From Jay Abraham's "Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You've Got," which is quite good and full of stories like this -
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Major breakthroughs come from the correct mind-set. It's an attitude-an opportunistic attitude. People who make breakthroughs are always opportunity-focused. People who don't, aren't. It's that simple.
In 1972 the Democratic convention nominated George McGovern to run for president against Richard Nixon. During the convention, Senator McGovern dumped his vice-presidential running mate, Senator Eagleton. A young, sixteenyear- old entrepreneur saw a one-time opportunity and bought up five thousand suddenly obsolete McGovern-Eagleton buttons and bumper stickers. He paid about five cents apiece for them. He soon resold them as historical and rare political memorabilia for as much as $25 per item.
This is an excellent example of an ethically opportunistic mind-set. True, the young man's one-time windfall profit did not result in a major industry breakthrough. But what is important is that he had the opportunity-focused attitude that is needed to see an opportunity where no one else did. That young man, by the way, was Bill Gates.
I was just mixing an instant coffee and thinking about life.
Man, it's pretty good huh? It's easy to take for granted and forget the ridiculous amazing technology that we use all the time that gives us access to almost all of the information ever uncovered in human history. We can talk long distances for free to anyone with an internet connection. You can get high quality everything for damn cheap by historical standards.
That's not even getting into the general beauty of seeing a cat bat a little ball around, or how the world smells after a rainstorm, or trees, or eating raw sliced pumpkin (try it), or whatever.
And then there's so many people in the world you can connect with, building good friendships, working with people, improving things, building more, reading books.
Life's really good.
