Today is September 24 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “How often do you help multiply opportunities in order to seize them?”
People who navigate the chaos, like author Caren Lissner, understand the necessity of creating opportunities. If you wait for life to hand you an opportunities you may be waiting a very long time.
In an article published in The Atlantic, Lissner tells the story of how she seized one opportunity after another until her first novel, Carrie Pilby, was made into a movie.
According to Lisser, “Five years ago, I got an email from two Hollywood producers who wanted to turn my first novel, Carrie Pilby, into a movie. I was thrilled, but reminded myself not to expect much. After all, in the years since the book’s publication in 2003, two other production companies had paid me a few thousand dollars each to option the rights for a year, and nothing had come of it. Should I really fantasize about my characters living and breathing on the big screen? Nearly a decade later, I was struggling with revisions to a new book, still living in a tiny apartment in the town I’d moved to after college, and about to turn 40. I really wanted my writing to reach a new audience. Actually, I really wanted to be able to afford furniture.”
When it was all said and done, one opportunity helped form the foundation for another, and then another.
Eventually, after 14 years of false starts, navigating Hollywood, Lisser received a modest payout for her book Carrie Pilby to be adapted into a Netflix film.
As the old adage goes “Opportunities multiply as they are seized.”
How often do you help multiple opportunities in order to seize them?