Here is the complete transcript of the podcast
Welcome, and welcome back to Success with Srini. Today on the podcast, I’m doing something that is not new, old. You should never say that you should always say it’s new. Well, as truth is in self-improvement, Nothing is new. Everything is old. Not truth. Not true. There are many new things, but most of it is old. Okay, so on the podcast today, I’m going back in time to an episode I did in 2016, I’m going to bring that content, that idea back, and I’m going to give a new life to it, kind of put a new spin to it. And the reason why I’m doing this is that I have been part of multiple different conversations, and I’m hearing people talking about it. This is not a question that I’ve gotten. Okay, I want to be very clear, this is not a question from the listener. This is a question I made up myself. The question is this, “how do I prepare for an opportunity?”
I think this entire podcast, this whole thing is all about opportunity. I think this morning, you woke up thinking about an opportunity. You don’t know this, your unconscious mind does know this. You woke up this morning, asking a question, how do I get there? How do I accomplish this? How do I get over my pain? How can I get a solution to my suffering? All that. So in a way the brain is also along the way. Along with those questions, your brain is asking, What can I do to make this thing my own this opportunity my own? It’s asking. Well, there are so many things I talked about on this podcast, but I want to highlight a few things about the opportunity. Opportunity is for everyone. You have, I have, all of us have the opportunity, it’s more or less the same opportunity. It is just that how we happen to something, decides the outcome more than what we are happening to. I hope I made it clear. It’s how we happen to things. So it’s how you happen to an opportunity. It’s not about the opportunity, it’s more about you. If I have to choose between you and the opportunity, I will choose you. And I’ll talk less about the opportunity. Because if we pursue anything, doesn’t matter. Anything with the right amount of skill, time, effort, support, talent, all that we achieve. That’s the truth. Most people don’t, most people do not do what is necessary to accomplish whatever that is they’re going after they don’t do enough, and they don’t put in enough. And we are in a time and we are in a situation or we are in a culture now. Where we want to do less, we want to make more and everything, whether it is about investing, it’s about business, it’s about relationships, it’s whatever, anything and everything. It’s all about how can I do less? And how can I get more? Well, if you live as long as I have lived, and I have lived a lot according to me. That means in terms of duration I’m talking about, then you will come to realize that there are no shortcuts to any place worth going to. There are no shortcuts in life for anything. If you’re doing something worthy, there are no shortcuts and I’m realizing that now with this podcast, by the way, no shortcuts.
So let’s talk about how do we go after an opportunity? The first and the foremost is this. The first and the foremost thing I would focus on i, where do I stand? Relative to, where the opportunity is? That’s the first question I will ask. So for example, I want to buy a house. But if I want to buy a house, the first thing is okay, what’s the price? Well, a million dollars, let’s say, Do I have enough money to put down? Well, if I have enough money to put down my next question is how much will I be borrowing. And if I’m borrowing at what interest rate, I’m boring, because that along with my down payment will decide the monthly payments I have to make? And then once I’m over that, the question becomes says, Do I have a credit score? What credentials do I have to borrow money and all that? So who is going to lend me the money? And all right, I’m gonna ask those questions. Now, once I’m done with that, that means what I’m doing is, of course, there are many more things to it, but what I’m doing is I’m assessing where I stand relative to the opportunity. Okay, so I want you to look into a situation that you are dealing with right now. And that’s the purpose of today’s podcast is whatever you are going after, how far are you away from that? Let’s take the example of your job or your carrier. What’s the gap in terms of carriers not about money. It’s not about the title. Most people go the wrong way. But primarily it comes down to skill. Okay, skill. Do you have the skills? You want to become a CEO, CTO, whatever. So do you have the skills? And if you do not, then how far do you stand away from those titles? That’s the question you have to ask. First, start with skills. See, it’s wonderful when some skills are innate, they’re inborn.
So, you wake up in the morning, you don’t need to feel that you need to learn something, you already have it, you have that in you. Some people are immensely blessed with a lot of skills. But for a job or career in this example, I want you to assess what’s the gap? That’s where they start first, then the question becomes is, what’s the amount of investment I have to do to bridge the gap. Or in terms of investment, we’re talking about time, when I say time, time also includes money. Either you put your own time into something, or you hire somebody to put in the time. So when you’re hiring somebody, then you are giving them money. So time and money are synonymous in this discussion. So I’ll start with skill, I will assist the gap. And to bridge the gap, I will think about investing and investment from my side would be either time or money. When I say time, it’s affordable. So even if you put in money, there is effort, but the effort also goes is a silent denominator between time and money. Now, the last one is supported. Support is people who are not directly connected with the opportunity. People who you don’t need to pay to get their time. Those are not the people but people who care for you. They are connected to you, but they are not directly aligned with this opportunity. It doesn’t matter to them, whether you succeed in achieving whatever you’re going after, or not. But these people care for you. So they’re in a way connected to wait but not really directly connected to it. So these, for example, my mom, my dad, my wife, my husband, my kids, all these are connected, but then they really are not making the calls on the things that I am going after. So you get the idea now, so you need skills, if you have them great, but then if it’s a real opportunity, we will always have some gaps. And depending upon which opportunities we are going after will always be a gap. And I go after to bridge the gap, and I bridge the gap. But time and money and effort are the common denominator between these two, which means there is an investment, and then there is the support that I need to accomplish.
Now, there is one thing that most people don’t talk about. And I want to highlight this when it comes down to a discussion like going after opportunities, which is your mindset. People get excited about something. And they applied themselves for a very short amount of time, they get excited, and they do a few things here and there. They put in some time, they put in some investment. And somehow they also have the support. But then they never follow through. And they quit at the first point of resistance from anything that they’re going through after they quit believe this is where mindset comes in. And this is where good coaching comes in. And this is why I insist. And it doesn’t matter whether you take get coached by somebody who has done it before or get coached by somebody who is related to you, or who’s a friend of yours, or somebody who has leverage on you doesn’t matter, but you need to be coached. And you need to be quoted primarily in the mindset. So you need talent. That’s the first thing you make time for. And then you need a team. If any of these three things are missing, or one of the three things is missing, then you will be separated from the opportunity, whatever that is. And of course, dialing time and a team will all come together only if you have the right mindset. I have talked about this in 2016 and multiple times in bits and pieces over the years. But then this frame through which I’m approaching today, like talent, time, team, and all these three things are connected with mindset. This frame is different. The elements are at all It was talked about multiple times.
For example, in 2016 I talked about 2017, and 2018 when I was talking about how to go after an opportunity. I had a different frame. I remember one time I said this I said you got to have the purpose in place. And then I said you need to be having an initiative You should be driven. And then just purpose and initiative are not enough, you need to also have imagination too. And then I said, while purpose initiative imagination is in place, you need to also have some discipline. And every time you are faced with resistance, then discipline along with courage. Another thing is, courage is also necessary to overcome resistance. So, I have had multiple different frames through which I looked at an opportunity in the past, but this one of using talent time and team specifically within talent, the skills, doing a gap assessment and then bridging the gap with time and money. And, of course, effort as the common denominator, and then putting a team together to support you in that venture. I want to highlight one quick thing here, as I’m wrapping this up. Most people undermine the power of a team. And you don’t have a team, you can accomplish much solo as an individual you can. But then you can’t accomplish much without having a team. So this podcast started out with me as the solo guy doing this. And now, we’re starting to build a team around it so that I can produce more content, can free myself away from all the ancillary stuff that has to happen after I’m done recording this podcast. All that with a team in place is easier. And now I can scale it to a different level. And of course, you need to have the right people and all that in place. But you got the idea. The team is not talked about a lot but then it is necessary for any level of superior success.
Okay, I’m done with this today. Okay, this is it. I hope this is helpful. If it is do me a favor, and write a review. If you’re watching this on YouTube, read it, like it, subscribe to the channel, and write a comment. You’re listening to this as a podcast, in any of the apps that rate the podcast. Also, write a review. That way I can do better. That’s all for now. Wherever you are, be safe. And I’ll catch up with you. I’ll talk with you as early as tomorrow. Stay tuned.