Opportunity

A big part of being creative is looking for and seizing Opportunities when they present themselves.  What the lay person calls serendipity, the Creative recognizes for what it is -- taking successful advantage of Opportunities as they present themselves.

Opportunities come in all shapes and sizes, from the stop light that turns green right as roll up to it, to a colleague casually mentioning a service they need done (a service you might just be able to provide), to a chance meeting or email that takes your life off in a different direction than you had guessed.  When I look at my life right now and how I got here, I see just how key a role Opportunity -- and jumping at Opportunities -- played.  The fact I teach piano lessons is because a friend asked me back in 2001 if I'd like to join an arts academy they were trying to create, and if I'd like to teach some piano lessons.  The fact I work in a school library was because my wife worked at the school and let me know of an opening for a library assistant, from which I then moved up to director.  The fact I'm the music director at church is because someone called and asked me to be, and I said yes.

Just this week, another Opportunity presented itself.  I received an email from someone wanting to promote a book by Stever Robbins called Get-It-Done Guy's 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More.  Now, I've never heard of Stever Robbins, nor of the Get-It-Done Guy.  Of course, I'd also never been asked to review a book before, especially not in a forum that actually stands a chance of being viewed by the public.

So I jumped at the Opportunity, right? 

No, not right.  The first thing you have to do when confronted with an Opportunity is to evaluate it.  My paranoid instincts kicked in and my first thought was, This is someone trying to get me to divulge personal information and steal my identity.  (Yeah, I have thoughts like that all the time, but at least when the aliens come to kill us all, I'll have known they were coming.)  So, I looked around on the web to see what I could find.  His forthcoming book is listed on Amazon.  He has posts and articles scattered throughout the web.  He also has a podcast on the iTunes store which gets some insane number of downloads every week.  In short, this guy's legit and not out for my identity or my money.  Always a good thing.

So, I immediately said yes, right?

No.  The second thing to do is ask if following this Opportunity is in line with your life goals, with what you want to create with your life.  Well, let's look at this:  It's a book on working less and doing more.  For someone like me who has four jobs with different requirements all going at the same time, getting more done with less effort is absolutely a plus, so the subject matter of the book would be not only interesting to me, but probably beneficial.  I would be asked to write something about this book after I had read it.  Also in line with my life goals, because I do want to write more.  Also, Stever gets like 800,000,000 hits a week on iTunes (I may have too many zeros there, but it's some number like that that boggles the mind).  I let his people know that by sending me a free copy of his book and having me review it here on The Creative, it would probably do very little for his sales, but they still wanted the review.  What that means is The Creative is likely to benefit just as much (if not more) from me reviewing the book than the book is likely to benefit from my reviewing it.  Growing The Creative is also in line with my life goals.

(A caveat here -- it is all too easy to get in the habit of saying "yes" to every Opportunity that comes past you, no matter what.  There are times when this is good, but in most cases, it leads to anxiety, burnout, lethargy, and premature death.  Okay, maybe not premature death, but it will sure wear you out in a hurry, like spinning your wheels when you're stuck in the snow.  Just because you have an Opportunity in front of you doesn't mean you automatically take it.)

So, I said yes then, right?

Yes, I did.  But that brings me to the third part of following an Opportunity -- following through.  If I get sent this book, and I then fail to read it and review it, I have given myself a bad name in general, because I can't be trusted to do what I say I will.  (Ignore the fact that I will have been untrue to myself and hurt my self-respect for all eternity.)  If the review is inelegant or useless, then it's no longer in anyone's interest to ask me for this sort of service in the future, because they see the product they're likely to get.  Opportunities only really work if we see them through to their proper and successful completion.

So with that, I'd like to invite you all to check out a sample from Get-It-Done Guy's 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More.  Not having read the whole book yet (or even past the introduction), I'm already anticipating it because: (a) Stever's a nerd; (b) he has a wit I appreciate; and (c) he sounds like as much of a pen snob as I am.  And if that's not enough of a reason to read a book, then I don't know what is.

(Oh, yeah, the subject matter ... forgot that.)

So here's hoping Opportunity smiles on you today.  Enjoy your weekends.