4 Ways to Turn Personal Experiences Into Profit Centers

While it could be argued that every business is influenced and informed by our personal experiences, a great deal of opportunity goes unused when we fail to see the potential of putting that experience to work.

Personal experience lends itself to all sorts of enterprises. Here are some things to keep in mind to discover those hidden opportunities.

° Value your own experience. Very often the things that are easy and effortless for us are overlooked if we assume thata what we can do everyone can do.

That’s almost never true. Your special set of talents, skills and life experiences are a one-of-a-kind package.

Writer Carolyn See says, “I hope I’m wrong, but I imagine about 90 percent of the human race is snoozing along, just going through the motions.” Staying awake for the journey is important if we are to find gold in our lives.

° Find a better way. Doris Drucker, the wife of management guru Peter Drucker, found a new opportunity herself this way. She writes, “For years my role as the wife of a professional speaker was to sit in the last row of an auditorium and shout, ‘Louder!’ whenever my husband’s voice dropped. I decided that there had to be a better feedback device and if there wasn’t I was going to invent one. Then I decided, at the age of 80, that I would start a business and sell it.”

Solving a common problem or simply finding a more effective way of doing something has been the start of many a successful business.

° Tell your story. Benjamin Franklin said we should write something worth reading of live something worth writing. Personal experiences can be the basis for both autobiography and how-to books.

Workshops, seminars and consulting are other ways of making your story pay. You need to live it first, of course.

° Pay it forward. Several years ago, Kevin Spacey was in a movie with that title. Apparently the message of passing along our good to others took root.

Spacey started a Web site called Triggerstreet to create opportunities for the next generation of screenwriters. Spacey said he realized that his considerable success was the result of others believing in him before he believed in himself. Now he wants to pass that gift along.

Your experience could be utilized through teaching or mentoring those coming along behind you.

When it’s time to plan a new profit center, take a fresh look at your own life. What do you have to share that could make other people’s lives richer, happier, healthier or smoother in some way?

You may be sitting on a gold mind, you know. As Jack Lessinger reminds us, “Build something, help something, save something. The possibilities are endless.

 

 

To Read or Not To Read

My niece Gretchen is about to give birth to her first child. During her pregnancy, her husband Tony has been reading to their unborn baby. Currently, he’s working his way through Don Quixote.

In my family, this is considered normal.

Of all the things I’m thankful for, high on my list is that I was raised by readers. Since I was the eldest child and my father was faraway fighting a war, my mother read to me incessantly. Happily, I’m still being read to.

In the midst of her kindergarten year, Zoe called. When I answered the phone, I was greeted with an exuberant, “Grandma, I can read!”  Read she can and does. When I’m a guest in their house, I have the pleasure of Zoe reading to me every evening.

Of course, you can catch book passion any time in life. However, the sooner you get it, the more time you have to consume more titles.

Once caught, this fever doesn’t diminish. My sister Nancy, who has lived abroad her entire adult life, is relocating to Santa Barbara. She told me that the shipping company required that she count the books in her library.

“I discovered,” she said, with some amazement, “that I own 1,026 books.” Now I’m eager to do an inventory of my own since I have no idea how many books are in my library.

Since Nancy and I are both moving into new homes, finding the perfect spot for our books is a top priority. I keep thinking of Anna Quindlen’s observation, “I will be most happy if my children grow up to be the kind of people whose idea of decorating is to add more bookshelves.”

So while reading for pleasure is what often snares us to begin with, a desire to become our best selves often has us exploring new sections of the library and bookstore.

If you’re building a business, new titles and old can accelerate your success, connect you with ideas, resources and inspiration you’d never have encountered while walking down the street.

Here are five old favorites that are a pleasure to read and filled with useful insights for the Joyfully Jobless life:

Growing a Business by Paul Hawken

Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

Small is the New Big by Seth Godin

A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink

While some of these titles may be old friends already, I chose them because they all are worthy of more than one visit.

And if you aren’t a regular reader, make time every day to sample the creative thinkers, the life teachers, the pioneers who have wonderful things to teach us. If you don’t, you’ll be inflicting a needless handicap on yourself.

As the wise Jim Rohn used to say, “The only thing worse than not reading a book in the last 90 days, is not reading a book in the last 90 days and thinking it doesn’t matter. Skip a meal if you must, but don’t skip a book.”

Sitting on a Gold Mine?

Shortly before the end of the year, I was talking to Karyn Ruth White and the subject of resolutions came up. “I don’t really make them,” she said. “But I do sit down at the end of the year and write about ten lessons I’ve learned in the previous year.”

Then she added, “I’ve even had a couple of them published.” What began as a personal project, got shared with others.

Great idea, isn’t it?

While it could be argued that every business is informed and influenced by our personal experiences, a great deal of opportunity goes unused by people who fail to see the potential of putting that experience to work for them.

In order to create a profit center that grows out of your own life, there are four essential ingredients that need to be present. They are:

* Value Your Own Experience. Often the things that are easy and effortless for us are overlooked because we assume that what we can do, everyone can do. That’s almost never true.

Our special set of talents, skills and life experiences are a one-of-a-kind package, but we have to recognize why and how that can be valuable to others.

* High Self-awareness. Writer Carolyn See says, “I hope I’m wrong, but I imagine about 90 percent of the human race is snoozing along, just going through the motions.”

Staying awake for the journey is important if we are to find the gold in our lives.

* Generous Spirit. We must be convinced that what we have discovered will make other people’s lives richer, happier, healthier or smoother in some way. Keeping it to ourselves seems, well, selfish.

* Eager to Learn. Starting a business based on personal experience is just the entry point. It’s really an invitation to mastery if we use it to learn, grow and improve.

Personal experience lends itself to all sorts of enterprises. Here are some possibilities:

* Find a Better Way. Doris Drucker, the wife of management guru Peter Drucker, found a new opportunity for herself this way.

She writes, “For years my role as the wife of a professional speaker was to sit in the last row of an auditorium and shout ‘Louder!’ whenever my husband’s voice dropped. I decided that there had to be a better feedback device and if there wasn’t, I was going to invent one. Then I decided, at the age of 80-plus, that I would start a business to sell it.”

Solving a problem or simply finding a more effective way of doing something has been the start of many a successful business.

* Tell Your Story. Benjamin Franklin said we should all write something worth reading or live something worth writing.

Personal experience can be the basis for autobiography and how-to books, of course, but that’s not all. Workshops, seminars and consulting are other ways of making your experience pay.

You need to live it first, however. That may sound like common sense, but at least once a week I’ll get a call or letter like the one I got from a man in Idaho who went on at great length about how confused he was about what business to start, then added a p.s.saying he plans to organize a seminar on Discovering Your Purpose.

* Pay It Forward. A few years ago, Kevin Spacey was in a movie with that title and apparently the message of passing along our good to others took root.

Spacey took a year off from film making to put his energy into a website called Triggerstreet that is creating opportunities for the next generation of screenwriters.

Spacey says he realized that his considerable success was the result of others believing in him before he believed in himself and now he wants to pass that gift along to others.

Your experience could be utilized through teaching or mentoring those coming along behind you too.

If it’s time to plan a new profit center, take a fresh look at your own life. You may be sitting on a gold mine, you know.