On Wednesday morning, I took Baby Grundy for an early morning stroll round the local park while Lauren got some well-earnt shut eye.

As I dodged the joggers and dog walkers, I popped my headphones in and fired up an episode of one of my favourite podcasts:

Conversations with Tyler.

Tyler was interviewing author Annie Jacobsen on a bunch of wacky topics like nuclear armageddon, conspiracy theories and ESP.

At one point, Annie turned the tables and asked Tyler the following:

“You know the Red Rambler Theory? Just watch. Now that I’ve said Red Rambler Theory, you’ll end up seeing a Red Rambler, one of those cars from the 70s or 80s, drive by. 

This is the idea that once something is in your consciousness, the chances of you seeing it are much greater”

I’ve got my own version of this.

It’s amazing how many more prams and buggies I see on the mean streets of East London now the stork has delivered Baby Grundy into the world.

But there are applications to this idea that go way beyond vehicles on wheels.

One of my favourites?

Spotting opportunities.

Take my “Back to Work” guest post for author and work/life freedom pioneer Paul Millerd. A guest post which still, to this day, has been my number one source of new subscribers for this newsletter.

Well, that all came about because I spotted a line at the bottom of one of Paul’s newsletters which said “I accept submissions for guest posts” and I took Paul up on that.

My Mindset & Clarity workshops are another good example.

My very first Mindset & Clarity workshop didn’t happen because I twisted the arm of HR or smooth-talked the corporate powers-that-be. It happened because I knew I wanted to run the workshops, I was on the lookout for an “in” and when the opportunity came up, I took it.

In this case, that opportunity was an email which mistakenly got sent to a few hundred colleagues instead of a small group of senior leaders.

Not so good for the MD who sent the email, but very good for me as I was one of those few hundred colleagues and I used that email as my cue to suggest a workshop or two. 

i.e. pure Red Rambler Theory.

Interestingly, now we’re 12 months down the line, these workshops have a life of their own. I'm fielding messages from colleagues in teams across the bank asking if I’ll run a session at an offsite or team meeting and I’ve got four workshops lined up in the next two months alone.

All from grabbing one small opportunity when it came along.

One last example which takes this idea in a different and deeper direction was interviewing Anne-Laure Le Cunff for this very newsletter.

In this case, there wasn’t a literal cue. 

There was no neat little line at the bottom of Anne-Laure’s newsletter saying “want to interview me?”

But there was me reading her book Tiny Experiments, wondering if she’d be up for a chat and “seeing” an opportunity that really just existed in my mind but which I undoubtedly had eyes for after bagging my previous interviews with authors Paul Millerd, Rob Wringham and Jenny Wood.

Again, 100% Red Rambler Theory. 

Only this time it wasn’t visual.

As it happens, this interview led Anne-Laure's team to invite me to run a Subtraction Method training for Anne-Laure’s Ness Labs community. The training is tomorrow evening and I hope it won’t just lead to attendees taking away some new ideas on how to unstick whatever parts of life they’re stuck on, but also land me some new readers and coaching clients.

So everyone’s a winner because I “spotted” an opportunity here too.

And that's just for starters. 

I'm buzzing about this idea because I know there are unlimited opportunities to create the sort of life and business I want. 

What’s more, I know the opportunities are already there, just like the prams on the streets of East London were already there too, even before I started noticing them.

So I must be missing shedloads of opportunities every day.

That’s an opportunity in and of itself.

For instance:

What opportunities am I missing to grow this newsletter, to make my new coaching program a success and to promote my soon-to-be published book Don’t Quit Your Job? 

And what opportunities am I missing to find the time to do all this stuff?

The good news is I don't need to slog, grind and wring myself dry to do all this. I just need to spot the opportunities which are waiting to be seen.

The key, if there is one, is noticing them.

Which prompts the question:

How do you notice opportunities hiding in plain sight?

As it happens, the concept of noticing is getting a lot of airtime in American “supercoach” Michael Neill’s latest six month mastermind, of which I’m a fully paid-up member.

I’ve got lots to share about this too but I think this email’s gone long enough.

One for another day.

In the meantime, here’s a question you might like to consider:

Where are you turning a blind eye to great opportunities that are ALREADY right in front of you?

I’ll leave that one with you.

To fulfilment,

Tom

p.s. I’m flirting with the idea of writing a few more daily emails like this one.

By that, I mean emails which go behind the scenes of my newsletter/coaching biz.

I try to stay away from “teachy” stuff in this newsletter. The last thing I want is for my emails to turn into a series of stuffy how-to lectures. But I figured you might be interested not just in the principles I coach from (which I do write about) but also how I actually APPLY these principles to my day job, my newsletter, my coaching, my writing and my life more generally.

So perhaps there’s an opportunity here too.

With that in mind, my question for you is this:

Would that interest you? 

If you have any thoughts, please hit reply. I’d love to hear from you.