Around 835 B.C., King Solomon, the great writer of proverbs, made the following statements:

The race is not always for the swift
The strongest does not always win the battle
The wise sometimes go hungry
The skillful are necessarily wealthy
The educated don’t always lead successful lives,
But Time and Opportunity hits us all.

King Solomon is said to be one of the wisest men that ever lived on earth. The above statements, like many of the other profound statements he made, were borne of out his observations and the innate wisdom he possessed.

So what exactly was meant by these statements? As I have already talked about “The Race is not always for the Swift”, I will move on to the other statements.

The following text portions illustrate the importance of timing and opportunity.

The strongest does not always win the battle

Try to picture two men felling trees in a forest. One of them is a strong well-built man using an axe, and the other is a lean and smallish chap using a motorized saw to bring down a similar sized tree. Which one do you think would be doing more work in trying to cut down the tree?

If you thought the muscular one was doing more work then you were wrong. Yes, he is applying more effort or probably seen as being busier, but it is the lean smallish person who is doing more work, albeit effortlessly.

Your impact or significance is not measured by how much strength or effort you apply, but rather by honing your skills and relevantly applying or using these skills.

This also explains why a laborer does not usually earn more than a manager in the same work place. It is about the size of the problem being solved – not the size of the effort being applied.

When boxing legend, Muhammad Ali, had the historic world heavyweight title bout with George Foreman in Kinshasa, Congo, in 1974, it was not Foreman’s powerful punch that determined the outcome of the bout, but rather the maneuvering skills displayed by Ali.

Excerpts from Rexford’s eBook, “Creating Your Future – Keys to Recognizing, Preparing and Going for Opportunities” – available online at http://www.CreatingUrFuture.com