On the honour roll of squandered opportunities, I’m a legend. I’ve ignored favourable moments and cast aside perfectly good ideas to pursue clearly signposted dead ends. Sadly, I’m not the only contender for this very long list. In big and small ways, everyone does this.

Mike and Logan were childhood friends who became jogging buddies in later life, as they still lived in the old neighbourhood. Logan watched as Mike saved carefully and purchase small local investment properties. He wanted to do the same but was afraid that it might turn out badly. Mike offered to coach him through the process but Logan didn’t feel confident. If they noticed a For Sale board during one of their runs, Mike paused to notice the address. He’d carefully check the listing online at the end of the jog.

During one routine run on a scorching summer’s afternoon, Logan complained that he was slipping behind in his financial plans despite his steady job. Mike saw this as another opportunity to suggest that Logan invest in property.

“We’ve been having this same conversation for 15 years now. Over the years I’ve shown you a range of local houses, that were initially each around $40,000 to buy. Unrenovated houses in these same streets now cost almost $300,000. In the time you’ve taken to make a decision, I’ve bought six homes and sold one to pay out two other loans. Isn’t it time to take a chance?”

Logan stalled a bit longer and when he finally bought an investment home in that suburb, he paid $322,000 for it. In the time Logan had been procrastinating, Mike made more than $1,000,000 from his investment properties while living on modest wages from his weekday job. Both friends had been jogging past real estate opportunities over the years, yet for most of that time, only one of them noticed and pursued them.

For the past 12 months I’ve been training myself to notice opportunities, especially those concealed beneath seemingly insurmountable obstacles and extreme frustrations. It began with a five-minute review each night, where I scoured the events of that day to identify missed possibilities. Gradually, the search became a moment-by-moment exercise where I was alert for any auspicious opening or positive option that might have previously gone undetected. The nightly reviews highlighted possibilities ignored and noticing these, was painful.

The positive results have included noticing when I could help others, how I might improve business processes and during a zoom workshop, I came up with the idea of designing a pure clairvoyance reading to identify specific opportunities for clients. It occurred to me that people visit psychics to be told about auspicious openings that they cannot see for themselves. If so, why not address these directly? By scanning the person to determine any habits or beliefs that restrict vision of rewarding opportunities, it’s possible to intuitively look back 20 years to notice what people have already ignored. There’s nothing like wasted options to focus attention on surrounding possibilities.

Opportunities often require additional hard graft to make them successful. They’re rarely as easy as lottery wins or magic wishes. Instead, they often arrive as sensible options with effort required, such as turning bread and water into toast and tea. Forming this productive habit is like building a bridge to better opportunities. It’s a simple, effective conduit to a more rewarding life. In the meantime, how many previously invisible options will you notice today?

For more details about opportunities readings.