Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 709 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
Opportunity Comes More Than Once – Mindshift Monday


Thank you for joining us for our 5 days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. This is Day 709 of our Trek, and it is time for our Mindshift Monday series.  Wisdom-Trek’s primary focus is to assist you in creating your living legacy.  Creating your living legacy can only be accomplished by gaining wisdom in many areas of life.  You can only gain wisdom by changing what you allow to go into your mind which is a result of changing the way you think.  In other words, to create your living legacy you must choose to be in a continual mode of Mindshift.  It is easy to get stuck in a mindset that your current circumstances cannot be changed.  This is not true, but you must understand this fundamental principle: In order to change your life, you must change how you think and what you think about.   Our Mindshift Monday podcast and journal will be to provide you practical ways to make a mind-shift to a rich and satisfying life.

 We are broadcasting from our studio at ‘The Big House’ in Marietta, OH.  Each day we have opportunities that are presented to us, and we make choices to capitalize on those opportunities or not too.  In much of the motivational rhetoric that we hear today it would seem that opportunity only knocks once, and if we miss it, then we will never have that opportunity again.   In most situations in life, this is just not true.   We need to realize that our lives are made up of different seasons, and we may have to pass up opportunities in life that are just not suited for the season of life that we are currently in.  While I don’t promote procrastination or putting off something that we should do now, if an opportunity is not quite right for now, or if you are not prepared for it now, then the same, or maybe even a better opportunity will come your way in another season of life.  We need to have a mindshift and be prepared when the time is right.  Let’s look at it this way.  I am now 61, and in the past, that would be considered nearing retirement and winding down my activities.  With today’s medical breakthroughs, and staying in good physical, mental, and spiritual shape, I could easily live another 60 plus years.  That being said, I look forward with anticipation to the opportunities that will come my way because of my experience, wisdom, time availability, and financial situation which I was unable to capitalize on in the past.  Instead of being of the mindset that we will lose opportunities if we don’t take them now, it is time for a mindshift to realize that:
Opportunity Comes More Than Once
In the days before modern harbors, a ship would sometimes have to wait until flood tide before it could make it into port.   The words for this in Latin was ‘ob porter,' which signifies a ship standing over against the port waiting for the moment when it can ride the turn of the tide into the harbor.

The English word “opportunity” is derived from this original meaning.  The captain and the crew were ready and waiting for that one moment, for they realized that if they missed it, they would have to wait for another tide to come in.  We cannot lose sight in this situation that there would always be another tide, maybe at a more convenient or proper time.

All is not lost if we allow an opportunity to pass us by without seizing it.  It may not be the proper time, or you don’t have the proper resources, or you are not prepared in some other way to capitalize on the opportunity today.  Opportunities, like tides, will come again and give you another chance, when the time is more appropriate.  Below are four scenarios where opportunity comes more than once.
1.   Opportunity comes more than once if we are patient