Develop An Eye for Opportunity
Categories: Creativity | Education | Disabilities | Entrepreneurialism
Posted by
Paul Orfalea
at
3:37 PM
6
comments
One of my goals in life is to help young people develop the habit of seeing opportunity. Following are some thoughts on this subject, excerpted from my book, Two Billion Dollars in Nickels: Reflections on the Entrepreneurial Life.
See with Your Own Eyes
Seeing for myself is an important theme in my life. Good readers collect other people's words; dyslexics like me tend to see things for themselves. Who is more likely to repeat the ideas of others, and who is more likely to be creative?
Because I couldn't read well as a youngster, I learned from direct experience. Experience is a harsh teacher, since the test comes first and the lesson follows. Still, I embraced every chance to participate in life. I started businesses, like my vegetable stand. I skipped school to watch my father's stockbroker at work. One thing I saw for myself was that to succeed in school, you had to be good at everything, but to succeed as an adult, you only had to be good at one or two things.
Look People in the Eye
To be successful in life is to be engaged with people. We need people. We need to know how to introduce ourselves to them, talk with them, argue with them, and build with them. Many young adults do not know how to speak up, express themselves, or look one another in the eye. They fear rejection. Since dyslexia prevented me from doing things the conventional way, I grew up experimenting and trying new things. Taking chances became second nature. By forcing students to ask each other out, I give them a crash course in surviving rejection and handling unexpected success.
Use the Mind's Eye
In college, I met with friends after a lecture and discovered that although they took detailed notes, I remembered the lecture better. While they were frantically scribbling, I was listening. Coming from the oral tradition, I had developed a good memory.
I know a fellow who says, when he cannot remember some detail, "My brain is a factory, not a warehouse." Like Sherlock Holmes, this man prides himself on his thinking skills and does not want to treat his brain like a dusty attic full of accumulated bric-a-brac. But good readers have the choice to store information outside their own heads. They can easily look up details they have forgotten. I cannot. Dyslexia forced me to develop my brain into both a factory and a warehouse.
I think that filling my brain with so much information stimulates my imagination in a very productive way. The warehouse supplies the factory, so to speak. The facts, figures, and physical observations stored in my brain mix together in creative ways, but keep my creativity grounded in reality. In other words, I have a practical imagination. I don't just have dreams-I get ideas.
See Beyond Labels
Remember that scene in The Matrix, when the little boy bending spoons with his mind tells Neo that he mustn't try to bend the spoon because that's impossible? Instead, the boy explains, you must try to recognize the truth: that there is no spoon. Well, that's how I feel about "the box."
After I became successful, I was praised lavishly for thinking outside the box, even though as a child I was ridiculed, shunned, or even struck for not fitting into the box. Lately, I've heard it said that dyslexics like myself think out of the box because we've never been in the box. I say, "Enough! There is no box."
How differently would we view the world and ourselves if we saw that the human race consists of 6.6 billion unique individuals? If we did, we'd see everyone else more objectively, and we could better appreciate everyone's individual strengths.
In The Matrix, the little boy tells Neo that if there is no spoon, it is we who must bend. He means that Neo must open his mind to unlimited possibilities, and I believe we all must do the same. Dyslexia helped me see with my own eyes, learn to look others in the eye, fuel my imagination with everything I saw, and look beyond the labels others applied to me. What I ultimately saw, and believe you can see as well, was a world of endless opportunity.
Comments
Andrew Flachner wrote on 09/27/09 6:59 PM
In today's changing world, I believe that NOT taking risk is the biggest risk!
School has always taught us to favor security as an employee over freedom as an entrepreneur. Never has school effectively educated students on how to structure the right people, the right opportunities, and the right resources to embark on an entrepreneurial endeavor.
I agree with Mr. Orfalea's acknowledgment of how a fear of rejection can serve as a hindrance to one's aspirations. However, I believe that this fear of rejection reaches farther than simply interpersonal communication. Many who desire the life of financial freedom fear failure, or the rejection of their idea by the marketplace. Too frequently aspiring entrepreneurs wait for the stars to align before pulling the trigger on what may be a sound business idea. People hide their fears by waiting for perfection.
Entrepreneurs have a different outlook on the world than entrepreneurs. Resources are abundant, not scarce; money is more important than a title and paycheck; and any of the world's problems can, and often do, become opportunities.
Dave Carlsen wrote on 09/28/09 6:32 AM
I have come to two conclusions from this excerpt:
1) People learn in different ways although I do not believe that one is more beneficial than another, simply different. Being able to "see beyond labels" is essential for coming up with new ideas but possibly detrimental for remembering the format of a Balance Statement. As much as we can glorify the "idea man" for thinking outside the box, we need a steady accountant to think "inside the box" and make sure our statements are accurate and legal. Personally, I am an "idea man" and thrive off creativity but when being grilled on accounting statements I realize my "warehouse" of format knowledge is unfortunately barren. I disagree with Mr. Orfalea in that if the entire world was "idea people" we would have millions of great ideas but few of them would come to fruition. With all the excellent ideas that Mr. Orfalea has imagined, I am confident that he had some "think inside the box" people that helped his creations become a success.
2) I need to find a girlfriend immediately so as to avoid asking out my classmates at Mr. Orfalea's request.
Jonathan Mahrt wrote on 09/29/09 10:02 PM
I think that is an interesting point because I know that I was always successful in school because I did so many different things. Involvement or busyness has always been the standard by which I have been told to measure my success. Colleges wanted students that not only had good grades, but who were also involved in a diverse set of extracurricular activities. Even employers want to see that you don't just go to school, but that you have been in clubs and gained experience outside of the classroom. While heavy involvement outside of the classroom is essential because it builds upon the foundation of skills learned in the classroom and it gives your education depth, I do think that our education tends to stifle innovation.
Students are told that there is one successful way, though it allows for some variation, to land a good job and start a career. What our schools fail to mention is that there are other ways that lead to success and that if money is the end goal, then a career where you are stuck climbing the ladder is not necessarily the way to go. I believe that students need to be told that if they have ideas, they should break free from the mold and run with them. I know that as a student I am seriously considering how I view the world and how I am approaching the future. I now realize that I was only walking along the path that other people have set before me, but now I am exploring what it looks like to forge my own path to success.
Vincent Vo wrote on 10/03/09 7:30 PM
Your section on seeing with your own eyes reminds me of what my speech and debate coach used to say in high school whenever we had to miss school for a tournament. He was quoting Mark Twain when he said, "Don't let school get in the way of the education." This was one of the best pieces of advice he gave me.
I felt that my K-12 years were a big test to see if you could conform to set standards and play by the rules. It did not serve to make you unique or interesting. The skills of communication and speech delivery I developed daily speaking in front of 10-20 people gave me confidence to easily meet new people. The social interactions I have had because of this are invaluable when compared with everything I've learned and soon after forgotten in high school.
Kristine Gengler wrote on 10/05/09 3:44 AM
While reading this excerpt my mind drifted back to earlier this week when I learned my own lesson of seeing with my own eyes:
As a student supervisor for a campus job I was given the responsibility to interview and choose new hires for the new year. While discussing potential employees that my fellow Supervisors and I had interviewed, I caught myself relying on the information that was recited to me in the interview: "I am hard-working, responsible, and always put the customer first." While these are good answers, I realized I was making a mistake and needed to see beyond just what their answers were saying to me. I needed to see if they were genuine in what they said, and assess their personality and work ethic through more than their recited interview answers.
Similar mistakes like this can be made in the classroom when students jot down notes on what the teacher says, rather than taking in the subject matter and creating new arguments.
Denise Bono wrote on 09/25/09 4:50 AM
In all my years of schooling, teachers always rewarded the students that kept quiet and didn't create any distractions from the information at hand. Kids were scolded for asking off topic questions and looking at problems in unconventional ways. The goal for me was always to stay inside this "box" in order to be seen as the good student who does what she is asked without making any waves. I did not face any of the difficulties you experienced with dyslexia, which gave me a false sense of security for my success in the future. Now that I am in college, I realize that those who faced opposition and setbacks early on in their education are more prepared for the real world. I agree that those who were always outside "the box" as children will excel beyond those who are still trying to figure out how to escape "the box" as adults.