Episode 23: Opportunity

Hey, and welcome to the 23rd episode of Don’t lose your balance. My name is Mallory Durrick. I want to thank everybody for joining. And I hope that you joined last week and several weeks in the past. Last week, I talked about death and I lost a family member very suddenly. And I spoke about that pretty much in depth about my family and, and how it made me feel. And I had also mentioned that today’s episode was meant to be about opportunity. And I want to talk about opportunity a little bit because I feel like opportunity is something that happens for all of us. And fear has this strange tendency to get in the way of preventing us from grasping at that ring. They they you know, that ring they talk about and taking a risk and seeing what what what is that opportunity that’s being presented for us and and how can it help fulfill us make us better? Or will it be a bad decision to reach for that opportunity? And did we dodged a bullet more or less? For me, opportunities that are presented come in all different ways. And I’m sure they do for others. I also know that I feel like many opportunities that have come my way I’ve not reached for because of fear and I’ve missed out and sometimes the opportunity will present itself again. Or sometimes it won’t, it will never present itself again. You know, maybe we look at our jobs or career paths. And we see, we see an opportunity to take on a project or take on a client or take on a job. And either we can’t Don’t or won’t. And maybe that’s good. And maybe that’s bad. I know that sometimes we feel like if we lose out on an opportunity, we say it’s never going to present itself again. And that’s true. I just said that. But hopefully we can also say, Well, maybe it’ll present itself in a different way at some time. I also want to say that opportunity is something because it happens for each one of us. We ultimately have to make the final decision about what is right for us. And that’s where I tend to struggle. I have sometimes been pretty paralyzed by fear in taking a risk perhaps or looking at an opportunity and saying maybe I should do this. And I don’t do it. And so I go to somebody and I’ll say, Well, what do you think? And they’ll say, Oh, you shouldn’t do that. Or I wouldn’t encourage you to do that. And then you don’t and then you think, why did I listen to that person? Lately, and this is really lately when I talk about opportunity and talk about how I’ve been feeling I’m talking about very recently, and no more than maybe a couple of years. I feel like making your own decision is probably the single most difficult thing that you can do. But ultimately the most rewarding and I’ll tell you why.

04:25

If I asked somebody should I get a peloton bike using a stupid example but should I get a peloton bike or should I get a you know, a Nordic track and the person says to me, you know most people I know they use them as coathangers they don’t use they cost use them there. They cost 1000s of dollars, and you’re never going to use it and you don’t have any space for it. Well, maybe all of those things are true, but it’s an opportunity to get fit in a different way. And ultimately the decision to buy a peloton or NordicTrack is completely my own. And all I asked was for somebody is no insight or an opinion? Well, if I listened to that person who might be giving me that kind of negative advice, I would say, I guess I don’t need a peloton or NordicTrack, and I better find a better way of getting to shape. Well, it’s kind of a missed opportunity. Because what if that peloton or NordicTrack is the best piece of equipment I ever bought? And gee, wouldn’t that be a missed opportunity that I might never, I might never see. And remember, once, I had an opportunity to go both parasailing and jet skiing, two things that I would never ever do on my own. And I didn’t want to do either. And I did both. And I hated both. But I look back at the experience of doing both of those things as an opportunity, not loss. But approached with maybe you love it Mallory and confirmed No, I didn’t like either one. And that’s okay. But it was an opportunity not last, despite the fact that I might not have done it. On my own, I’m never going to go zip lining. But if the opportunity presented itself, I might go zip lining, I don’t know. And I think that if we don’t want to miss out on what the end result of an opportunity could look like, which is the best thing, or the worst thing, meaning not the worst thing. But let’s look at it on the positive and it could be the best thing you ever did. And you might say, Yeah, I’m really glad that I had the opportunity to go zip lining and loved it. And it became one of the greatest things I ever did for myself. If I do not recognize that an opportunity that presents itself is for me and me alone, to decide how I want to approach that opportunity, then I’m doing myself a tremendous disservice. And I don’t want to blame somebody else for blocking an opportunity. And I don’t want to convey that. That’s what I’m doing. I’m saying that very often times, I’ve allowed the powerful voices in my head that are also the external voices that I actually hear, get in the way of my ability to accept that I’m mature enough and strong enough to make my own decision and approach an opportunity as a positive or negative, it’s still an opportunity that I have the ability to choose for myself. And I haven’t always done that. And I don’t know what gets in the way of it. And I’m going to say that the one thing that I thought about a lot this week, since the death episode, and since today, which is Saturday. Fear is what drives everything. Fear, for many people is just so paralyzing, that they do nothing to experience the joys of life. Or maybe they allow other people’s narrative to enter into their dialogue of themselves. Fear is one billeting thing. And I don’t want to approach life with this impulsivity that has followed me through my, you know, obviously through my life, but I do want to say I also don’t want to allow fear, fear of what somebody is going to think fear of what is somebody’s going to say, fear of how I will be judged how I will look? But more importantly, what am I missing? What opportunity Am I missing? Because I’m allowing the fear of all of the things I just said to get in the way, and then I don’t do anything. And I’m not saying doing nothing is bad. Because no harm no foul. But again, lost opportunity missed opportunity. And I want to talk about it today. Because if you don’t reach for these things, then what’s it all about? And why are we even here?

09:22

I’m not proclaiming, you know, I’ll ever have it all figured out. I don’t think I will. But I I do believe that. I’m making some really great strides and I will no longer and I’m going to make a proclamation I am no longer going to allow opportunities that are presented in front of me not be something I’m going to really evaluate whether it’s good for me, based on my opinion in my alone. I’m not going to allow other people to get in the way of an opportunity for me because there are times even though people who love me Give me advice they may have what I would consider personal motive, personal, negative motive, meaning we all have agendas. And we, I don’t care who you are, I know you all do it. We all and I do it. We all allow our personal agendas to get to interrupt somebody else’s opportunity. It’s just the way of the world. And I once asked a question in a clubhouse room, you know, how do you how do you run a company and get to the top without stepping on other people? And I’m not sure I actually got the right answer. I may have gotten an answer. But I don’t know if you can. How do you? How do you look at an opportunity and not leave others in a trail behind you? And I’m not sure you can, I don’t know that an opportunity gained is somebody else’s loss. And if we allow other people’s agendas, to interrupt or block become an obstacle to our own personal gain, we’re doing a huge disservice to the own, to our own opportunities to our own ability to grow. And hey, you know, I get it, and I am taking ownership and responsibility, and I’m not letting it happen again. And I know that I’m saying this somewhat, vaguely. But it’s been it’s been heavily weighing on me for a while. And I, I want to say that sometimes you will never get that opportunity again. So really think to yourself, what do you need to do for yourself, and not for somebody else’s personal agenda to suit them. You want to buy a peloton or a Nordic track, you go right ahead. You want to fly across the country, you go right ahead. You want to travel and maybe you want to quit your job. Go ahead, make sure you have a plan. Good plan, plan A and then of course, have a plan B because I talk about that a lot and allow all of the opportunities that are presented to you in your lifetime to be only great ones, you know, they’re not always going to be and you will make some mistakes and you’ll fall along the way. But you know what, you can pick yourself up and keep going and learn from that mistaken opportunity and make it better for the next one. Okay, well, I hope you enjoyed this or any other episode of Don’t lose your balance. You can download it, share it. Follow me on Instagram, I have two handles. One is Mallory underscore direct. The other is Don’t lose your balance. Emma’s and Mary SS and SAM D as in David, that’s Don’t lose your balance. M S D. I have a website. Don’t lose your balance calm. And I look forward to hearing how you didn’t lose your balance along your journey of life along the way. Thanks so much. See ya!

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Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Hi, I am Mallory Durrick. I am a creative. A Marketing Strategist and Web Designer with a small and modest boutique Marketing Agency living in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I am the creator and narrator of this podcast, Don’t Lose Your Balance. This is a culmination of decades of self-help books, countless doctors, numerous hospitals, including rehabs. Once a wife, now divorced, a mother, a grandmother and an addict in recovery. These are things that I am and have experienced.

I’m sharing it all. Baring it all. Hoping to help others; not lose their balance.