at it more as
24:49
well it's not really a risk it's just something that i'm potentially going to have to it's a
24:54
potential hurdle which again is risk is just not as significant in my head as as what you would
25:01
consider a risk um and that's that's typically like i said that's where my mind typically goes
25:07
and that's why i've again i've i've done a lot of stuff i've i've had a lot of opportunity
25:12
failed in some, succeeded in others. And the combination of all those failures and all those
25:18
successes and those opportunities I've taken have got me to the point I am right now
25:23
Do you agree with our earlier conclusion that many of the opportunities that presented themselves
25:28
to you that you either created or they just came about was either by virtue of your own
25:35
diligent effort or to create them, right? You took the steps necessary to create them
25:42
Like you couldn't have your job if you didn't get your degrees. Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know, that type of thing
25:47
And the people you were around. The person I hear you bring up a lot is your dad, right
25:52
He was obviously a heavy influence, not just in raising you, but also academically because he led your school's department
26:00
Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. There's no question that it was not something that just fell in my lap
26:07
I don't think any of my opportunities were something that fell in my lap. It was something that, you know, and even with the club that I was mentioning earlier in college, my dad was over
26:17
It wasn't something he pushed me in. It was something that I went through and I saw a lot of other students doing it
26:22
And I went to him and I was like, hey, can you tell me about this? And he explained it to me. I thought, that's pretty cool
26:28
You know, it's the same thing as like, I'll use the example of when I first asked my wife out, you know, on a date when we were in college
26:40
we were going to class together and it wasn't like we we just happened to drive up into the
26:47
parking lot at the same time we we've never really spoken to each other um I obviously had the hots
26:53
for because she sat in in the same class we took the same class but I just never talked to her um
26:58
and because she was in the front and I was in the back and so we uh we we got to school just so
27:06
happened to be got, got to school at the same time and we walk up to our class and class got
27:12
canceled. And because we were standing there, we just kind of struck up a conversation, but
27:19
you know, had I one, not decided to go to class that day or decided to look at the internet. I
27:27
mean, I, it was a, it was a, I didn't, I didn't do something right, which ended up causing an
27:33
opportunity. Um, but also just understanding that was an opportunity to talk to her. And then that
27:39
that led into the opportunity to ask her. I didn't have to talk to her. I didn't have to speak to her
27:45
cause I could have been really shy. Um, but it was one, it just kind of a series of events. And
27:52
actually there's more to the story because she, she would say, she's told me now that like one of
27:57
the things that, that really caught her eye about me, even though we had never talked before is when
28:02
of opened the door for her at school and guided her in. And she said that that was one of the
28:08
things that really caught her eye about our kind of first encounter. And so that was something that
28:14
you know, my mom raised me to do and it worked out. It led to an opportunity for me to ask her out
28:21
So it was a combination of a series of events. So we've, we've talked now a good bit about this
28:27
So doing the steps necessary to make an opportunity arise, right? Some people have to take less steps
28:33
You may be born into a scenario where opportunities are more easy to bring about, right
28:39
You're born into a wealthy family. It might be a lot easier to talk to somebody and get an internship, right
28:45
Sure. Whatever. But also there's the next step, and we break this into three
28:51
There's opportunity creation, and then there's recognition, and then there's exploitation, right
28:55
The recognition phase, right, that's the one where I see a lot of people falling short
29:04
They'll identify the things that need to happen. They'll work towards them
29:08
People will go to school. They'll get internships. They'll network with people
29:12
They'll develop skill sets. They will do all the things, right, that lead to whatever reality that they're pursuing
29:22
But then some potential opportunity, because you have to say it's potential because it didn't present itself yet
29:32
Some opportunity presents itself and they don't recognize it. They don't show up
29:42
And we've all heard that Woody Allen quote, right? 99% of success is just showing up
29:49
Yep. And it comes back to that adage, right? you've done the steps
29:53
You now have the opportunity to meet somebody that will make all the difference in your
29:57
life. You have the opportunity to whatever, to have an experience that'll be life changing to, yeah, I mean, just whatever it is
30:07
relates to your objective. And you don't show up. You don't recognize what it is. You don't
30:13
put in that application, right? Where otherwise you could have gotten a scholarship or you could
30:19
have gotten into a different school or you could have whatever. You don't put in the job application
30:25
You don't show up to meet somebody. You don't learn about something
30:30
You could have just read an article about something and it would change your life completely
30:34
All of this was an opportunity, an opportunity for a small step in that process towards what
30:40
you want to be in life. You don't recognize it. So you don't show up
30:43
You don't take advantage of making that potential opportunity a real opportunity for you
30:51
So why is it so hard to recognize? Like, what's the thing that just makes people stop
30:56
Like, they don't they don't they just don't see it. I think it comes down to life experience
31:01
And that's why mentorship, in my mind, is so, so important. And not just a single mentor, mentors from across the spectrum, different types of people who look at things differently because they'll see the same situation, the same opportunities in different ways
31:17
But the more exposure you have, the more perspective you have, it'll make you say, I really I don't want to do this
31:25
But I think I really should. And once you do it, you're like, oh, I see what what happened there
31:32
And if I hadn't done that, it would have made all the difference in the world
31:36
I never would have gotten my first teaching job. If I hadn't taken a few steps that were very serendipitous
31:44
Right. If I hadn't done something to find out about this opportunity at, you know, where where where you and I both talk, that type of thing
31:55
So there's all these small things that change your perspective on things
32:00
And I look back on it and I was like, well, what changed my perspective? Well, I remember that I started to go talk with professors and say, what do I need to do to do this for a career path
32:10
And they started giving me advice. If I had never done that. And, you know, I like to talk to people, too
32:15
You know, I never probably would have gotten my job if when I was in the military, if I hadn't sat down over a couple of year period and done two research articles
32:24
Yeah. If I hadn't published those articles, I would have had no proof, no evidence, no anything that I had academic potential in that regard
32:33
And I never would have landed my job path. I'd like to say I had the foresight to do that that far in advance
32:42
But it was really more about, I don't know exactly what this will lead to, whether it'll help me in my military career
32:50
Will it help me in my next job assignment? Will it help me when I get out of the military, get into a school
32:56
Will it help me? I didn't know how it was, but I did for some reason have the foresight that it had value
33:03
And that was just because of the perspective I achieved from the people around me, how they influenced me
33:08
So anyway, that's my perspective on it. That's my belief as to why people can't recognize it
33:15
Let me follow that up with another question because this one, again, popped in my head as you were talking
33:19
Do you feel like the reason why a lot of people or some people, I won't say a lot, but some people don't take advantage of opportunity when opportunity presents itself is because they're too tunnel visioned
33:32
Let me say it a different way. do you feel like people tend to see a potential opportunity, but they don't see it with a quick
33:44
reaction, like a quick result? When they take an opportunity, a lot of times they would rather
33:51
have a quick result. So that opportunity leads to a quick outcome versus this opportunity may
33:56
lead to another opportunity versus, you know, that leads to another opportunity that leads to another opportunity that finally eventually gets to your outcome. Yeah, I definitely think so. I
34:05
I mean, if we're looking at this whole idea of saying recognizing something, a potential opportunity comes along and you see what it could lead to
34:15
But you might be wrong. It may lead to so much more
34:19
Sure. And if you were wrong about that, you did not recognize the opportunity for what it was
34:25
And if you see something that a faster you believe it a faster approach to the same end the same goal it may not be So once again you did not recognize what was the opportunity and you misrecognize something as being a potential opportunity
34:45
So you can see why I like to break opportunity down into generation, doing all the things that would be necessary for an opportunity to present itself
34:54
And then the recognition of it as being, how do you see this thing that came about
35:00
Do you see it as, oh, this is better than this because it would lead to this outcome faster or easier, cheaper or better or bigger outcome
35:09
When in reality, it wouldn't. You see it with investors all the time
35:15
Wanted to go for the quick buck, right? Yeah. The quick investment, that type of thing
35:19
Versus somebody who says, no, that's a flash in the pan. It's not, you see this as a means to your end goal of building up a portfolio or being
35:29
wealthy or whatever. But really the opportunity is in this, right? It's that Warren Buffett approach versus I'm going to go let it all ride on the ponies
35:39
right? Approach. Long term, short term, that type of thing. So you see something differently
35:46
So you don't recognize the true nature of the potential opportunity in front of you
35:53
And again, I think that comes down to context. Yeah. Well, we've talked about creation
35:59
We've talked about recognition. Now let's talk about the last step, which is the exploitation side of it. What are some of the best ways somebody can exploit an opportunity
36:07
So we've created it. We've recognized it. Now what do we do? Well, that's what we're all told from the beginning
36:14
That's the American dream, right? Sure. You work hard. You can be anything you want to be
36:19
You can achieve whatever you want. When largely, sadly enough, that's not necessarily true
36:26
Because of the first two phases we talked about, you may not know what it takes to create an opportunity and you may not have the background, the context, the awareness to recognize an opportunity when it presents itself
36:39
Or you might misjudge one when it does present itself. But what we're all beat into our heads from the very beginning is if you work hard towards something
36:49
So you recognize something as an opportunity, meaning that if I do this, it will have a good outcome
36:56
Lots of times that if I do this is a lot of hard work. Yeah
37:02
Diligent, directed effort towards something to take advantage of the potential benefit that is there
37:11
Now, do you always have to work super hard to take advantage of something
37:16
No. Sometimes you just have to put in a fine, you know, there's a diminishing amount of return
37:22
You put in the minimum effort and this will get you the benefit. Put in more effort, it gets you no additional benefit
37:29
That would be right in your realm, right? Yeah, I love that one. Strategically lazy as you say
37:33
I love that one. You were speaking my language there. Yeah. I mean, what you're saying when you say strategically lazy is don't don't fall victim to that law of diminishing returns
37:45
If you know what the standard is for something, if you want to exceed the standard, if that has a benefit to you, whether it's personal benefit of satisfaction or something like that
37:54
Great. But if if the standard is the standard, right? Why excel and go above and beyond if it does not provide any additional value to you
38:05
Like we hear all the time now about quiet quitting, right? Yeah. That's in the news
38:09
I was going to bring that up to you. And that's just people. And I heard an amazing quote
38:14
I didn't hear it. I read it on LinkedIn. A professor said his student said, why are they calling it quitting
38:21
You haven't quit your job. If there's a standard for you to meet, as long as you meet that standard, that's fine
38:28
If you were exceeding the standard, but you pull back like crazy and just do the bare minimum
38:33
you're still doing the standard for the job. Now, if going above and beyond will give you
38:41
greater benefit, then do it. Right. Or the benefit is worth it. Right. The time balance and stuff like
38:48
that. But the idea of that is getting promoted. Right. So you set a minimum standard. If you want
38:55
people to work harder, give them more title, give them more money, give them more benefits
39:00
Give them more autonomy. Give them whatever, whatever it is they need or want that will motivate them
39:07
But as long as they meet the standard. So there you go
39:11
When it comes to exploiting the opportunity you work hard to the extent it is required to get the benefit you desire from a potential scenario If working harder will produce an additional benefit and this again is an opportunity recognition thing
39:31
Some people don't realize that I'm given this standard. I've got to, I don't know, but I've got to put these 10 rocks in this bin, right? I've got to fill this bin with rocks. I've got to put these 10 rocks in there. That's the minimum standard
39:48
But if you were to put 20 rocks in there, that would be a ton of additional effort for maybe very not obvious return
39:57
But some people might see it as, oh, I recognize that if I do put 20 rocks in there, someone else is going to see it or it's going to have this effect
40:05
And it's going to mean I don't have to do this later or I might get a promotion
40:11
So I don't even have to do this anymore. I might be supervising people who put rocks in
40:15
So they recognize that potential opportunity by working harder. So when I say exploit an opportunity, I mean work hard enough to meet the standard that is there
40:27
I also mean do the other things necessary to bring about the expectation
40:34
So if you're hired for many jobs, and this is something that that plagues women in the workforce
40:41
Research has shown that women tend to be more proficient in their job tasks and functions than men early on in their professional careers
40:49
That is for professional service providers. Yet men promote more quickly. Why
40:55
A lot of research indicates that there's a strong tendency towards, you know, historically you have male management, right
41:03
Right. That, you know, the years of past prejudices against women in the workplace led to a hierarchy of men in upper echelons
41:12
Most people move up riding the coattails of their managers. And the people who move up are not the ones who do their job the very best
41:21
It's the people who relate the best with the people above them. And just because it may be easier for a man to relate to a man based upon commonality of interest in addition to just the physical nature of relating with other people
41:37
Well, again, if you didn't realize that creating that commonality, endearing yourself to the person ahead of you so you would move up along with them, then you didn't do the things necessary to exploit the opportunity
41:53
So it's kind of like the same things that you do to create the opportunity in the first place
41:58
You work hard towards whatever is required of you. But you also do the things like networking, meeting other people, acquiring additional skills that will be useful for the next position
42:12
All of those things. Now, I know I've talked for a long time there, but that is what that is the genesis behind exploiting an opportunity
42:20
Right. Turning what exists into even something more. So I don't know. What do you think
42:27
Yeah, I think it boils down to me what I was saying earlier, which is the the risk
42:33
You know, you have to be able to if you've created the opportunity and you've already recognize the opportunity, then and you have this opportunity in front of you
42:42
There is this point in time where you're going to have to look at it and go, am I going to risk whatever for this opportunity, which could lead to more opportunities
42:50
or am I not? And if you're fearful of the risk, then there are times when you're going to take
42:56
the safe route, which is the status quo and you're not going to do anything or take advantage of it
43:01
On the other side, if you do, then it could lead to other things. And that fear of not knowing the
43:07
other side of if you risk it on the good side, I think is what holds a lot of people back. You know
43:13
you can, like we were just talking about, we can, when it comes to risk, we can always identify the negative things that could happen. We can most of the time identify at least one positive
43:24
thing that could happen, but what it could lead to, I don't think we have that ability. I mean
43:29
that's, that's, you know, future stuff that we can't foresee. And I think that's the scary part
43:36
So at a certain point, if you're willing to, if you've done all the creation, you've done all the
43:41
recognition if you're not willing to risk it at some point then I think all that other work that
43:48
you put in is is you know all for not essentially I mean think about you know you talking about the creation side the hard work that goes into creation you know you putting in work to do something like to me my my opportunity right now is I going back to school Okay Well that that hard work
44:05
I mean, that's, I mean, I've got, I just had to review 126 page article. That wasn't fun
44:12
And it's, and I don't know what it could lead to. I know what one option is. Same thing with my
44:19
wife. My wife is now in a program. We don't know what it could lead to, but we have hopes on it
44:23
And there's a risk to it. Obviously, it could risk that our hopes may not turn out. Like our
44:30
plans may not turn out the way it is. There's a risk in that. I guess you look at it as it's a
44:34
wasted money, wasted time for her, wasted effort. But who knows what it could lead to and other
44:40
things that we're not seeing. And we felt that that was a risk worth taking. I mean, it was
44:47
it was something that we could look at. Hopefully we'll be able to look at in the next five to 10 years and go
44:52
it was a good risk. Even if, even if our plan didn't work out, it led to other things
44:57
And that's what she's hoping for. Um, your, so your scenario is a perfect reflection of
45:02
you know, the model of you have this objective, this goal, right
45:07
This idea of, uh, rank in academia, salary, uh, that type of thing. Right
45:14
Yeah. And you know what the steps are to get there. And this is one of those steps
45:19
So you're actively undertaking it. So going to getting into this school and doing it on its own is an opportunity
45:27
But the greater opportunity is what you see on the other side
45:31
You're trying to create the opportunity by doing this. OK, based upon the context and experience that you have throughout your life, through your current job, through your current career and your wife, through you, what she's seen through you and your dad
45:43
And she recognizes that a potential opportunity exists from doing something like this, right
45:53
That type of thing. And then, you know, then there's the hard work, the reviewing the 126 page article, the everything that means you'll get this
46:01
And that's an individual goal along the path, right? This degree alone doesn't do exactly
46:08
It doesn't achieve everything. The next step after that will be getting a job, will be publishing articles, will be going to conferences, will be doing book reviews, will be doing all the things that will be steps towards the ideal outcome for you in your career path
46:28
And so that's the exploitation thing. And as part of the exploitation, are you going to network with people
46:34
Sure. Are you going to acquire additional skills to make your life easier
46:39
Yes. You know, that type of thing. And it all add up. And so, you know, that's why exposure
46:47
That's why context. That's why the people you're around. All of those things are going to affect, you know, your understanding what it takes to create an opportunity, your ability to recognize an opportunity based upon risk and return
47:01
Right. And then your inclination towards exploiting the opportunity and what that means
47:06
And again, that's just a combination there. So if we were to summarize all of this, all we need to say is be exposed to as much as you possibly can
47:16
And the more you figure out, always put diligent effort towards it
47:21
Right. Because in my mind, that's who always becomes successful. People who try to understand things and put diligent effort behind it
47:32
Well, that was a good episode. That was way more than I was anticipating
47:37
I learned a lot in that one just from, you know, hearing how you felt about opportunity
47:42
Well, before we head out, do you have any closing words that you'd like to say to the listeners
47:47
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48:00
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48:05
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48:10
awesome well we hope you enjoyed the show we hope to see you next time until then goodbye take care
48:18
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48:21
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