How to Put Yourself in the Path of Opportunity

There was this one time, when my Dad was in hospital, after he'd just had surgery to remove 30cm of necrotic bowel obstruction and was about to be discharged. That week, i'd dropped everything to be by his side and at that moment, I stood next to him while he sat in bed and one of the first things he says to me wasn't i'm so glad i just survived. It was that he was essentially trying to figure out why life just seems to hand me all these amazing opportunities and people just give me money and things and do things for me all the time. Whereas he felt no-one has ever done him any similar (particularly financial) favours in life.  As i said, i needed them no less, but It's not like i had just batted my eyelashes, giggled or slept my way to getting them all. 

​Do you know what it DOES have to do with? Firstly, what Leadership, Human Behavioural and Motivation Expert and author of "The 5 Second Rule Transform your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage" Mel Robbins calls "The 5 second rule."

​Every awesome, life-changing thing i have EVER DECIDED to do, career path i had explored by the age of 30, every opportunity i have ever seized, that came to me with such (seemingly, to others)  ease, every idea that i ever got and then channelled into action in record time, i got because i went with the impulse to say YES and put my hand up in 5 seconds or less when the opportunities that were aligned with my deepest soulful desires showed up right in front of me, before i could talk myself out of it, or feel the 26 potential consequences of it going wrong (and possibly right).



Being a country kid and getting work experience at Ansett at 15, applying to Performing Arts School, saying YES to performing Arts School, doing comedy pieces with some now world famous actors, catalysing nation-wide changes to advertising companies at age 19, Practice Managing amazing Holistic Wellness Clinics, stepping into support roles to State-Level Managers or to Office Manage RTO's and Psychotherapy Practices when someone else got sick, the women's groups i've been handed, interstate trips, the state-wide social networking groups i ran, presenting and speaking at Melbourne festivals and events, Thoughtleaders, Leading Women, becoming a DYC/WCB/Wellness Leadership Mentor, becoming the Mentors Mentor, co-creating TPC, crewing for Jeffrey Slayter, creating WIWL, speaking on radio and podcasts, Performing Arts and International Coaching Awards, the YES's i said to friend's invitations to parties, to events, to workshops where i met the greatest loves and healers of my life (so far), to interstate adventures.  I had spent lots of timing dreaming up what i wanted and then i followed my heart and my gut to end up positioned in the pathway of those things, or sometimes they found me, and my (allegedly) "over-inflated, vain (or self loving?) ego", is just inflated enough that i said YES and my hand shot up faster than i could think about it to all of them. Then i dealt with the freak out (and occasionally desire to pass out) later. So that's why i GOT those opportunities and acted straight away while i had the resources to actualise them. And if i didn't have them yet, I got to working my butt off to get them. (And for the record, the courage it took to run with them did not come easily, i had been to hell and back, as well as experienced great privilege to develop that kind of warrior courage and faith that you can handle and achieve literally anything,)


Have i been able to convert every one of them that fast or in the time that i wanted to? God no. Sometimes it is frustratingly slow asking for all the pieces to align how you THINK you need them to...and watching some fall apart or disappear while you're waiting for the happily ever after you think is the answer. Sometimes you start to wonder if it really IS like Adjustment Bureau and some dude somewhere, at precisely 4:01pm is switching off your internet on purpose until you thought that major proposal through a little further, or so you don't email the right person with the wrong message, that is only you on half-power compared to how you'll be at 7am tomorrow morning. And then sometimes you just come up against a sophisticated wall of the consequences of your past mental creations and resulting actions. It's a little hard sometimes to undo karma until you acknowledge that it exists and get to work on creating something new. But often times, when you're seemingly stuck, its due to something going on in your head, that you're delaying on making some form of decision and therefore setting in motion the chain of manifesting it's potential consequences in either direction. Don't even get me started on the strategic chess style risk analysis that goes on when you're trying to make the "right" decision when you're too attached to what you think you can't afford to lose or NOT nail first time. Name your self sabotage overthinking drug of choice from self doubt, to guilt, to lack, to hiding, to hesitation, to perfectiprocrastination, at some point, i've O.D'd on them all too.


As Mel Robbins eloquently puts it in regards to getting what you want in life, and one of my former Mentors talks about it in terms of moving faster than the speed of disbelief to be able to get momentum in business, you need to be able to make decisions on those initial intuitive impressions though, faster than your self-protecting, survival-seeking brain has time to find a reason to throw on the emergency break. Or I’d say, when you start talking to others involved, they have time to pull on and start talking to you based on theirs and you have time to take it on and away from the path of growth and challenge. Its funny how, when we're not in our centre, doubt can be as infectious as love or laughter. But our first "impression"(eg intuition) is the remedy.




So much of the time, the answers we might THINK we need to make more time to meditate to find, actually already came, and often more than once, we just didn't listen and now sit there pretending like we don't know, when deep down, we really do.  Sometimes yes, now life has unfolded and now we're overwhelmed with emotion and then we have to process out the emotional energy first, to be able to hear that intuitive voice with clarity again on the other side.) But it is there. Behind all the overthinking and self doubting, the hiding, the hesitation, the perfecti-procrastination, it is there.



Learning to run with it and speak with clarity from it, that is the key. To just get up and dance. To just comment on that post, to just email that guy, to click on that ad, to just be audacious and dare yourself to make 10 phone calls to the reception numbers and just ask to speak to the CEO and see what happens and roll with it. As Richard Branson, and my high school drama teacher, once put it, saying yes too to anything you can learn to do before the first/next interview, so that you stay in the solution focused, proactive zone of being the answer to what the other party asked for, and then marry the opportunity with your existing desire, wisdom and capability, that is the very reason you were drawn to it in the first place. We have to practice split second following the intuition. Before you find and feel 26 reasons not to and or underestimate ourselves and our capabilities.



Finally, from my years of managing HR functions and working with others managing HR functions, as well as Relationship Coaching, and as any number of Eastern philosophies will tell us (and every one of the people responsible for the awards i once won told me when i asked them "no, but seriously, why me?"), relationships are built by and opportunities tend to preferentially find their way to the people who, aligned with their own values, are inspired to give generously like no ones business doing what they love, with who they love and thus have the most authentic gratitude for every bit of the opportunity in front of them. “Life” meets their love, their giving, and gratitude back with love, giving and gratitude. “Life” gives more value-aligned opportunities to them because they’re aligned, they’re open, they're proactive, solution orientated and willing to do the hard work when it comes to getting the stuff that they love and want done.


And, as Mel says too, you have to be true to asking for what you really want and asking for what you're worth in going after it too, when you have the opportunities to ask, if you're ever going to receive it. And that's where i lot of us inevitably fall down. We don't ask, we overthink it, we make excuses. Even when one owns 4 properties worth of security and freedom to go after it, still, excuses. So today, that's what i'd tell anyone else who asked me today what my Dad once did.  

That's how you start making the kind of decisions that impact your destiny in a more positive direction and start making some serious inroads to experiencing some seriously awesome things in life.

Where this week could you be overthinking less, tuning in more for your first intuitive impression and practicing running with it in that crucial first few seconds?

Until next time, have fun, take care.

Nat xxoo