Hi, it's Andy here and welcome to Radiohead Space, and a Thursday morning.

Someone asked me a couple of days ago, how do you spot opportunities when they arise?

We'll get into what an opportunity is in just a moment, but I think the starting place for me with that question is that unless we are present, then actually we don't even see the opportunities that exist in our life.

It may sound obvious, but actually a lot of the time we're caught up in thinking about the opportunities that might be out there for us, and in being caught up in the thinking of them, we don't actually see the opportunities that exist right now.

Maybe we're looking back to another time where opportunities were there and we somehow missed them, or we took the opportunities and we took the wrong opportunities.

But again, we're caught up in thinking. Maybe we're looking ahead and we're caught up in that thinking instead.

It's really only when we are willing to let go of that thinking and be present that we can start to see the opportunities more clearly, and as we got into this conversation around opportunity.

I don't know, for me, the heart of this was perhaps not really about the opportunity. There are so many different opportunities that are constantly out there for each and every one of us.

It's perhaps more about our attitude towards situations as they arise, perhaps being less afraid of the outcome.

Perhaps even thinking about it in terms of it's less about what we're willing to try, and it's perhaps more about what we're willing to leave behind, not in a negative sense.

But very often we feel safe. We feel a sense of comfort and security in the place that we are right now.

The idea of leaving that behind, and that's true even if we're in quite a difficult situation right now. At least we kind of know the situation. So somewhere in our mind, in our psyche, we kind of think, well, is it worth risking this?

And as I look back over a lifetime, definitely the moments that have presented themselves and the opportunities that have worked out.

You know, they could have gone a number of ways, but really they come back to a willingness to leave behind something that might have even been really good at the time.

Might have been really enjoyable at the time. I'm not suggesting throwing things away or leaving things that are unfinished in any way.

So more just a sense of sort of having a way of non-attachment. Not being stuck to any one particular thing. Not thinking that, okay, this is the only thing I need to stay here.

There's something really empowering about that idea of flowing life. I'd like being more like a river than a rock, a sense of movement in it.

If we're willing to go with that movement, then opportunities will always be there. Opportunities will always present themselves.

It doesn't mean that we necessarily have to go far away. It doesn't mean we have to leave the people we love. But it does mean that we have to be present. It does mean we have to have an open mind, a curious mind, and be willing to see what presents itself.

So next time you find yourself in that situation, and you're not sure whether to press go, whether to follow that opportunity.

Maybe have a look at what's holding you back. Is it the anxiety of what might be to come, the idea of perhaps not succeeding in a particular outcome? Or is it perhaps instead a feeling of not wanting to leave that place of safety where we are right now?

As soon as we let go of that, life begins to feel a lot, lot bigger.

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