Opportunity Knocks
Will you answer the door?
"Me? I'm from England ... you’ve heard of the 'Garden of England'?“
“I have - Kent right?”
“That’s the one. Every garden needs a compost heap, that’s the town I'm from, so my girlfriend and I sold everything we had, bought a couple of tickets and here we are.”
Kevin went on to tell me that he moved here because he had friends in the country and they spoke well of all they found. Recognizing that their options couldn’t be worse, they just did it. Where they work is thousands of miles from family and hundreds of miles from any of their ‘local’ friends but they'd both got jobs at the same place ... so it was a ‘no brainer’, although he'd been working there twice as long as his girlfriend.
“She started today. Me? I started yesterday.”
Kevin and his girlfriend broke the chain of their 'destiny' and created their own opportunity. They don’t know how it will all work out ... but if it doesn't, they'll just do it all again.
“No point in waiting for things to happen is there?”
This is a new story from the People First ‘Travels without Charlie’ collection.
I was reminded of Kevin when I received 'Seasons Greetings' from Pono Shim.
I have been working with a friend and colleague on an AI and Machine Learning solution applied to a specific health problem that could help millions of people across the world. My friend always talked about how this particular solution would ‘raise all boats’. Pono’s message reminded me not to assume.
Even with the best of intentions, all boats do not rise with the water and it doesn’t have to be a sea wreck - a simple leak in a boat sitting safely on dry land will prevent the boat from rising with others when the waters arrive.
The ‘Brain Drain’ is a global phenomenon usually associated with scientists, engineers, mathematicians, doctors ... the 'brains' leave to move to for a ‘better opportunity’. But there’s more.
The ‘drain’ is actually every single person that recognizes their situation and does something about it. They understand. They are motivated. They know that something better awaits them if they act.
If you are doing ‘all right’, you don’t usually think that way. You don’t ‘give it all up’ to try something new, complacency sets in … “well, it could be worse” … and so the extraordinary, your freedom and your future is gifted to and defined by others.
“Freedom is another word for nothing left to loose.”
… sang Janice, but why wait till then? Get ahead of the curve. The fast-changing world around us means that every single one of us is at risk. Every single one of us has everything to lose. If you are sitting on dry land in your boat with a hole in it, how are you going to react when the waters arrive? It’s like the guy who fell from a thirty storey building - as he passed the 9th floor, someone heard him muttering … “well, so far so good”.
It’s the time of year when we all think of others less fortunate. (Why we only do that once a year is a topic for another time.) But look around more. Every one of us should check our own boat for leaks and with that done - help all others fix theirs.
My thanks for your continued support and attention. Please do like the post, share through your social channels of choice and forward the email to colleagues, friends and family that want to join us on this journey. I truly appreciate all of your support and all your comments (positive and negative).
