Turn Any Situation into a Great Opportunity

Throughout my more than thirty years of experience as the CEO of a large company, I’ve learned that the best business opportunities often disguise themselves as extraordinarily difficult situations. Time and time again, I have witnessed devastating failures lead to enormous successes, and difficult situations transformed into golden opportunities.

As an entrepreneur, the setbacks and failures you face today create the foundation for your future success. That’s why it’s so important to leverage every single situation to your advantage by being prepared, developing a strategy, and moving forward with a realistic plan.

Here’s how to find the opportunity in any situation and turn it into the best thing that ever happened to you:

• Before you act, weigh the situation. Look at your situation from all vantage points. Don’t assign blame, but accept responsibility where it is due and enforce accountability. This step is important because it gives you the greatest leverage for determining the outcome.
• Respond quickly and with a level head. Maintain a positive outlook and avoid catastrophizing. Deal with the facts and focus on what you can change.
• Seek the opportunity. There is an opportunity in every single situation, and as the leader of your company, it is your job to find it, accept it, and allow it to lead you to success.
• Do not hesitate. When you see an opportunity, take it. Even if it doesn’t “work”, you will grow from the experience. And you can take that situation and turn it into another opportunity, and another. This is how success is created.
• Value growth above perfection. Things are going to go wrong and you are going to encounter challenging situations. Perfection is not an attainable goal, but consistent growth is. Whenever you are faced with a problem, always look at how you can grow from it. What can you learn? Where can you take these lessons? How can you move forward with integrity, always looking to the future?
• And finally, remember that every single successful entrepreneur has encountered thousands of failures and setbacks over the years. Success is possible no matter how many challenging situations you’ve faced, as long as you’re skilled at turning them into opportunities.