Learn to recognise opportunity

Around every corner and bend hides an opportunity. They are not always easy to see. Sometimes the opportunity is just an opportunity to learn something new, or gain a new perspective. Sometimes the opportunity is something great, something so obvious that you cannot miss it. But most of the time we pass on the opportunities as they require hard work from us. We think of opportunity as something that is given. Something that we can just have for nothing. But that is not how things work.

My grand mother played lotto for years, I think she still does. She even played for her grandchildren at one point. I guess I was not lucky, as the check never arrived 😀 But I have got to the point in my life, where I understand the value of hard work and how much more rewarding something is when you know you did it yourself, instead of something being given to you. She believes in luck, I believe we make our own luck.

The value in learning is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I am not talking about academic learning here, as I’ve yet to see a case where the academic approach to learning in music would hands down beat a great self-taught musician. They haven’t yet figured out an effective way to teach the expression of emotion, that only comes from within. Also in music business, by the time something makes its way to the program of a music college, it probably is yesterdays news. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to knock academic education, I just don’t think in my profession it would be the best path. I am talking about your own self-development. The information is out there, you just need to be hungry enough to go after it.

And I do believe knowledge does help us better to recognise those opportunities, when they come along. Also it can help us better evaluate if the “hard work” is worth the effort. Is this opportunity going to add enough value to justify the time required? If you are faced with this question, let me insist you also look at how you would otherwise use the time. If your answer goes something along the lines of watching sport/ your favourite tv show on TV, playing video games, busying your self with chores that you could easily allocate to someone else, my guess is you are better of taking on the opportunity.

Also if you believe that the opportunities are out there in the world around you, it will make you much more likely to recognise them. But remember, every journey is traveled one small step at the time. Never underestimate the value of a small opportunity. It might just lead to something else, or better yet be a big opportunity in disguise. So when the opportunity comes knocking, open the door!

J.P.

The author J.P. Kallio is a singer songwriter
To get EIGHT of his songs for free go HERE