This weekend the members of the class of 1969 at John F. Kennedy High School in Plainview, NY got together for our 40th reunion. Unfortunately, I was not there and judging from the pictures I missed a wonderful event. I chose not to go for several reasons. However, the primary reason was that I was just back in NYC in June and I will have to go back again this fall. I felt that three trips back east in such a short period of time was too much. As it turned out, I got to see several people here on the west coast before they left for NY. I told them to take lots of pictures which they then generously posted on facebook.
My dear friend Jan whom I’ve written about in prior entries here and here visited me this past weekend. We met during our freshman year of college and have been close friends ever since. In 1971, Jan transferred to another college for the remainder of her education. I frequently visited her there and became friends with many of her new friends. One woman in particular named Deb was especially fun to be with and very smart. I would spend time with her whenever I came to visit Jan. Although we have kept up with each others’ lives through Jan, I hadn’t seen Deb in probably thirty years. Coincidentally, Deb ended up being in town at the same time as Jan and the three of us had a reunion this past weekend. Read the rest of this entry »
Each time that I watch this video, I feel my deep ambivalence about making intimate connections with strangers. Intellectually, it feels like a wonderful idea. However, when I’m walking outside and someone I don’t know nears me, it takes all of my courage to look them directly in the eye and smile at them. My fear of rejection is so great that I don’t want to risk even a moment of rejection for the possibility of connection. And yet I do. Most times, the other people happily return my smile. They have no idea how much I felt I just risked in offering a simple smile.
And what is a “simple smile”? It turns out that there are several different types of smiles. A “Duchenne smile” (named after the French doctor Guillaume Duchenne who studied facial expressions) is considered to be an authentic smile as it involves the contractions of both the voluntary muscles around the mouth and the involuntary muscles on the sides of our eyes. This signals a rush of genuine spontaneous positive feeling on the part of the person smiling. A “non Duchenne smile” involves only the voluntary contraction of our mouth muscles and thus can be perceived to be a more superficial or manipulative expression. Read the rest of this entry »
I initially wanted to label this post: Opportunity Is A Contact Sport! However, upon thinking more about contact sports and their proclivity for injury and damage, I decided that contact improvisation would be a much better and more “opportune” metaphor. According to Wikipedia.com “contact improvisation is a dance technique in which points of physical contact provide the starting point for exploration through movement improvisation.” This notion of connection and contact is so inherent to The Opportunity Game it is quite easy to overlook it.
Connection is the engine that fuels the power of The Opportunity Game. Cultivate your internal connections (your personal aha! moments) and your online and offline interpersonal connections. These can spur any number of unexpected opportunities. A great example of connection leading to opportunity occurred for me earlier today. A student of mine contacted me for help in regard to a coaching issue. I answered his question quickly and easily. He gratefully responded although he also bemoaned the fact that there was no specific place to go to receive answers to the type of question that he was asking. Immediately, I saw an opportunity that would benefit me and other coaching students who had similar issues. I could resurrect an old online column that I had stopped writing a couple of years ago that specifically responded to these very sorts of questions. While my student was the one who made the initial connection, as a result of our conversation this afternoon, I will create an opportunity for myself that will be mutually beneficial. Acting on this opportunity will then create numerous other opportunities for me that I can’t even foresee today. Read the rest of this entry »
Duh! Of course to win any game you must intend to win. Consistent wins are not a matter of chance. You must know your game inside and out, know your strengths and weaknesses and practice your skills everyday. However, as any winning athlete will tell you, your mental game is just as important as your physical game.
And this is where intent is most important. When you make choices in your life, how many are truly intentional and how many are made with minimal awareness or care about impact? Most likely you make big decisions with great awareness and smaller decisions with lesser awareness. Now imagine what your life would be like if everything you did or chose was made from conscious intention and awareness. Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes golden moments exist in the midst of trial and tribulation and sometimes they arise in the midst of success and joy. In my experience, the most golden moments are those when life has thrown me lemons and I’ve squeezed all the juice out of them that I can. For me, to share that juice with others, it just doesn’t get any better than that!
Ten and a half years ago I was diagnosed with a very lethal form of cancer. Because ovarian cancer is particularly hard to detect in its early stages most women die of this disease. I was lucky to have experienced several particularly searing pains that allowed the cancer to be treated relatively early in its development.
During my treatment, I decided that there was no point in having a tragedy if I couldn’t make it work for me. Read the rest of this entry »
This weekend the members of the class of 1969 at John F. Kennedy High School in Plainview, NY got together for our 40th reunion. Unfortunately, I was not there and judging from the pictures I missed a wonderful event. I chose not to go for several reasons. However, the primary reason was that I was just back in NYC in June and I will have to go back again this fall. I felt that three trips back east in such a short period of time was too much. As it turned out, I got to see several people here on the west coast before they left for NY. I told them to take lots of pictures which they then generously posted on facebook.![[del.icio.us]](http://theopportunitygame.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
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