When you Focus on Possibilities, You’ll have more Opportunities

If you have heard me speak live, on a podcast, in an interview, or maybe one-on-one, you know I love to relate stories and how they impacted my life to teach a lesson or strategy.

Last week, I spoke with an agent from a speaking bureau about a potential speaking opportunity. She told me she heard me on a podcast and was enamored by a story I told about how and why I wrote about it in my book From Turmoil to Triumph.

The story she wanted to discuss with me and how it would relate to her client was about the opportunity I worked on with one of the world’s largest consumer packaged goods companies and how I turned it around with the mindset my management had and obvious defeat and how I had to absorb risk, giving confidence, competence, and creativity to my team and the prospect’s team to win a victory.

Her client is going through a time of uncertainty. Their sales team needs to produce consistent results. Personnel are leaving and they have some problems.

For their annual meeting, they want a speaker who can inspire their sales organization and has gone through a challenging experience with strategies for overcoming it.

She asked me about how I embraced the uncertainty of going through a plane crash and then becoming the top producer for my company’s division during a recession the same year.

I asked her some questions about her client to understand their management’s current mindset. What I realized is that their management was focused more on the problems of their sales team than on the possibilities.

After we went through our question and answer time, I shared something I learned about when I embrace uncertainty in my life and find a way to turn it into an opportunity.

I shared that when you focus on problems, they seem to grow into more problems, but when you focus on possibilities, you’ll find and have more opportunities.

She asked me how I turned a problem into a possibility, which is why she was enamored with my story and its lesson. I had a big problem with my team and a situation that appeared hopeless. Sort of like what her client is facing with their sales team currently.

I told her my approach is to ask myself one question repeatedly until I figure it out and then act.

“What would it mean if you could …?”

I learned from my time with Tony Robbins, “Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.” 

I have learned that if I ask that question repeatedly, my creativity starts to emerge, and I get several possibilities that ignite opportunities.

The goal of a salesperson is to show their potential client how their service or product will transform their business and the possibilities it will render.

I shared with her that I did this exact strategy for my last sale at Oracle before I retired and finished in the top three salespeople for that fiscal year. I hallucinate that the management of her client is focusing more on the problems they see in their sales team instead of the possibilities they have.

When you focus on problems, you’ll have more problems, but when you focus on possibilities, you create opportunities.

I don’t know if we will be selected to speak for this organization, but if nothing else happens, my speaker bureau friend learned that every moment in your life matters and there is a lesson there that will serve you sometime in your life.

Reframe your problems into possibilities.

Ask yourself, “What would it mean if you could …, and watch how your perceived problem turns into a possibility and you will find an opportunity.

When you EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY, you will IGNITE OPPORTUNITY, and you will TRANSFORM your or your client’s life or business.

What would it mean to your life if you could open more opportunities?

You can CREATE YOUR OWN FLIGHT PLAN for your future and leave a legacy for your children and grandchildren.