During the recent torrential downpour in Rotorua my daughter's school closed so we picked her up.
We then decided to take a tikitour through the Government Gardens to see what impact the rain had on that area. As we were driving through the Government Gardens, she was using my Samsung phone to take photos and asked to stop the vehicle so she could get out to do so. The photos supplied with this article were two of the photos my daughter Tumanako Bidois took at that time.
Long before David Letterman and other current talk show hosts was a guy named Johnny Carson who said, "Talent alone will not guarantee you success. Neither will being in the right place at the right time unless you are ready. The most important question we can answer is - are you ready?"
When I reflected on the situation with my daughter I realised that she had the talent as mentioned by Letterman. She has always been our whanau resident artist and has always taken amazing photos. She was also in the right place at the right time in that it had just stopped raining and the bowling green water level was at its maximum. However, she proved she was ready by asking me to stop the jeep so she could get out and then followed it up by walking over to the bowling green to get the shots from different perspectives.
As an international leadership speaker I have seen this process worked out in many successful people's lives. They have talent, that talent places them in the right place at the right time but most importantly - they are ready and they act on it. So how about you? What talents might you have hidden and chosen not to use? How often are you in the right place at the right time but choose not to act? Some photo opportunities only last seconds whereas some business opportunities last months, but all of that counts for nought if we think we are not ready and do nothing. Like the photos my daughter took, the actions we take can last a lifetime and have a positive effect on many people. He wa poto to tatou oranga, he wa poto hoki a tatou aheinga - our lives are a relatively short time here on this planet - but our opportunities are even shorter.
