How to Find the Right Opportunities to Advance Your Career

The world is crammed with opportunities. People are constantly discovering ways to try to do meaningful work and new fields to figure in.

According to reports, 65% of youngsters in primary schools today will find themselves working in jobs that don’t currently exist.

So why don’t most people encounter opportunities that open doors for them? Why do they still struggle to get pathways that empower many thousands across the planet to pursue fulfilled lives?

It’s because we glance at "opportunity" through a standard lens.

Rarely does a chance appear out of the woods and play our front entrance. In most cases, it’s hidden, covered in dust, and blocked by resistance of various types. Few people search for such obscure opportunities as archeologists, treasure hunters, and pirates.

The overwhelming majority continues to fight over conventional roles and definitions. And with each passing day, they find it tougher to sustain, partly due to the increasing number of human beings competing for equivalent resources, and partly because technology is threatening to make us obsolete.

On the other hand, new and unexplored opportunities lay the

platform for tremendous improvement. People that pursue such opportunities feel more engaged at work. They develop grit, which is the most important factor in determining success. They need greater autonomy and less competition, which enables them to do better and progress faster. More importantly, they enjoy what they are doing.

All it takes to get such opportunities may be a change in perspective.

The Anteambulo

Artists (painters, authors, and sculptors) in ancient Rome had affluent patrons who housed them, fed them well, and supported their creative labour. In exchange, the artist would do things like clear the way, communicate messages, and "basically make the patron's life simpler." An anteambulo was the name given to such a private.

Until I examined this, I assumed that artists doing the Renaissance had all the time and money from patrons to do their work. But clearly, there was never such a thing as a gift or a free opportunity.

Every artist whose work made an impression did quite just his work. He appreciated the opportunities he needed to clear the trail for patrons, which successively helped him see how things worked on the inside and opened new doors for him. Instead of getting angry about having to "serve others," artists saw this as a way to add value to their patrons. They brought value to their own job and lives in the process.

Being an anteambulo isn't about making others look good or look better. It’s not being a sycophant. It’s not about sucking up to your boss in order to get a promotion or a better salary hike.

It's a sincere thank you to begin the day.

It’s about providing others with support in order that they will be better. It’s about associating with people more successful than yourself and helping them declutter their lives in order that they can specialise in their strengths. It's all about putting in the hours and being modest. It’s about keeping corporate individuals better than you and making them notice you by results, not words.

Such actions assist you in learning skills way above your pay grade. You become a proactive one that can get things done, yet stay humble because you realize that there are tons of things that you simply don’t know. Instead of trying to find mentors, you deserve to be mentored. And you open your mind to a world of undiscovered possibilities that the vast majority of people will never see because they only do what they're told.

Thus, you help yourself by helping others.

Some samples of making life easier for successful people are:

Inventing new ideas and presenting them to your boss.

Introducing people that may benefit from one another.

Identifying inefficiencies in systems and figuring out how to fix them.

Producing like everyone else and giving your ideas away.

Volunteering to try to do things that no-one else wants to try to do.

You don’t recover by demanding that folks appreciate your work. You are doing so by getting results, by pushing yourself to level up, and by adjusting your attitude to remind yourself that you’re not as important as you think. (If you think that "my attitude doesn’t need an adjustment," it definitely needs one.)

We must deserve opportunities once they come our way. We must be enterprising enough to seek out rough, shine-less stones in coal mines, polish and switch them into diamonds that dazzle others. Only then will we become diamonds.

As the old saying goes, diamonds are just pieces of coal that are stuck to their job.

This is tough.

To not be in the spotlight while people above you are taking credit for your ideas.

To consider flaws within the existing system as opportunities rather than getting enraged by them.

To not cross the skinny line between sycophancy and adding value.

Most importantly, to push yourself out of your temperature.

But the rewards are equally gratifying.

You take up challenges that stretch you, teach you, and cause you to be a far better version of yourself. You build a singular combination of skills that makes you indispensable. And once you keep clearing the trail, you ultimately become someone who controls its direction.

Now that’s an authentic life!