When situations seem to be difficult and shattered, we can still keep a positive attitude and see those problems as opportunities. If we see from a larger perspective, it is all a learning path, and in this path, we make many mistakes and face many problems. But we should never give up, and we should be optimistic.
Everyone finds it discouraging when their present conditions do not match their planned and desirable expectations. Problems occur repeatedly, and even most motivated people get discouraged.
WHAT’S IN IT
Understand the situation
The skill of turning a problem into an opportunity is an art that is practised by a clear and open mindset.
We should accept the situation and search for things that we can change and turn them into a source of new opportunities.
We cannot control everything happening around us, and there is no need to feel bad when unexpected problems come in our way.
Focus on the solution, not on the problem
We should focus on the possible results of the situation more than on the problem. The problem will not give us anything but the path of finding the solution can open many new opportunities for us.
Judge the available options
Observe what we can do. Create a list of all options that we have and create an action plan then act according to it. Whatever the situation is, we should always continue to move on and continue our journey.
Take responsibility and do not play a blame game
Blame and finger-pointing only cause anger and make the problem bigger. We should take responsibility and take the challenge to solve it. Self-blaming is good. It is good to take ownership than to blame others.
Write the problem and define it
Many people ignore it, but this is the most important part of the process because writing down helps us understand the issue. This will remove the duplicate thoughts from our mind, and it will be much easier to focus on the solution.
Just like Maths, life problems are easier to solve on paper than in mind.
Identify the cause of the problem
It is this part that investigates the context in which the problem is occurring. This will reveal which cause is the one to focus on.
Taking actions without identifying the factors of the problem will lead to undirected efforts and wastage of time and other resources.
How solving problems can create business opportunities?
Always focus on creating a problem-solving product. All big entrepreneurs make such products.
Look at Facebook, it has two billion monthly active users, who are managed by normal teams not by the owner. Instead, Mark Zuckerberg and his highest creative team are investing their full time in making a problem-solving product.
Look at Google CEO Mr Sundar Pichai and his top core team; they focus on market responsiveness (Problem-solving product ). Market responsiveness means responding to the signal given by the market.
Look at Elon Musk; he is a crazy and paranoid person who and his all companies (Tesla, SolarCity, SpaceX, etc.) are focused on solving the biggest problem of the whole world. He talks about creating cheap rockets so that common man can travel in space. Elon’s ‘The boring company’ works on reducing traffic in cities by developing autonomous vehicles that work inside a tunnel.
Look at these companies: Netflix, Youtube, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Alibaba, Amazon, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, etc.
These companies are not focusing on tv and print media ads; they all are focusing on problem-solving products. Alibaba created a ten billion-dollar business in one day without tv ads; Tesla sold Model 3 worth 10 billion dollars before 1.5 years of the official launch in just two days.
Steve jobs focused on creating an iPhone, which would make customers stick to that device.
Snapchat identified the inherent need of its customer. Sharing a pic without getting stored.
Xiaomi created a customer’s cost of convenience by giving high specifications at a low price.
Create a product that makes social influence so that people will repeatedly buy it and refer it to others.
Also You can read our blog on How to use Cause and Effect Analysis to Easily Solve any Problem
Example of turning a problem into the opportunity
Steve Jobs’ life is the best real-life example from which we can learn, developing such a mindset of turning problems into opportunities.
I read a beautiful speech by Steve Jobs in the convocation at Stanford University; he talked to the graduates of 2005. Steve Jobs said,” I never graduated, and this time is the nearest I ever got to graduation.”
He said his biological mother was an unwed graduate, and she wanted to give him for adoption before he was born out.
One condition was that the adopting parents should be graduates, and parents were assigned, however when he was born, he was a boy instead of a girl, and they refused to take him.
Then another set of parents was contacted, and he was assigned to them. Still, when his biological mother came to know that they are not graduate, she refused, months later, she considered on the condition that they would make this child the graduate.
Those two now his parents to be they were poor, and they were little educated. After schooling, he chose Reeds college, the fees of which was equal to that of Stanford and Steve Jobs in his speech says that it was a big mistake, after one year I felt that this is too much burden on my parents and dropped out of the course.
Facing problems
After that, I was staying in the dormitory with my classmates without paying fees, and to feed myself, I used to collect cold drink Bottles And sell them for 5 cents. Since I was not now actually officially registered in any course, I would drop anywhere and whenever I like to.
He would select and choose the courses he liked; he says that some classes on calligraphy caught his attention. Reeds college had the best calligraphy in the whole country, that is where he learned about serif and Sans serif fonts.
He says that it turned out to be a blessing in disguise because later on when he met this partner of his, and he started manufacturing computers from his father’s garage.
Slowly it became successful as he utilized his knowledge of serif and Sans serif fonts because if you remember the DOS earlier, it never had anything of the sort. So he says what such a terrible thing was, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. And further ahead, he says in his speech that since Windows copied everything of Mac, so he also copied the Serif and Sans-serif fonts, and that is why computers around the world have these beautiful visuals fonts.
Turning another problem to opportunity
Then he says at the age of thirty when he was at his career’s top, and Apple had become famous; he was thrown out of the company. Now, how can you be thrown out of a company that you have found?
What happened was that the company got some investors on board, and these investors had a difference of opinion with him, and they threw him out.
When he was thrown out, he felt shattered. It was a very public dismissal, and he says he felt like the world has come to an end. What to do now? He thought he had let down the innovators of the era, and he went and apologized to them. ‘I’ am sorry”.
Never the less, after six months he realized that he still likes doing the same thing, so he established two new companies, Pixar and NeXT , because he did not weight Apple on him.
He was now light and with that freedom he allowed his creativity to soar and the technology Pixar developed later on; it got acquired over by Apple, so he came back in the company, and that technology is the basis of the Apple products of today.
Conclusion
So as said in the introduction,” look, when things to be drained out and hard, you can still keep a constructive attitude, and you see them as blessings in disguise. From God’s perspective, it is all learning curve.”
We are all WIPs( Works in Progress), not VIPs, and in this situation of ours, we will make many mistakes, face many problems, and things will become harsh before they become easy. So we should never feel dejected, we should never feel discouraged, we should constantly learn from mistakes and keep improving them.