cre8Buzz Blog

We all know a true opportunist. They always seem to get the great deal, find the kickin stock, land the perfect job, start a kickin new company, pick the slammin new web 2.0 to back, ya know what I’m saying the cats who always seem to have the golden touch, the modern day King Midas. They’re impressive. What makes them impressive is what I find to be tight! It’s an attitude, a vision, an optimism, an OPENNESS to the UNKnOWN. They operate with a phat sense of anything is possible, they don’t get all freaked out by all the little details. They see the opportunity for what it is an opportunity, an unproven yet favorable chance for gain. Ya dawg, they get it, it ain’t no gimme, so they don’t expect it to look like a gimme before it happens.

There are a lot of folks who get paid to be opportunists, sport scouts, V.C. firms, hiring managers, stock pickers etc. Their job is to find undervalued things and invest and show a return. It is all about ROI, the problem is most of these folks just suck at it and they don’t even know it. Hey, V.C.’s I love ya, don’t hold this against us. But, most of ya’ll professionals suck.

Why, a bunch of reasons. First, they ain’t open. Naw, man not at all. Because they get hit with proposals, requests, people vying for their attention so often they begin to shut down, they start to put hurdles in place, they squeeze the funnel. Look man, to be an opportunist, ya gotta be open, I mean straight up open to gittin the skinny on everything. No info is bad info. The point isn’t to squeeze the funnel, it should be to figure out how to open it up bigger and manage the extra work. Don’t put up hurdles, don’t be inaccessible, remove every hurdle, be as accessible as possible.

Second, folks have been bit by the curse of knowledge, (see Made to Stick, slammin book, SNAP!). What is the curse of knowledge? It is the idea that the more knowledge you have around something the more close minded you become and the harder it becomes for you to relate or connect with the layman. My definition; when ya have the curse of knowledge, you can’t get out of ya own damn way. The curse of knowledge in action, Joe Montana is “too small,” Michael Jordan as the number 3 pick in the draft, because ya’ll needed a center (Houston and Portland), Yahoo not buying the Google platform for 1 million bucks because “there is no money in search”. The problem ya’ll is that you think ya know everything so therefore ya miss a lot. Michael Lewis’s book Moneyball depicts the curse brilliantly. If ya know a lot, don’t forget ya don’t know nothin! The curse of knowledge is a sickness ya gotta avoid.

Third, playing not to lose. Too many of ya are playing not to lose, ya make decisions to avoid loss, not to gain. If ya wanna be an opportunist ya gotta be willin to lose. Ya gotta, be willing to put it out there. I promise if ya play not to lose, you won’t win. If your lucky, ya just won’t lose. Ya know you are playing not to lose when your looking at an opportunity and askin, what is the downside and how do I avoid it, as opposed to what is the upside and how do I capitalize on it. This is where the professionals get slammed, scouts lose their jobs if they make too many bad picks, so what do they do, they take the safe picks. The ones that everyone would say, “well it looked good on paper.” V.C.’s have to deliver a boomin IRR (initial rate of return) or their investors get a little disgruntled. So you know my boys are looking not to lose. Hell no. They are all about playin not to lose. Remember the saying “No one ever go fired for hiring IBM?” I rest my case!

Which are you? Where does your company fall? Do ya know it all? Are you always taking about “what happens if it fails?” Do ya find yourself focusing on the loss or the win? Do you dismiss ideas because . . . you know better? Do you shut people out, do you put up barriers? Is it easy to access you or your company?

You don’t gotta tell me. Ya gotta answer em for yourself. The question is . . . are ya gonna be honest witcha big bad self?