Potentialize Your Opportunities

By Mark Victor Hansen

I remember watching the movie “Dead Poet’s Society” when it was first released in the theatres. Robin Williams’s character is a professor who wants his students to think for themselves, so he makes them stand on top of their desks to view things in a different way. That really stuck with me.

When you think about it, people hardly ever look at the world through their own eyes. They get their information filtered through the eyes of others, whether they’re the eyes of the media, politicians, friends or family. But what looks like one thing to someone may look totally different to someone else. To really see what’s going on in the world, to see what opportunities exist for us, we have to see the world through our own eyes in our own way.

We all need to recognize and potentialize opportunities when we see them. What do I mean by potentialize? When something has potential it has power, it expresses possibility, it is influential and effective.

As we go through each day we should be on the lookout for any situation that expresses possibility. Any situation. To attain the success you desire you have to recognize possibility everywhere and then stretch and flex your mind to create million-dollar ideas. And you’re not limited to just one. The more you practice seeing the possible in daily life, the better you will become. Then you take those small possibilities and potentialize them and create great monetary abundance.

We all have the ability to potentialize opportunities and create phenomenal wealth. And the amazing thing is that there are multiple possibilities for potentalizing in every situation! Just because someone comes up with a new way to do something doesn’t mean that there isn’t yet another way to do it. We have each been blessed with individual characteristics and abilities that no one else has. We each have our own special way of doing things. And that means we each have the ability to potentialize in our own unique way.

"Be grateful for your problems, for they stimulate an ‘I-can-solve-it’ new attitude."

I want you to begin to recognize potential in every situation. This may seem a bit challenging at first, but once you get into it, it becomes fun and easy.

For the next week I’d like for you to keep a journal. Every day write down 10 ideas you could potentialize into new, prosperous opportunities. Anything and everything you see or hear, write it down, including your ideas for potentializing the situation.

For example:

Let’s say you’re on your way to work and you stop for coffee. While you’re waiting for your latte you overhear a conversation between two businesspeople. One is saying how they need a new website for their business. This is the opportunity.

Your suggestion for potentializing the situation could be that you approach the two people and tell them about your colleague, who happens to design websites and who you know to be professional and trustworthy. You get the businessperson’s name and telephone number and approach your colleague with the information. You suggest that for every account you bring to them, you receive a flat finder’s fee. They agree, because it’s easy potential business for them, which means more money for them.

You see, even an overheard coffeehouse conversation can lead to an opportunity for profit.