How many times have you seen various quotes, sometimes attributed to sporting legends such as Pele along the lines of “you miss every opportunity you don’t take”?

 While this is now a cliché, from my own experience, I can vouch for its truth!

 You see, the more opportunities and risks you take, the more opportunities will come your way.

 There’s never a perfect time to try something new, so you’ve got to bite the bullet and just do it.

 I’ll cut a long story, short.

 During lockdown, while I was employed, I took a LinkedIn Learning course to brush up on my negotiation skills.

I loved the instructor’s style so much that I went on to watch more of his courses, then his You Tube channel and then I listened to the podcasts he’d appeared on. My wife thought that I’d developed an unhealthy obsession with the chap.

 The instructor had enjoyed a stellar career in management training, and I learnt that he was also about to launch a program, prior to his retirement, to help others become successful management trainers.

 After chatting with him, I decided to take the opportunity to join his program.

 The program was incredible, I learnt how to set-up my own business, design engaging training courses, build a website, publish videos on a You Tube channel AND how to deliver great training courses.

 The instructor, let’s call him Chris Croft (because that’s his name) already had dozens of training courses on the best business learning platform in the world, LinkedIn Learning. He had also recently set-up his own video production company.

 He gave me the opportunity to write and record some courses, in the hope that they may meet the demanding standards of LinkedIn Learning. I took THIS opportunity with both hands, too.

I thought the odds of my courses being accepted were astronomically large.

But here we are, just over 2 years from when I first viewed the LinkedIn Learning negotiation course, and I now have 5 courses of my own on the platform.

So my message to anyone reading this is to always try new things and learn new things. Take every opportunity that comes your way – you’ll only regret the ones that you don’t take. And who knows what you’ll go on achieve, the new experiences you’ll gain, and the amazing people that you’ll meet.

It will all add to the richness of your journey through life.

 PS. Existing readers of my material will know that my posts aren’t usually THIS philosophical!