You can't create opportunities

"Therefore, it is said one may know how to win, but cannot necessarily do it."
– Sun Tzu

One of the most brilliant insights from Sun Tzu is that victory can be known, but not created. It can’t be forced. The only thing you can do to win is to take advantage of openings in your enemy’s situation. And that requires patience.

Of course, you can create solutions, but solutions aren’t the same as opportunities. Clean, renewable energy, for example, is a great, proven solution to our environmental and economic problems. But at the time Obama campaigned and came into office, it wasn’t a great opportunity. Too many people were (and still are) invested in oil. They weren’t ready to transition to something else.

In life, this is the same way. You may be certain, with your knowledge and expertise, that you have the solution to people’s problems. You have the solution that would make everything better at work. You have the solution for your wife to change that situation she’s frustrated with at work.

But you’ll often find that people aren’t ready to listen. They are too invested in their lifestyle and habits to want to make the transition.

The key is to be patient and gradually strengthen your knowledge and skills. If your solution is good, if it can help, and if you keep updating it to fit with the times, then there will come a time when an opportunity will pop up.

And because you are ready where others aren’t, you’ll be able to take advantage of it. You just have to wait.