As I grew older, the ever important question came up; What kind of business should I start?

At 21 years old, of course I made the decision based on where the money was whether I liked what I was doing or not. I opened a mortgage company since that was what I had been doing successfully for about a year and a half (which isn’t much time at all).

Sure, the money was great. In fact, I had a lavish lifestyle pretty young. I was a year into my marriage and my son Christian was just born. I thought I had it all.

But an interesting thing happened. I started living for my business and would spend 12-16 hours a day in my business and away from my family. I did it for years thinking that I was doing the best for them. Sure we had “things” but they didn’t have me. All this while not really enjoying what I was doing.

Looking back, having a business just for the money is definitely the wrong approach for finding your ideal business. So, to help you avoid this same mistake, here are 3 easy ways to identify your ideal business.

1. Discover your unique knowledge – this can come from what you excelled at in school or something you’ve learned at your job. You may have a lot of knowledge in your field of interest that others don’t possess. People are always looking to learn what they don’t yet know, so either teach them or do it for them.

2. Identify your unique passion - there is probably something that you absolutely love to do and would do it for free. However, if it provides value to others, why not make money with it. Perhaps you love installing car stereos (I did as a teen and made great money). You may love scrap booking and can teach other people how to do it. Find what you’re passionate about and most likely, there are others passionate about the same thing!

3. Uncover your unique experience - you have lived a unique life than no one else can share. You have had a series of lessons throughout schooling, your childhood, work experience, and hobbies and interests. It is through your unique life lessons that you have something of extreme value to share. You can use those experiences to help others achieve success in those areas no matter what they are.

Its through your unique knowledge, experiences, and passions where your ideal business lies. You already have everything that you need to get started today. Forget growth strategies and focusing on getting started. Without starting, all the details don’t even matter.

a

When I was just a kid, I always dreamed of being an actor. Sure I loved to play dress up and act out my favorite cartoons, but what was it that made me want to be an actor.

Then, I moved on to other career choices like being a police man or even a firefighter. It was the dream of most young boys to be the hero and save the damsel in distress.

Now that I’m a month away from turning 31 years old, I discovered that it really wasn’t acting that I wanted or even wearing a uniform to save someone, my childhood desire was more about making a difference in people’s lives than studying scripts for movies.

You see, over the years, I’ve really come to realize that my personal unique and valuable skill is simplifying difficult things and making them clear to others. In the case of advice to friends, I have a gift to ask powerful questions that simplify their situations and help come up with a solution much faster.

In business, I am able to teach my clients more about themselves and their needs to show them how to bring more value in the marketplace through what they offer.

For my son, its taking the moments to listen to what he’s really saying and coaching him to find solutions on his own.

My unique and valuable skill is to make it simple.

What’s yours? Have you stopped for a moment to think of the one or two things that you do extraordinarily well?

My goal for you is that you search for it. Analyze your life until you find that common denominator.

Once you find your unique and valuable skill, your passion will follow and you’ll be able to achieve much more than when you’re trying to fill someone else’s shoes. You’ll also realize that people will completely value you when you focus on it!

a

Just as it was time to head over to the train, it decided to pour ice cold rain and lucky for me, the venue was about 5 city blocks away from the train station. Needless to say, I made a great decision wearing my rain coat, although a hood would’ve been nice too.

No matter, I braved the horrific (a little exaggeration) weather and finally got to the conference room where the book tour was being held.

Low and behold, after some much needed HOT coffee and warm pastries, we all took a seat to hear Dan Heath talk about the amazing concepts in his new book Switch.

All I gotta say is wow. I took about 4 pages of notes without any fluff and left with a copy of the book. More importantly, I left with a framework of what it takes to change your behavior and the tools needed to overcome the obsticles to change.

I even managed to sneak in a question during the Q & A session which was “What strategies can you offer to make a lasting change once the emotional experience ends?”

At first you may not quite understand my question, but one of the premises of making a switch or making a change is that facts alone are not enough to cause change, but emotions are.

He added that getting engaged for marriage is an event that is almost completely based on emotional decisions rather than logical ones.

Let me just tell you that if the short talk with the author was any indication of the quality of the book (as well as their previous book Made To Stick), Switch may become a MUST READ book for many social circles, especially business people.

a

This short 4 word statement is one of the main culprits of killing dreams (yeah, its not your spouse as you may have thought) .

You see, there are usually a couple universal excuses that people use to get themselves out of committing to their goals in life.  They include the lack of money, not having a good support group, they’ve previously failed in other ventures, and they don’t have time.

Of all the excuses, the lack of time has got to be the worst one. You see, anyone who has achieved amazing things in life have something in common with those who don’t; the same 24 hour days and the identical 7 days a week. Yes, we all have the same exact time to do what we want in life.

So, wth that reality in our face, its time to talk about the real issue behind not having enough time. Its not a matter of time, its a matter of priority.

No one can ever manage time but everyone can control their priorities. This is what’s imporant, isn’t it. If you are married, time doesn’t stop when you are with your spouse,you simply decide to make them a priority over other things. I know I do.

When you have children, things don’t automatically remove themselves from your life. You simply make your children a priority over other things that aren’t important anymore. So you see, its not a matter of how much time you have but what you do with your time that matter.

How can you better manage your priorities you may ask. Its quite simple. Here are three quick steps to get started.

1. Identify your real priorities - most people live on default simply living every day as it comes. However, highly successful people live life on purpose and only do what’s most important.  Decide what’s most important to you so you can come up with a game plan.

2. Set SPECIFIC time apart for your priorities- if family is a priority, “burn it” in your calendar, meaning make a standing appointment to accomplish that. If businessis important, block out some time to be productive in business. You now have your priorities worked out so now make time for it. 

3. Do a weekly review every week- this should only take about 15 minutes in the weekend but its important to reflect how you did making time for your priorities. This time of reflection is perhaps the most important part since you’ll be able to see if you’ve committed to what’s important, and if not, adjust for the following week.

So what do you think? Is this doable. Believe me when I tell you that this has the potential to change your life and the lives of those around you. Each of your areas of priority wil be much better for it!

a

In fact, if people caught on to this idea, their lives would absolutely change for the better. You may be wondering what it was right? Just take a few seconds and reflect on this:

“It is what it is. What are you going to do about it?”

You see, most people fall short of their goals, successes, and dreams because of excuses. Things like, “I have a full time job, how can I start a business?” or “I don’t have the money right now” or “I don’t have the time to get it done.”

However, if you go past the excuse and ask yourself, “Ok, I don’t have the money right now, but what am I going to do about it?”, you’re giving your mind a chance to work it out and give you some options.

Simply stopping your powerful and resourceful mind with a statement like you don’t have enough time just doesn’t empower you. You’ve already closed the case and accepted defeat.

So, with this in mind, how can you change negative statements (excuses) to insightful questions that would lead you to success and the life you want to have?

a