I’m always looking for opportunities. I learned that from my father, who never let an opportunity go unnoticed. Opportunities may seem rare but that’s not true. They’re common. They’re flying all over the place. The issue is that we miss them because we’re too distracted, or when we spot them we’re too afraid to grab them. The only way around this problem is to practice. Try one. Fail. Learn. Try again. Get it! Start small so you don’t risk too much. Scale that process over time. Simple.

This opportunity bit is critical because life is brutal in that it can wreck anything it sees at any given moment. We need to implement as many opportunities as we can just to break even! Remember, it can take decades to recover from some crash life delivers. Or sometimes there is no recovery at all. I know this to be true. Painfully.

I think about this all the time because I’ve missed so many opportunities over the years — but I’ve captured a few along the way as well. A big one I leveraged a while back is represented by the image below. That’s Atul Chitnis. He used to run a software conference in Bangalore called FOSS.IN. I met him via my friend Danese Cooper. Back then I was on the OpenSolaris project at Sun, and I had a community development presentation I was working on. I didn’t really have much experience delivering sessions to large audiences, but Danese thought I’d be good and she said I should submit my presentation to the conference. She also contacted Atul and recommended me. I then spoke to Atul myself and pitched my story. He bought it! I got a session on the main stage! That was my first OpenSolaris session at a real FOSS conference. This wasn’t a vendor sponsored thing. It was real.

My point is that we all need help. We can’t do anything alone around here. That’s why our network is critical. Look for people who will give you a shot. It’s possible your network contains connections you can’t easily see. Keep looking. Keep practicing. Keep pithing.

Atul is no longer with us. He passed in 2013 but I think of him and appreciate that he gave me an opportunity.