The Opportunity Bus: How to Seize the Opportunities That Come by Your Request Bus Stop

By Ennio Vita-Finzi

Tired of your career? Maybe it's time to switch directions. If you're open to change and willing to do some exploring, then you need to take advantage of The Opportunity Bus. The bus operates continuously, providing transportation to new experiences and adventures-if you step on board when it stops.

Following his own philosophy, Ennio Vita-Finzi describes the opportunities he seized through his optimistic jaunt through life. Known as a "human energy source with no reverse gear," Vita-Finzi seizes the most out of a life that has taken him around the world. He's had careers in air transportation, banking, and the service sector, was a trade commissioner in Western Europe, South America, and the United States, and managed four companies in Canada and Mexico.

In addition to creating two consulting companies in Canada, Vita-Finzi has also been an actor, travel agent, cartoonist, headhunter, martial artist, and telemarketer. Add to his list university lecturer, musician, street vendor, public speaker, tour guide, antique dealer, and a college and university teacher, and you'll see that Vita-Finzi is living proof of how you, too, can create a life bursting with possibilities.

A guide for like-minded and adventurous career travelers who are willing to seek their own unique paths, The Opportunity Bus is waiting-will you hop on?

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 4, 2007
• ISBN: 9780595897124

Ennio Vita-Finzi

Ennio Vita-Finzi was born on a British ship off Australia to Russian-Italian parents. Educated in Argentina, England, and Canada, he has lived and worked in North and South America, Western Europe, and East Asia. Vita-Finzi resides in Montreal, Canada, where he writes, paints, plays the piano, teaches executives, and entertains audiences.

Book preview

THE OPPORTUNITY

BUS

How to seize the opportunities that come

by your Request Bus Stop

Ennio Vita-Finzi

Author of Let Me Tell You a Story

iUniverse, Inc.

New York Lincoln Shanghai

THE OPPORTUNITY BUS

How to seize the opportunities that come by your Request Bus Stop

Copyright © 2007 by Ennio Vita-Finzi

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

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www.iuniverse.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-0-595-45399-3 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-595-70296-1 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-0-595-89712-4 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

To all members of my loving family, loyal friends, enthusiastic audiences, inquisitive students and in particular, my professional editor, steadfast supporter, faithful advisor, affectionate mentor, farsighted oracle and devoted wife, Carole.

Contents

INTRODUCTION

1DISCOVERY

Beliefs vary

A personal gift

A teenager’s decision

2 OUR WAY OF LIFE

Trust and Expectations

Who’s running things?

General traps

Professional traps

Societal traps

The media

Our own way within The System

Attitude and expectations

There is NO evil plan

3 THE OPPORTUNITY BUS

How the bus stopped at MY stop

Beating the odds

Language schoolroom on a London bus

A metaphor for life

Opportunity-hunting

How does the Opportunity Bus work?

People who search for the right bus

Bad genes

Background

Lucky

Visualizing situations

Attitude

4 REAL BUS ADVENTURES

The Children’s Bus

We Can Drive Someone Else’s Bus

Passengers On The Bus Can Help Too

The Slow Bus

Run Over By Life

The Express Bus

Requesting A Bus For Others

Construction Detour

World-wide bus system

Getting Pushed Onto The Right Bus

You’re On The Right Bus … And Maybe The Others Are Not

Getting Pushed Off Your Bus

The Teacher Is The Bus

CONCLUSION

EPILOGUE

APPENDIX

The 5 Ws Roadmap

List of my 40+ jobs and activities

INTRODUCTION 

You’ve had more than FORTY jobs? is the incredulous question that potential employers have always asked me when they check my employment history. When I reply that I’ve had so many jobs because I have never been able to turn down an opportunity to try something new, they usually roll their eyes and shake their head in disbelief.

Life has provided me with numerous challenges and opportunities to change, improve, learn, grow, move in a new direction, or even choose to stay exactly where I was. Apart from being acutely aware that most of these opportunities brought a certain amount of challenge with the changes, I always welcomed it and tried to take advantage of it some way.

I admit that I may have missed a few opportunities, but the fact that they presented themselves to me on a regular basis made me wonder if similar opportunities were available to everybody else. As I got older I realized that opportunities were coming to me because I was open to new ideas and experiences, ready to embark on a new path at any time even if I didn’t know exactly where it was taking me.

The Opportunity Bus metaphor came to me while in my teens and living in England. One day, standing at a Request Bus Stop in London I realized that life was like that: if you want a new opportunity, you ask for the Opportunity Bus to stop for you and then you get on it. To stop a Bus I needed to stick my hand out and if I didn’t, the Opportunity

Bus would go right by me and I might have lost a life-changing opportunity.

This book is therefore an account of where and how the Opportunity Bus affected my own life, as well as a description of a number of others’ life stories. As you read about some of the people I have met, you will see that many opportunities were presented and seized, while sometimes opportunities for change were almost thrust upon an individual. In every case however, the result was a significant and adventurous change in each person’s life. While the stories you will read refer to both men and women, for the purposes of this book I will use the male gender throughout for easier reading.

1

DISCOVERY 

Beliefs vary 

What I describe as The SYSTEM may also be called a variety of names by others. Some call it the Source or a Higher Power. Of course God is popular, as well as Allah, Buddha, Brahman and other names in various parts of the world where people rely on various forms of organized religion to help them, particularly in their moments of trouble. Others, when they need to make contact with a helpful figure that their teachings have identified may call on Jesus or Mohammad for help, while others may call on the Eternal Consciousness when seeking guidance or support.

More informal or lighthearted souls will simply refer to the miracle of our lives as Nature and when things go wrong, others may blame it on a temporary streak of bad luck. Of course, when things don’t go the way we want them to, they get a lot of blame in our society. They usually refers to whoever we believe is in charge: the government, our bosses, the police or anyone who is perceived to have more power than ourselves.

From a religious point of view there are many who imagine a vague, all-powerful and generally benevolent entity hovering above, watching over them—and the more imaginative believe that inhabitants of other planets have us all on their intergalactic Petri dishes, studying us through giant microscopes and performing experiments on our minds and bodies, naturally without our conscious knowledge.

Then there are millions of agnostics who refuse to believe that anything can be known about the existence or nature of a higher power and others who won’t consider the idea that a God or a System even exists. Atheists will not accept the concept of any kind of deity and use dry scientific logic to describe why and how things work. When pressed, they usually cannot fully explain the complexity of the human body or how and why the world around us exists at all. They quote Big Bang theories and when queried about the possibility of metaphysical reasons for our very existence they vehemently deny any such forces exist. When pushed to the limit, many defensively state that life just is—that nature simply is—that the process of being born, living complex lives and eventually dying are certainly not part of any great metaphysical plan, religion or belief.

At a certain point in all such discussions scientists eventually cannot support their theories with further so-called facts. At those