Being Point

Tag: opportunity

  • What Could You Learn That Could Transform Your World?

    What could you learn that would transform your life experience? Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

    You may be out of a formal educational structure, but learning continues to be the best way to create positive change.

    As our world grows ever more quickly to connect more of us to each other – AND as more knowledge becomes available on the web – both the opportunities and the requirements for learning will also grow.

    What learning do you have planned for the balance of 2010 that could transform your personal and / or professional lives? How can you create a learning plan for yourself that predicts that you will successfully engage positive change?

  • “To Improve The Golden Moment Of Opportunity, And Catch The Good That Is Within Our Reach, Is The Great Art Of Life.” ~ Samuel Johnson

    Wake-up calls can be perceived as opportunities because a choice not to do something is also a choice to do something else. Moments of focused choice often highlight the consequences of all the actions under consideration. We can become more awake and aware.

    Samuel Johnson wrote, “To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.”

    Have you ever thought of an opportunity as a wake-up call? What opportunities have you accepted and developed that felt momentous like you were literally being awakened? Can you think of opportunities lost where you did not awaken – and you later wished you had?

    Would you characterize yourself as an “opportunist” in the positive sense of the word – as Johnson described – to be mindful of the “golden moment of opportunity”? Do you provide opportunities for others in ways that can feel like wake-up calls?

  • Cultivating “Getting To” Is Feeling Grateful

    “Getting to” is a way of looking at the world in a way that removes all feeling of victimhood. The more one “gets to” do something, the more one appreciates that everything in life is an opportunity. A situation can be difficult, tragic, inconvenient and horrible – but among the ways to look at it is with appreciation.

    A wonderful long-time friend and Coaching for Results(R) alumnus writes from Colorado:

    “What you are referring to (“get-to”) is actually living a life of gratitude. I do this every day….I have been thru so much that this is the ultimate outcome… daily gratitude. It is one of the highest emotions we can experience… and is also self- perpetuating.”

    How was your experiment of going through the day and viewing everything as a “get-to”? Did you notice anything different? Did you feel better? Worse? The same? Did the exercise feel contrived or false? Or did it feel useful and fun?

  • “Always Keep An Open Mind And A Compassionate Heart” ~ Phil Jackson

    How open are you to change, to opportunity, to life?  We humans have sometimes felt as though we’ve known “the answer” – and we’ve perhaps gotten stuck there when our perceptions became rigid.

    Coach Phil Jackson said, “Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart.”

    Keeping an open mind is most often simply a matter of practicality because circumstances are always changing, so one’s mind or perceptions often move as well.  And having compassionate hearts assists in keeping our minds open.

    Would you characterize yourself as having an open mind, or are you more rigid in your points of view?  How can we balance being open, yet being decisive when we need to be?

  • Basic Seven Steps In The Hero’s Journey

    The Hero’s Journey is an archetypal way of understanding the quests of our lives. Joseph Campbell wrote about the hero’s journey as a way to conceptualize how and why we take on the challenges we choose. Very simplistically, think knight in the castle who learns that there is a damsel in distress. He sets out to slay the dragon and return home victorious with the rescued damsel by his side.

    There are seven major steps to any hero’s journey – with many sub-steps. Today, we’ll start just by naming them:

    The Call to Adventure

    Refusal of the Call

    Supernatural Aid

    The Crossing of the First Threshold

    Belly of The Whale

    Initiation

    The Road of Trials

    Return

    Think of any challenge or opportunity which confronts you. At the very least, you’ve heard the Call to Adventure based on your awareness of the challenge.

    Just knowing what you know now about the Hero’s Journey, can you think of an example, past or present, where your life’s journey might be able to be understood through the steps of the Hero’s Journey?

  • Security Is A Paradox and An Oxymoron

    With apologies to General Douglas Macarthur, his words about security may be just a tad strident. He said, “There is no security on this earth – only opportunity.” Apparently, another “security purist” who, to be sure, is technically correct in the absolutist construct of black-and-white thinking on our topic of the week.

    Yet, we all know that life is a paradox. As Louis Adamic (a non-General whom I had never heard of) said, “Living is like licking honey off a thorn.” So it is with security: we can have health, wealth and wisdom . . . and, in the having of them, we can FEEL secure. Yet, since nothing endures, that feeling of security is fleeting . . . even if it last for decades.

    Security may uniquely be both a one-word oxymoron as well as a one-word paradox . . . in any case, tough to reconcile with the realities of everyday life. Most likely, a solid way of dealing with any form of perfectionism – as absolute security is – is to use it to strive toward, but to resist being seduced by the promise of its NEVER CHANGING.

    Dig deep and sense how you really FEEL about security. Not how you THINK about it, but how, deep in your gut you feel. Maybe confused, wistful, curious and perhaps even angry?

    Perhaps the best security is the ability to appreciate the human experience in all its contradictions and up’s and down’s. How do you deal with your desire for security? Have you ever felt driven to make choices based on your perceived need for any kind of security?

    Copyright 2009. E. B. Hutt Bush and Coaching for Results, Inc.