[Reflection] #13: Seizing Opportunities
According to the I Ching, an ancient Chinese book, success depends on you but also on the RIGHT TIME and the RIGHT PLACE.
In my case, having a scholarship to study in Australia completely changed my life. Later, my English level set me apart from other candidates and I always managed to get the job. But a year later, I would never have studied in Australia because scholarships are only given every two years. I was able to seize the opportunity at the right time.
According to numerology, everyone has at least 4 major opportunities in life. But the difficulty is daring to seize them. Because sometimes, opportunities come when you’re not ready, and when you’re ready, it’s over, it’s gone for good!
I spent a few months in Asia talking with my favorite shopkeepers. Since I help them improve their online visibility, some took me to see their suppliers, others introduced me to their teams, and I was able to understand why my shopkeepers were so successful: They knew how to spot and seize the opportunity, in a second!!!
For example, when they learned I was an SEA expert, without even asking my rates, they immediately wanted me to help them. They had a kind of radar for spotting people with potential. (Okay, after all, I help small shopkeepers without asking for anything, but they didn’t know that!).
They were delighted, telling me that “this knowledge, even paying for it, you can’t get it, you don’t know who to ask”. It happens very often that the bosses, when they spot me, drop everything they’re doing and start asking me questions, with great tact and humility. They know how to extract my knowledge, my expertise (which I of course share with pleasure). I don’t know if you’ve seen Tiktoker videos interviewing people driving Ferraris, but that’s the kind of questions you need to ask to become successful yourself.
These shopkeepers calculate super super fast and immediately see the potential of a given risk. Due to a misunderstanding, one of the shopkeepers thought we needed to spend at least $1000 on ads (that’s a lot for Asia). He took 1 second to think and told me “Anh, if we have to spend $1000, let’s do it!”. I swear, there are French listed companies that take much longer than that for 100€!
My jeweler told me, when we lost the Google Maps pinthat he immediately contacted a builder to change the storefront to recover his pin (to match the pin name with the storefront). I was very impressed, because redoing the storefront costs a fortune. Finally, we got it back for free, but I admire his ability to make a decision! Not having a pin = end of business, so he was ready to do anything to get it back.
He told me he had gotten this store during Covid. Normally, this prime location, on one of the busiest streets in Hanoi, was never available. But the only opportunity came during Covid. Not knowing when Covid would end, he still paid the rent for 3 years without generating any sales. And when tourists came back, his bet paid off: the store finally became profitable!
In short, to seize the opportunity, I observed my shopkeepers and I found that:
- Not only do they seize opportunities (an SEA expert passes by, cool, I ask for advice) but also, they create opportunities for themselves (learning a new language, a new software).
- They always have cash to seize the opportunity at any time (or they know where to find cash).
- They decide fast, they calculate fast, and they are ready to take big risks (investing €10 to get back €1000 is different from investing €100,000 to become a multi-millionaire).
- They are willing to pay a lot to attract competent people.
- They are not afraid of losing because they know they can start over from scratch. My shopkeepers have already had several lives before their current job. Each time, they were successful and changed jobs just for fun. It’s a bit like the principle of the Vietnamese entrepreneurs club I talked about here : they help you get your first billion VND (€37,000). Then you have to give it all to a charity of your choice. You go back to zero. If you’re ready to do that, you stay in the club; otherwise, you leave with your billion and we never see you again. Very few entrepreneurs dare to lose their billion. But those who do become multi-billionaires (in VND, so millionaires in €).
On social media and even among our acquaintances, there are those who:
- are happy for us <3
- are jealous, and think that‘we stole an opportunity, or their money, or whatever.
To them, I want to say one thing, and it’s for them that I say it: “You only notice my successes, but you weren’t there when I came home at midnight every day, when I didn’t go on vacation, when I was learning to code on my own in my free time, when I took on all the accounts no one wanted at work”.
Success takes time, and sometimes sacrifices. Opportunity comes to everyone, and you have to stay alert when it knocks. You have to dare to seize it. All the efforts I made were so that one day my managers would notice my potential and hand me the best contract of my life, which is what makes me the digital nomad I am today.
The overthinking makes you miss opportunities. When I get questions like “should I buy this €6 cream,” I know the person isn’t worried about the €6, they just can’t make up their mind. Why do we need reviews and influencers so much? Because we shy away from responsibility. If we don’t practice making micro-decisions every day, how do we find the courage to make really, really big ones? You have to train every day to push past the overthinking, to calculate quickly, to overcome your fear.
I’m also super super scared of deep water, colorful fish, jellyfish, getting hurt… but to overcome my fear, I always take 5 to 7 lessons, and I pay right away so I don’t quit. Result: I’m still always scared, but I’ve been around the world 3 times, I can ski now and I can e-foil.
Our whole life is about preparing ourselves physically and psychologically to seize these great opportunities that life gives us generously. Whether there are fewer or more depends only on us. We have the power!!! As Shakespeare said in Julius Caesar IV, iii, 217:
There is a tide in the affairs of men; which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.
