Opportunity amidst opportunity

My first post in a Magazine in my previous company Caritor.Thought let me put it here, lest i lose it!

"When written in Chinese, the word "crisis" is composed of two characters - one represents danger and one represents opportunity."

- John F. Kennedy

The world has seen the scripts change in the annals of history too many times to stumped by even the worst trials and tribulations.God forbid we need not have a 9/11 or a tsunami or a IT crash or for that sake the Great Depression of America.But we have all emerged out of it;some more successful with just guts and grit by their side ,men who sensed something that the others missed -opportunity even when adversity towered against them.You don't need the sixth sense to grab a opportunity .Its right there up for grabs but you need to take it with a pinch of risk and let your skills handle the rest.

A retrospection into the past year and you will find all sorts of disasters ,the aftermath of the tsunami ,a series of storms in coastal America,the great deluge in Mumbai,earthquakes in Kashmir,in addition to all this the industry had its own sets of worries oil touching the $70 barrel mark,more taxes and the list goes on.But still the India grows at 6 to 8% with the sensex fast closing onto the historic 10K mark,the FDI's are steadily flowing in and the FAB's are all decided on choosing India as a desired location.Seldom has the country looked any brighter.So where does all the growth come from amidst all the calamities of life and our own speculations and worries?

We had NGO's ,organizations ,individuals(silent heroes) who woke up to task whenever a disaster occurred ,men who could absorb the shock and the awe of the challenges posed.We had businessmen,venture capitalists stockbrokers even students cashing in the moolah this year on the unprecedented run of the bull in the stock market.Billions of dollars that were washed away in the blink of an eye were being compensated for .Better villages and hospitals are coming in place of the older dilapidated ones both in quake hit as well as disaster hot zones.The opportunity of building a better tomorrow was being visualized and built .Even in Iraq and Afghanistan that lay devastated by the war,companies were competing with each other for contracts and they sensed the golden chance that lay hidden in the barren lands.Companies are moving away fro the traditional markets of America and Europe and going east as well as Africa when they understood that their their products no longer thrived the markets.

Each of us are facing a problem and await the all important solution,the challenges may be in various circumstances,scale,forms,regions or situations.At the end of the day we all hate risks,adversities,changes not necessarily in that order but we hate them all the same .But studies suggest that these factors play a major role in deciding the success rates.With the changing dynamics of economy ,the stature of men seldom matter it is the genuine opportunity seeking skills that each one sees and sees first,when the chips are down that we make the quantum leap from men to demi-god status.

A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner, neither do uninterrupted prosperity and success qualify for usefulness and happiness.History always reminds us that civilizations were lost once it started to saturate or stagnate in its riches.Learn to make lemonade out of life's lemons by taking a step back to consider the bigger picture.You have two choices shape up or ship out. It builds those who are strong enough to withstand its fury and shrewd enough to learn from its repercussions - the Darwin Theory .The weak become diffident and lose focus which takes away his natural propensity to identify the big opportunity that lies hidden within the perils of the disaster.In short when such a person sees adversity, he loses many opportunities to redeem himself from the adverse situation, where as leaders of men would remain calm and composed and seizes the opportunities. They view every problem in life as a challenge or opportunity that one can benefit from.

So let us take refuge in a qoute from Disraeli -"What appear to be calamities are often the sources of fortune."