In the 1970s, a friend of mine was in graduate school on the East Coast. 

One weekend, his church’s pastor invited him to stop by and meet a visitor who was serving her vocation in India. Bill was busy and never quite found the time to stop by that weekend. Years later, he discovered that the visitor he had been too busy to meet was Mother Teresa.

It’s a testament to Bill’s character that he still tells that story of a missed opportunity. And there are business parallels in his experience.

If you’re a business owner, sometimes opportunity knocks on the door—in the form of an idea, a connection that gets made, a realization that you need to focus on a strategy or process. Listening to that knock on the door can change everything. But opportunity doesn’t always knock. Sometimes it just slips in and waits expectantly for you to notice, ask questions and commit to working on your business instead of in it.

When you read a survey on sales trends in your industry, and you don’t explore your own numbers and practices, you let opportunity slip away.

When you set growth goals for your business and don’t develop a plan to achieve them or measure your progress along the way, you let opportunity slip away.

When you turn down a meeting that could lead to new insights and contacts, you let opportunity slip away.

Opportunity doesn’t always knock. When we don’t notice opportunity, it just slips away, perhaps to visit a competitor.

Maybe it’s time to take a look around your business and see whether opportunity has slipped in—or away.