Just ONE Thing
Working Hard but Going Nowhere? Spot Your Shop’s Next Opportunity
Episode 277
with Rick White, 180BIZ
Good morning. My name is Rick White from 180BIZ, and this is my Just One Thing. So what are we gonna talk about today?
We're gonna talk about opportunity. Here's the thing that I really want you to think about: What are you entitled to? That's what I wanna really talk about. You know, you hear a lot about what you deserve in life, and, you know, you deserve to be successful, you deserve to be happy, you deserve to get ahead.
You deserve a certain outcome because you worked really hard. But do you? I mean, you can work hard and still fail. You can make the right decision and still get a crappy result. You can do everything you know how to do and still not get what you wanted. So what am I saying here? No outcome is ever guaranteed.
That's what I want you to understand this morning. I've been telling my kids that their entire lives. The only thing you're entitled to is opportunity, and I always told them that opportunities have an expiration date on it.
One of the things we've gotta be looking for, we gotta be able to look for opportunities. And then here's the thing: Opportunities. I'm sitting back here, right? And a lot of times, I'm saying, “Okay, so how do you help someone understand…” So I want you just to think this through for a sec, right? How do you identify an opportunity? That's what I was really thinking through this past week, is how do you identify an opportunity? Because a lot of times, opportunities disguised as hard work.
You gotta recognize that, right? Luck is often opportunity covered up in overalls, right? So I don't think the problem is you don't have enough opportunities. I think you might not be recognizing them when they're in front of you, right?
This is the frog pond right there, right? That's absolutely true. And Benji, I appreciate you. It was great seeing you and Christy this past weekend, and Callie too. I'm excited for you guys and the grand baby.
So I need you to understand, right? When you are thinking about opportunity, you're probably picturing something good happening. Someone offers you a job. The unicorn employee that you've been looking for walks through the door. The customer that you thought was gonna say no says yes. Doors open. Those are easy to recognize. But what if an opportunity shows up as a problem?
What if it requires that you have to learn something you don't know? What if it means doing something difficult? What if it requires sacrifice? What if it looks like a whole bunch of work? You might walk right past it because it doesn't feel like an opportunity. So how do you get better at seeing it?
See, I think there are three ingredients. I think there are three ingredients that identify opportunity. Notice I said identify. So the first, the first identifier that you need to have is affinity, right? So a lot of times people think, “Do I, I, do I enjoy doing this?” That is one definition of infinity.
So sometimes it's doing, loving what you do, right? That's part of it, right? Maybe you love fixing cars. You know, maybe you love solving problems. Maybe you love teaching. But you don't necessarily have to love the task itself, right? To have infinity, for affinity to have… Bleh. You don't have to necessarily love the task itself to have affinity for the work.
Maybe you love the people you get to serve, or maybe you love the difference that the work makes, right? So I really, really want you to think this through. So the first thing you gotta do is have an affinity for something. Then you've gotta have ability. That's the next thing.
Affinity means you either enjoy the work, you enjoy the people, or you enjoy the impact, right? That's really what it's about. Ask yourself this: Is there something about the work, the people, or the difference it makes that keeps you moving towards it? That's affinity.
But then there's ability. That's the second ingredient or identifier for, you know, ingredient to identify opportunity. So ability doesn't just mean are you smart enough or are you able to do it, right? It means having what you need to do the work. Not only can you do the work, you have to be able to do it.
In other words, do you have the skill, the knowledge, the training, the tools, the time, the money, right? The resources, the people, the access to information that you need. And you don't necessarily need all of those things today, right? But you've gotta be able to have them, right? So it means instead of saying, “I can't do that,” you get to ask yourself, “Do I have or can I get what I need to do that?”
And that is really a big difference, right? That's ability. So we have affinity, we have ability, and now the last is need, right? This is where you stop looking at yourself. This is where you're like, “Okay, I'm set up for this,” but now you gotta look back and you gotta see, does it, is it needed, right?
Because you can love doing something, you can be incredibly good at it, but that doesn't automatically make it an opportunity. Does anybody need it? In other words, think about this for a second. If I wanna start working on EV vehicles and there's only 10 EV vehicles in my county, then the reality is, no matter how good I am at it and how much I love working on those vehicles, the need isn't there.
So it's not really an opportunity, right? You gotta be able to ask yourself, “Is there a problem that needs solving? Is there a gap that needs filling? Is there something people want or need that isn't being provided?” Right? You gotta make sure, like if you're thinking about a business opportunity, you've gotta make sure there's enough need.
That's super important, right? Because affinity tells you something about you, ability tells you what you can do, but necessity or need tells you whether doing it matters to somebody else, right? That's what need is all about. See, when you see all three things point, right, what you're doing is looking for an overlap.
So when you see all three things pointing to the same place, now you got something, right? If you're drawn towards something, you have affinity. If you can do it or get what you need to do something about it, now you have ability. And then there's a real need for it. When you get those three things pointing towards the same place, pay attention.
Now, I need you to understand, they don't create opportunity. They help you identify opportunity. And the opportunity, here's the thing, the opportunity could have been there the whole time. You just finally learned how to see it. I say this all the time: Life is just a giant garden, and it only grows two things, problems and potential.
By the way, another word for potential is opportunity. So once you've identified the opportunity, now this is where the fom- formula stops, right? The reality is ability, affinity, and need, they just simply help you see it.
Now you've gotta make a decision. Do you want to take advantage of this opportunity? Because opportunity isn't an obligation, right? You get to choose, but don't confuse choosing not to take an opportunity with believing that an opportunity, excuse me, wasn't there, right? Don't, like if you don't take action on it, that's fine, but don't think that's not because the opportunity wasn't there.
You gotta remember the clock's running, okay? This is where your decision matters because every opportunity has an expiration date, right? Sometimes you know what it is. Most of the time you don't. You're talking to somebody and you wanna hire, but you're not really sure, and you're going back and forth.
And then you're like, “Yep, I'm gonna do it,” and they took a job somewhere else. Or you have someone that you were talking to about maybe coming in, and you're kinda hedging and hawing about whether you wanna bring it in, and then they go someplace else. Or the building you're looking for gets sold. I mean, there's so many different things that happens, right?
Or someone else solves the problem, like the window closes. That doesn't mean you should jump at every opportunity you see. It means once you recognize an opportunity, make a choice, make a decision. Because you can't assume it'll still be there when you finally get around to deciding.
And here's the thing: Don't be fooled by the work. There's one more reason opportunities are so easy to miss, right? And that's because they're disguised as hard work. You can see the problem, you can see what it would take, and instead of seeing an opportunity, you see inconvenience. You see risk, you see learning.
You see a lot of work. You see sacrifice. And then you walk away, and maybe the work isn't standing between you and the opportunity. Maybe the work is the opportunity. Because you're not guaranteed. This is the hardest part, right? A lot of times before you wanna take an opportunity, you wanna know, “Is it going to work?” And nobody can promise you that because no outcome is ever guaranteed.
All you can ever do, right, is see the opportunity and then do your very best with it, and then you either win or you learn. That's it. Okay? Nothing guarantees success. There's no such thing, right? What opportunity does is give you the chance to do the work. What happens after that is the outcome, and the outcome is a byproduct.
So what I would like you to do as we close this out, maybe this week you don't need to go looking for more opportunities. Maybe you need to get better at recognizing the ones already around you. Look for the three things, the three ingredients: affinity, ability, and need. And then when those point to the same thing, pay attention.
There may be an opportunity sitting right in front of you. Then make your decision. Remember, because you're not entitled to the outcome, you're entitled to the opportunity. It may look like a lot of hard work, and I promise you it's not gonna be there forever.
Everybody, thank you so much. If this resonated with you, please share it. If you have trouble seeing opportunity and would like to talk about it, Shannon will put the link for my calendar in the comment section. Please feel free to reach out. I would love to talk to you, and let's see what we can do to help you out.
Everybody, have a great week. God bless, stay safe, and go have some fun. Take care, everybody. We'll see you next week. Bye-bye.
