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b'What if your biggest opportunity didn\\u2019t involve doing more but doing less?\\n\\n\\n\\nWhat if scaling back and simplifying wasn\\u2019t only a way to make your life better but a way to build a more successful business, too?\\n\\n\\n\\nThis month on What Works, we\\u2019re exploring opportunity\\u2014how we discover it, how we decide to pursue it, and what we do to take advantage of it.\\n\\n\\n\\nLately, I\\u2019ve been thinking about how we are prone to waiting until \\u201copportunity\\u201d comes to us nicely packaged and easy to use.\\n\\n\\n\\nWe wonder if the latest social media platform will be the key to growing an audience or if the new trend in products or services will unlock a new revenue level.\\n\\n\\n\\nBut I find that the best opportunities don\\u2019t come nicely packaged.\\n\\n\\n\\nInstead, opportunities often present themselves in messy ways\\u2014a series of \\u201cWhat if?\\u201d questions, a loose synthesis of seemingly unrelated information, or a jarring new perspective on an old problem.\\n\\n\\n\\nAnd I have found, over and over again, that the best way to notice these messy, half-formed opportunities is to put myself in the thick of other people\\u2019s \\u201cWhat if?\\u201d questions and the din of their seemingly unrelated stories.\\n\\n\\n\\nI\\u2019ve discovered my best opportunities at conferences and meet-ups, as well as in masterminds, direct message threads, and even when I\\u2019m doing podcast interviews!\\n\\n\\n\\nWe have a whole\\xa0world\\xa0of information at our fingertips.\\n\\n\\n\\nBut what\\u2019s really useful are the ideas that are filtered through our conversations and connections\\u2014curated, social ideas that help us turn questions into opportunities.\\n\\n\\n\\nThese settings hold one of the keys to new opportunities because they help us see things in a new way. They change our perception of what\\u2019s possible by presenting options we might not have ever considered on our own.\\n\\n\\n\\nAnd this is key.\\n\\n\\n\\nBecause no matter how creative we might be, it\\u2019s hard to come up with a completely unfamiliar idea. Instead, we use what\\u2019s familiar or known to make smaller leaps.\\n\\n\\n\\nThis contributes to the phenomenon that I\\u2019ve been calling \\u201cThe Squeeze.\\u201d\\n\\n\\n\\n\\u201cThe Squeeze\\u201d occurs when you\\u2019ve run out of capacity in your business.\\n\\n\\n\\nYou simply don\\u2019t have the time, energy, or mental bandwidth to do\\xa0more, and so you can\\u2019t really see a way for the business to grow. Still, The Squeeze convinces you that if you just rearranged the pieces or tried a little harder, you could force some fresh growth.\\n\\n\\n\\nBut alas, you just end up squeezed into a different arrangement of the same pieces.\\n\\n\\n\\nIn other words, you use what\\u2019s familiar to try to work your way out of the Squeeze\\u2026 and so you can\\u2019t quite escape because \\u201cwhat\\u2019s familiar\\u201d is what got you into the Squeeze in the first place.\\n\\n\\n\\nTo actually alleviate the Squeeze, you have to take a completely different perspective and see things in a new way. And that\\u2019s how talking things out with others and learning how they see things differently really helps inspire opportunity.\\n\\n\\n\\nNow, I know it\\u2019s challenging to have those conversations or connect with people who see things in different ways. That\\u2019s one of the reasons I started this podcast 5 years ago; I desperately wante...'