The Desert of Arizona
Foggy 39 Degrees
So today I’d like to tell you about a new project my son, Egan, is working on. He’s 11. Now he doesn’t go to school. Instead, he spends time learning out in real life.
It’s amazing what a “child” can achieve when you treat him like a real human.
One of the things I work with him on is helping him figure out how to provide for himself by solving problems for others.
Thinking back to my “education,” I can’t remember one person mentioning that this path might be something one would want to pursue. But when you practice developing your ability to look at the world through the lens of problems and solutions, opportunity is literally everywhere.
Egan loves to edit video and audio etc. And so as we talked about how he could aim that at real problems in the world, we came up with something called, The Testimonial Wizard.
It’s a completely done-for-you service where he collect and edits (into finished form) testimonials for businesses who simply haven’t done it for themselves or don’t know how to do it.
He already has a client.
This approach to business reminds me of Tim Ferriss’s recent podcast with Derek Sivers (pronounced SIH-vers), founder of CDBaby.com.
In the interview, you’ll hear Derek mention how he never really went out into the world with a product or service he wanted them to buy. Instead, he watched the world come to him with problems he could solve.
These are businesses that are fun to grow. Because it’s easy to get momentum going when you’re solving problems people know they have that they want solved.
Is this what you do in your business? Or are you investing an enormous amount of time and effort trying to push what you want to sell upon the world?
As we turn the corner into a brand new year, what happens if you take your game up a few levels? What problems can you solve for others that you aren’t currently solving?