Jorge Aja Banos, CAPP

Opportunities will not come knocking on your door—you must go search for them. Some are right in front of our eyes and others are hidden gems that must be found. Opportunities are all over the place: at home, at work, in our relationships, in our personal finances, etc. We must find them and get working!

Some tools we can use to uncover opportunities are:

• Observation requires looking closely and doing some basic statistics on our observations. The difference between seeing and observing is the amount of attention put in place.
• Actively listening to the people who surround us (e.g. boss, child, spouse, neighbor, banker, colleague) will provide lots of rich information. You will not unveil an opportunity by just hearing. Hearing just happens, but active listening takes concentration and effort.
• Complaints provide strong and direct feedback on what requires your attention and what needs to be corrected. People around us who complain and do not get adequate attention can choose to alter their relationship with us or our organization at any time. People who complain and get attention will most likely at least continue the relationship as it is. If you get multiple complaints on a specific issue, you must look no further for opportunity—you have found it!
• Turning data into information is another source of opportunity. We live in an era in which information is collected nonstop and more reports are produced and handed to us than we can mentally absorb. You can unmask opportunity by making sense of the information gathered and processing the reports that find their way into our hands.

Finding opportunity is only step No. 1 of the process. What comes next is up to each of us. If we neglect an opportunity, someone else will find it, work on it, and bank on it. If we decide to seize opportunity and work on it, more and better opportunities flow our way.