This morning I met with someone who was excited about a business opportunity. They eloquently described the possibilities and showed me the product.
During the conversation, I remembered back to the many times that I convinced myself of many things, none of which turned out to be true. The excitement of an opportunity blinds us to the reality of the work needed in order to succeed. It blinds us to the possibility that it may fail along the way.
I truly was excited for this individual. My questions were meant to push back on their excitement to center them and not to discourage them.
The ability to center is key to short term traction and long term success. Finding the right things that need work and getting it out of your head that the opportunity will “just happen” is the first step in the process. Nothing is ever as good as it seems. When things get bad, most times we are able to withstand them until things get better.
Working hard to develop the ability to center yourself where you see both sides or where you consider the plus and minuses of a situation or where you can identify the weakest assumptions in someone’s description of an opportunity will always serve you well.
At a minimum, hopefully it will help you make less mistakes in your life by not jumping to catch as many opportunities that are really dead ends.