A friend of mine told me about a great dream.

He had this dream during a very stressful time in his life in which he felt trapped in a job that he didn’t really like, and he knew he wanted to do something else, but felt paralyzed by his salary.

One night, he dreamt that he was walking down an empty street when he came across a golf ball. Without explanation, he felt compelled to kick the golf ball. He gave it a good ride, and it went rolling down the street until it went under a car.

When it disappeared under the car, a strange thing happened: The golf ball he kicked disappeared, but in its place where hundreds of golf balls flying out from under the car. It was much like when a cue ball hits a rack of billiard balls. Golf balls were everywhere.

By simply kicking the one golf ball, he produced unanticipated activity among many.

When he awoke, he knew exactly what it meant. Likewise, when he told me, it struck me immediately, as well.

The lesson was to do something. Only be causing an action can you have reactions.

Put another way, if you want to create opportunities for yourself, you have to kick start something. Perhaps it’s a phone call checking in on an old work colleague. Maybe it’s a job application you otherwise may have never sent. Perhaps it’s getting a loan or going to an industry event.

Whatever it is, to create inertia and momentum, you have to take an action. Sitting and stressing or lamenting your circumstances will never result in solutions. But if you kick a golf ball now and again, you never know what the ball may hit, and the chain reaction that may result.

Oftentimes, the best opportunities that lay in front of you are the ones you never saw coming.