Risk is at times fickle, but without it the greatest opportunities will not develop. The farmer sows many seeds knowing that not every seed will grow into full bloom. He accepts that there are circumstances he cannot completely control. Yet he sows as many seeds as his field will hold, because the more he plants, the more he will reap.
Growth is more likely than death, and gain is more likely than loss.
To put this in terms we can understand in the workplace, the farmer teaches us that the most significant lesson of adversity is not that it is merely part of life but, rather, that it is increasingly irrelevant when part of success.
To the fortunate person, a misfortune is barely noticeable. To the unfortunate person, a misfortune is doubly intense.
Good fortune is not simply about ducking misfortune. While there is much adversity to be avoided in the workplace, the ability to sustain momentum is what carries you through the difficult times.
If you don't create enough momentum through sowing your seeds of opportunity, you run the risk of losing momentum and becoming more vulnerable to misfortune.
Others, the rare few who keep momentum on their side, learn to look around, beneath, and beyond the current moment for opportunities to be seized. In this way they sustain positive activity despite adverse circumstances. In short, they employ their circular vision.
Adversity is very big when it's all you can see. But it's very small when it's surrounded by opportunity.
The key to navigating adverse circumstances is a matter of focus. Zoom in on it and you will see no opportunity. Zoom out, and many opportunities will come into view.
Adversity may make or break you, but it mainly reveals you.
In the midst of adverse circumstances, the one who creates and sustains momentous opportunities is the one who allows adversity to clarify reality.
Adversity is like a new lens. Here's an example:
An IT manager receives notice that his company is downsizing.
In thirty days, his position will be downgraded to part-time. He is thirty-one, married, and the father of two young children. His family can't live on half of his current salary.
He knows he must find another option and has two ways of going about it.
Most would panic in this situation and take the first opportunity in sight. While finances will at times dictate how one must pursue a new opportunity, they cannot be the sole criterion for action.
Instead of panicking, the IT manager spends an hour that evening listing the people with whom he has a strong rapport: friends, family, close colleagues, and longtime clients. He composes separate e-mails to each of the four groups, briefly explaining the news he has received and then asking one simple question: What opportunities do you see before me?
This action accomplishes two things:
1. Compiles the observations of those who know him best, which culminates in a list of his most visible skills—some of which he'd never seen.
2. Involves those who know him best in the search for opportunities.
Those closest to the man will want him to succeed. He has immediately broadened his observation by focusing many eyes on his situation.
This is a real story. And in the end, the manager launched an IT services firm of his own. Nearly one-third of his staff also joined him in the opportunity.
It takes circular vision to continue seeing and seizing better opportunities. Yet better opportunities are always present—often more so in the midst of adverse circumstances.
It's not just about the job. It's the opportunity within the job.
There is one thing every fortunate person understands that others do not: adversity is more valuable than wellbeing if it creates a better opportunity. The fortunate person continually works to ensure this is so. Adversity then becomes for her a tool for keeping opportunity on her side. And risk her new best friend.
Thanks to Glenn Llopis, The Immigrant's Perspective / Blogs Forbes
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