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Opportunities arise on the spur of the moment, you need to be mentally present and aware in order to jump on them.
"The opportunity of a lifetime happens everyday" - Brad Sugars You just need to be ready and prepared - otherwise you will not even recognise it. A passing remark, a story in the newspaper, an overheard conversation - many present "the opportunity of a lifetime."
First you need to be prepared enough to recognise an opportunity. To be prepared enough you need to be seriously educated on the subject in question. Formal education from a Government Authourised institution means nothing here. Self education is the only way you are going to get ahead. If you are intereseted in property read every book you can by successful real estate people, including biographies of entrepreneurs, go to seminars, get involved as much as possible, subscribe to select magazines, learn everything you can.
Secondly you need to be ready to take action. No use if you sit back and say oh well I could have made a killing on the stock market in 2000 but I was (fill in lame excuse).
Results are what counts, everything else is hot air. For example, I was looking at property once in the regional areas - it was cheap enough to purchase but the returns were not good, and with little chance of property values increasing, I purchased shares in a Tech stock instead. A month later I was reading the newspaper (skimming the headlines) and there it was - the official announcement of a new gaol (jail) being built between 2 major regional towns in a small community. A quick check online showed that the prices of real estate where very cheap and rents were an acceptable return. Another quick search online told the projected staff and that the employees were expected to come from other regional areas to work. Also the staff was sizable.
Lets think about this. Increasing population, increasing incomes and increasing demand for housing. Could real estate prices be on the way up by the time the gaol is finished? Opportunity? What about rental increases as the construction workers spend the next two years onsite building the gaol - they all need someplace to sleep and live don't they?
Opportunity of a lifetime? Or just being aware of your surroundings and opportunities?
Another example was a friend who was working at getting a movie produced, this was still early stages. He was having difficulties with the scriptwriter. The scriptwriter though accomplished Author was too slow as the script had a very definite deadline. My friend was telling me this, it was too slow, they were not going to make the deadline, the writer was doing everything by hand so it would have to be retyped into a manuscript.... I stepped up to the plate "I can do it, just give me a day trial".
We sat down next day and pumped out a first draft of 17 pages the first day and added in a ton of comedic pieces that the producer was very happy with. I went on to co-write the entire movie script, that movie is being filmed as I write this. If I had said nothing the movie project could have failed, or at best been postponed indefinitely.
Writing a cinema release movie script - opportunity of a lifetime? Yes, but again only because I was aware and stepped up to the plate without hesitation, and I had writing experience writing advertising, user manuals and computer help pamphlets in my previous business.
Another friend had the chance to buy some cheap beach front property, it was a run down apartment block on a cliff overlooking the ocean and beautiful beach. The tenants were all unemployed surfers and the area was a low rent area with a sparse population. My friend had the opportunity to purchase each apartment at $30,000 several years ago with a rental return of about $80 a week. Enough to pay its own bank loan off, so for about $6,000 down each (20% deposit) my friend could have afforded several.
My friend passed on the opportunity as it was a bad area, people did not want to live there and he was undecided. Several years later during a property boom he came to me and said remember those apartments at the beach I told you about - they are selling now for $250,000 each. The local towns had a massive influx of city people buying weekend houses and paying near city prices for beach front.
Missed opportunity of a lifetime? Not really, he's seen it once now, I guarantee he'll remember it in future real estate opportunities.
These opportunity of a lifetime deals seem to happen fairly often don't they? In fact they are out there all the time. To quote a respected mentor:
All the time there are opportunities, maybe you are not ready and that is why you cannot see the opportunities
To seize an opportunity of a lifetime (opportunity of the day?) you must recognise it and take action, nothing more.
"If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate." - Thomas Watson, Sr., founder of IBM
If this article is of particular interest to you I would recommend watching "Dead Poets Society" starring Robin Williams as he makes a great speach about "seizing the day" and enjoying life because maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next year but within 100 years you will be dead and likely nearly everything you did and loved will be forgotten - enjoy your life and be free today.
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