A Word About Opportunities and What's Perfect?
There are opportunists and there are opportunities and I think it is important to clarify the distinction between the two. I am not in favor of an opportunist because by definition it is “A person who exploits circumstances to gain immediate advantage rather than being guided by principles or plans”. On the other hand, I love opportunities and encourage all entrepreneurs to seek, create, and be open to every opportunity to promote you and your business so that your customers/clients are able to get to know the authentic you.
So in that vein, I want to say, “I had the opportunity to have my loft featured in the LA Downtown News”. It’s important to note however, that I created the opportunity for myself. A lot of us wait for opportunities, but sometimes you have to grab your opportunity by the hand and say come on! When I first saw the special section, “What’s in my loft?” in the LA Downtown News, I thought, “I want to be featured in this section.” But how do they find me and learn about my loft, I wondered. So I found out who published that particular section and I contacted them. They followed up and asked to come photo shoot my loft!
I was so excited! The only problem was, the date they wanted to come, my husband had just started doing some work in the loft installing a TV in the wall, and he had drywall and all kinds of other materials all over the loft! This meant I had to postpone the feature because I couldn’t get things cleaned out to make my loft camera ready in time. Skip to several months later, the LA Downtown News asked again! Awesome! Except one problem. My daughter needed to temporarily store her things in our loft while her remodel was completed. This meant moving a king size bed into the main living area! I couldn’t postpone again! What if they decided to discontinue the feature? This was a conundrum, and especially at a time when I wanted everything to be perfect. This got me to thinking about entrepreneurs that are afraid to launch, entrepreneurs that want to wait until everything is perfect. I had to do it now, and hope that by the time the photographer came, my daughter’s furniture, including the bed would be gone.
That didn’t happen. With the bed still prominently displayed in the living area, the big moment arrived. Sporting a smile on my face and a look that said everything is alright, I welcomed the interviewer and the photographer into my loft. Perfect is never perfect, and you are the only one that really knows the difference. If I wanted to say yes to this opportunity, I couldn’t wait for perfect. Besides, what’s perfect anyway? I asked them to shoot around the bed, and this was the result on pages 10-12.
xo, jan