Financial freedom is one of the most elusive subjects on earth, less than 20% world's population has achieved true financial freedom, the ability to keep earning without having to work ever again and keep growing your entire life seems to be impossible to most.

This is part of a new series inside my blog, with the mission of sharing some of the most interesting topics that some businessman, entrepreneurs, visionaries, and investors have taught me.

My name is Nerio Parra, welcome to my blog.

Spanish version.

Speakers like Tony Robbins have mentioned that your focus has a huge impact in the direction of your life, and if we focus on growth, then answers in that field will start to show up in your life very often.

It's also important to mention elements from Gary Vaynerchuk who says "Don't focus on dumb shit". Then when focusing on developing ourselves, one of the tools for growth is taking advantage of opportunities since those serve as a platform for change and evolution.

Jack Ma, Alibaba's CEO was one of the first who enlighted me with such an impressive way of thinking and he was one of the first ones who mentioned something around "Opportunity blindness" which was something that shocked me while reading among his motivational ideas, after that I implied that if I enhanced my vision and opportunity seeking skills, my finance would prosper.

Once you focus is set on the right things, and then you start looking for every opportunity, then the game begins. We could see this as the activity of fishing, where you won't catch any fish unless you actually, get ready, prepare the equipment, go to a pond and do what it takes, where it's also worth mentioning if you have experience or a mentor, the whole process is faster and way better.

The Basics

How do we know we are in front of an opportunity? What if it is dangerous? What if I fail?.

Those are the common questions that you face when you find an opportunity, even though it's important to mention that doubts are OK and there will always be doubts in the road and those will be cleared as you progress while learning new things nevertheless FEAR can be one of the main dreams and goals destroyer and main obstacle for opportunity taking.

It's evident as you grow and make opportunity seizing a sport you develop experience, get more vision and begin to have a clear sense and understanding of risk and how to control it. Risk will always be present, heck, being alive is a risk, but it is not about avoiding risk it is about developing your skills, enhance your capabilities and becoming wiser.

Many stories I come across in my journeys share almost always the same "that very opportunity I took, changed everything...." and of course, it always has some romance on it, yes, that first sight, then getting to know each other yes, you meet opportunity and it meets you too, and then the ending, ohh the ending, it is an adventure my friend.

Enemy #1

Opportunity's number one enemy is indecision. Moments have their own energy, ideas too, and that is why once you come up with an idea and you don't act upon it, within days, weeks or months it loses strength, you lose momentum.

A gift

Not many people know about this but I have a mentor, he guides me, corrects me when I am wrong or when I take the wrong turn. Having a mentor requires a lot of things, humbleness, vision, will, courage, and the hardest part, having someone willing to mentor you. Having a mentor has been one of the best experiences in my life and as athletes have a coach, entrepreneurs have a mentor.

I make that little confession to give you the BEST teaching I have ever received from my mentor which is "Imperfect action".

I could go on for two weeks doing post to cover and translate to you the entire meaning of "imperfect action" but the best and shortest way I can deliver it to you is: Go and do the things that need to be done, just go and do it, you right the wrongs as you go but do it now.

You have no idea how many benefits that have brought into my life and I keep learning since I was a world class postponer a professional one, I left everything undone, for another moment, for the perfect time to end doing absolutely nothing.

I include it because in order to take advantage of opportunities, hitting first, being a pioneer, leading the scoreboards imperfect action works wonders, it's GREAT and above all when you are the first doing a mistake and correcting it before anyone else, you become a leader in any area any field

Unending source

Sometimes it's not about searching it's about knowing where to search. World-class entrepreneurs indicate that there are opportunities everywhere, every day, at any moment it's just you can't see them as mentioned by Jack Ma many times.
Then if you are to become a opportunities hunter and you are not a professional yet then look where trouble is, look where difficulties are, then you shall find.

A town without water, no wifi, bars, restaurants, supermarkets, gym, hospitals are opportunity-rich but usually those are XXL sized opportunities and require a lot more than just the will and imperfect action BUT...

There are opportunities of your size

Many years ago when I was living in Venezuela I found myself ready to restart my entrepreneurial career, I was coming out a two year wound healing recess after bankrupting my first company which was a healthy food enterprise and having to be an employee once again was a nightmare but this time I had enough of it so I saved money for quite some time, gathered resource and started to look where to invest and start again.

I will leave that part of the story on how I started my second business for another occasion but I will give you a glimpse of it. An amazing electronic market rose up once SONY left the country. Thousands of PlayStation 3 customers were left behind, without ANY chance to acquire any more games, controls, cables anything, both kids and parents and also young adults had the money but nowhere to go.

I took the opportunity and became the number one provider of PlayStation 3 games and consoles as well, buying used items in perfect conditions and reselling them for a markup.

Within weeks NOBODY understood the value of these items better than me, remember that price is what you pay but value is what you get and when people don't understand the value of things they end up paying a higher price for things, this applies for both, the marketplace and life itself.

I became an opportunity hunter in that market, refining it up to point where it became an art to me.

The rest is history, it was a beautiful experience, I might someday let you know the name of my store and the tiny details but for now, you just saw how there is an opportunity of your size ready to be taken!

See you in the next chapter of this series!

What opportunities have you taken? whats your opinion? What opportunities have you lost? (this one hurts a lot i just lost a huge one last week) leave your experiences in the comments and smash that vote button. Big hugs

Thank you