The art of seizing opportunities

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Last night the Denver Nuggets took care of Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat to win the NBA championship 4 games to 1.

Yesterday we highlighted Jimmy Butler and his rise to NBA stardom and more importantly non-tech business profitability. If you missed that email be sure to check it out here:

Today we’ll take a look at Nikola Jokic, who is the center for the Denver Nuggets and widely recognized as the world’s best basketball player.

Nikola Jokic

Nikola was born in a small town called Sombor in the country of Serbia. At just a population of 40,000 citizens Sombor is by no means a basketball pipeline to the NBA.

You may look at Jokic and say well of course he made the NBA, he’s 6’ 11” and 284 pounds.

But when he was a young child, Nikola had a different passion. As an abnormally chubby kid, all he wanted to do was hang out with horses at the local race track.

He loved the horses, riding them, taking care of them and even racing them. As a first time racer he placed 4th in a race with very competitive horses and talented jockeys.

But as Nikola grew up it became pretty obvious that he did not have the correct body type for horse racing. Most jockeys are between 4’ 10” and 5’ 6”, which Jokic grew to smash by nearly two feet. We won’t even get into weight requirements.

For Nikola Jokic to pursue his passion would be the equivalent of a natural horse jockey trying to become an NBA player.

Herein lies one of the biggest scams of entrepreneurship. “Pursue your passion” or “Find a job you enjoy doing and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

This is terrible advice.

It’s okay to have your work be your work and your hobbies be your hobbies. Today Nikola Jokic owns 7 horses. He’s made so much money playing basketball that he could buy entire racing leagues if he wants to. In fact, he wants to skip the championship parade just so he can go see his horses sooner.

What is work that you are uniquely suited to that can you gain an advantage in? What is your equivalent of being 7 feet tall?

Here are some examples:

• Incredibly detail oriented and creative(Design Agency)

• Detail oriented with a flair for understanding business(CPA)

• Hard working and good people person(Landscaping)

• Extremely dependent and reliable(literally any non-tech business)

If you can find your niche where you stand out from the other 7 billion people on this planet then you can make more money than you have ever dreamed of.

It may not be as glamorous as being an NBA player, but with enough money you can get as glamorous as you want.

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. -Seneca

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