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If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door

The title I used for this article can originally be attributed to Milton Berle. It is as accurate today as it was when he first said it.

In 2012, a boy named Kelvin Doe became the youngest person in the show’s history to be invited to MIT’s “Visiting Professionals Forum.” He was 15 years old. See what 8 million people found amazing about this little boy in this inspiring YouTube video.

Kelvin grew up in Sierra Leone and his family was impoverished. He became a self-taught engineer. And in the midst of poverty, he was able to build his own community radio station where he hosts news and music. He created ways for his rural community to have light. He built a generator because he needed it, all with resources he found in his house or in the trash. When he finally appeared in the United States after news of his genius spread, he impressed the minds of the engineers and inventors at MIT.

Kelvin built a door.

So how do you find the opportunity and create the door if nothing comes your way?

One of the things I’ve discovered is that you have to be prepared to take the lead and maybe even lead the way. I am an entrepreneur and founder of a non-profit organization, a social enterprise and several businesses. I firmly believe that if I had spent my life waiting for something to come my way, I probably would have been waiting a long time.

“Building a door” by definition means building something. If you are looking to start something new, you must be ready to create.

Do you always have to be the leader?

I do not think. If you are looking to create opportunities in the development of a new social, non-profit or commercial enterprise, you may be the person with the idea. If you then take that concept to other people who are comfortable in leadership roles, they can work together as a team.

Opportunities and the ideas that create them can be found almost anywhere. Historically, you have people taking an existing product or service and making it better. A simple tweak or subtle change here or there can make something more successful. These types of opportunities can be found simply by looking at what others may be overlooking. Success can often be found by being a little more observant and creative.

Other times, you have people who can create something and solve a problem in a way that hasn’t been done before. Take Elon Musk, Tesla Motors’ chief product architect, inventor, and entrepreneur. He’s been all over the news lately, and for good reason.

Elon Musk is a great example of someone who sees opportunities everywhere. In short, ever since NASA suspended its space shuttle program, he has been working with other world leaders to privatize what was once a government-only effort to get people into space. He is the co-founder of PayPal, which helped revolutionize the way people send and receive money into a much more profitable and seamless transaction on the Internet.

Elon Musk has been all over the news recently for two reasons: 1) He claimed that self-driving cars were a problem that had been “solved.” In his remarks last month, he said the engineers and designers essentially knew how to make a car drive itself and it would be only a matter of time before they would refine and systematically implement it; and, 2) on March 30, he sent a single tweet that would reveal a new invention, which wasn’t a car, on April 30.

That single tweet created a huge stir on the internet, and amazingly, as noted in this article, Tesla Motors stock rose $900 million or nearly 4 percent in the 10 minutes after that tweet.

At the time of this writing, we don’t know what Elon Musk will present, but this is an opportunity. Just like Kevin, Elon Musk is a great example of someone who thinks outside the proverbial box and sees abundant opportunities in different areas. Any of the inventors could have been limited by circumstances or “reality”, but that is not the way they think.

They are creating solutions. They are creating opportunities.

There may not be immediate rewards, but one of the messages you need to internalize is that both Kevin Doe and Elon Musk are building doors where none existed before.

We all have the capacity and ability to do this. It is not special for a favored few. We just have to believe in ourselves and then do the work.

© 2015 Not your father’s charity. All rights reserved.

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