Happy Friday,

Last night I was working on my beehives until 11 PM. It was raining too. Now, us beekeepers are odd folks, but working on hives at night in the rain is not how most anyone would choose to spend their evenings.

You see, my hives died over the winter. Yellow jackets killed them. I ordered two new hives, which will arrive tomorrow, but I thought that I'd move my hives to a spot that is much easier to get to.

Except, when I went a few days ago, thousands of bees were in the once-dead hive.

A swarm found that empty hive and moved in!

Which means a free hive of bees, but it also means I needed to move that live hive to the new location. That's an activity you do at night when all the bees are in the hive.

So, here I am, presented with this awesome opportunity to get a free hive of bees, but I'm completely unprepared for it.

That's how a lot of opportunity works, and that's especially true at our jobs.

What I mean is that things don't often go the way we wished or imagined, but often there is an opportunity hiding in that initial disappointment in frustration.

It took me years to learn to pause when first getting hit with news to answer the question, "How could this be good in a different way?"

Now that question is a habit, and I find it makes a huge difference to my ability to navigate complicated situations with clients and keeps my stress much lower.

My question to you is, when did you hear some unfortunate news that you could find a hidden opportunity at work?

Sincerely,

Ryan