When Opportunity Knocks
My good friend “Will” speaks fluent Japanese. He lived in Japan for more than 10 years and knows the culture inside out. When he visits, he supplements his income by giving English lessons to the local people.
I mentioned to him that I know someone who makes a lot of money with instructional videosthat teach Brazilians how to speak English. In fact, I’ve been thinking about creating a similar product for Latin Americans. And I pointed out that, with his knowledge of Japanese, he could easily create and market an instructional video for Japanese who want to learn English.
He was interested, so I explained the basics of how to get started. Will is currently loaded with debt (all the more reason to get a side business going). And because he has no money at all to fund this little venture, I offered to be his partner.
I agreed to produce the video at my expense and market it on my website. All Will had to do was appear in the video doing something he knows how to do very well. He wouldn’t have to put up a dime – and within a week’s time, he’d own half of a potentially very profitable business.
Well, it’s been a month since we had that conversation, and nothing has happened. Will has called a few times to ask a few questions… but there always seems to be something preventing him from taking the next step and coming up with an outline for the script.
Listen – you can always find some reason not to push yourself to move forward with a project. Maybe you’re not 100 percent sure it’s going to work… or you have never done anything like it before… or you have other things going on in your life. But if you let those things stand in your way, the opportunity will slip away and be gone for good.
As Michael Masterson says, “Ready, FIRE, Aim.” As soon as you know you’ve got a decent chance to succeed, jump in with both feet. If you wait for the “perfect” time, it will never happen – and you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering “what could have been.”
[Ed. Note: Paul Lawrence is a successful entrepreneur and business author who has started over a dozen profitable enterprises. For more information on his “Dare to Live Your Dreams” program, click right here.]
Paul Lawrence
Paul Lawrence is an entrepreneur who has made his living starting and running a series of profitable businesses. One day while cleaning his mother's pool for a few extra bucks, it dawned on Paul that he could perhaps start his own pool cleaning business. He carefully employed all the marketing techniques that he had learned in school and designed his first flyer. Immediately the business took off and within a week, Paul had his own little business. He quickly expanded, hired employees and then eventually sold it some relatives who made well over $250,000 in the next year before they eventually sold it for a six figure profit. After finishing college, Paul did a brief stint in a management program for a national rental company, but he quickly realized that he was much happier running his own show. Paul left the rental company and launched one of the most financially successful independent ballroom dance instruction companies in the state of Florida where he received quite a bit of media attention for his revolutionary business practices that included front page features in the Life Style section of the Sun Sentinel, features in the Miami Herald, Boca News, Center Stage Entertainment and many others. With that business running profitably, Paul started several other businesses either individually or as partnerships that included a million dollar video production company, a mortgage brokerage, a home maintenance business, several mail order companies, a business consulting service among others.With a love of movies, Paul began to work at breaking into Hollywood as a screenwriter where he's beaten the odds by becoming a produced writer. He is a credited writer for the film CRUEL WORLD, starring Jaime Presley and Eddie Furlong and has signed a development deal for a national television series with one of the world's largest producers of television and films among his half a dozen sales and options of movie scripts he wrote. Paul is the creator of the Quick & Easy Microbusiness program.