Originally Posted April 1, 2011
Many people have lots of great ideas. I have way more of them than I have time or energy to put into the world. Taking an idea from it’s inception to something tangible is a task well worth the undertaking, as it is rewarding in ways you will only know when you do it. If you’re like me at all, you will find the process of creation much more difficult than you imagined at first, but it’s still worth pursuing.
So what is the purpose of this writing? It is both to encourage you to begin and give you some support for when it seems you have undertaken something to difficult for you to complete.
We live in a time of rapid change. Information comes to us so quick it can be overwhelming to try an process it all. Our inboxes of our email accounts are often overloaded with titles begging for our attention. In addition, with this information overload, one of the biggest changes many people are seeing is in the way we work or in many cases don’t work; Unemployment is high and more so than the media reports. The main stream media doesn’t account for the people who haven’t applied for unemployment benefits or the people’s benefits that have run out. Unemployment is not what this writing is about though.
As a result of these changing times comes a lot of stress about where you’re income is going to come from. That’s what makes it a great time to be creative and make products that are useful to other people. That’s what this post is about; You making your own products that give value to other people’s lives. That’s where I come in saying it takes more than a good idea to create something of value.
To give a better understanding of this let’s look at where I was, and what it took to make something I could sell to other’s, that provides them some kind of value. For many years I wanted to write a book. A book about my adventurous life or health for example. I had been told by many people, close to me, I should write a book about my life, because of how different it was from any sort of normal life. I also knew a lot about health.
I thought to myself, for many years, when I read or learned about someone else’s health protocol, that I knew something they didn’t, or I could make something even better. It took a long time, but finally I set out to do it. Notice I didn’t say I decided to do it. I had decided for many years I was going to do it, but that never made it happen.
So I started, and that’s when all of the real trouble began. What exactly should I write about? Health is where my primary knowledge base is, but what about health specifically? These questions and multiples like it bombarded me. That would have been enough to make me give up, if I wasn’t determined, but it got even more difficult and humbling as I continued on with the challenge.
I began to realize I didn’t know as much as I thought I did. Sure I had a great general understanding of the subject, but putting that understanding into words that other people could translate into practical solutions for their own lives, was far more difficult than I had anticipated. Still I continued on. I started a book, but it didn’t feel true, so I refocused and started again. Eventually I had to do some deep searching to find out what was truly inside of me.
This is the first step, to see what is inside of you and what inspires you. The task of finding that passion alone, is a good challenge to take on. What inspires you and why? It’s good to write a list of these things before you even begin trying to create something. Once you run into challenges, you’ll want to know why you started down the path in the first place, and that it’s worth it.
After you’ve got a basic understanding of what your passions and ideas are, you’ll want to know what kind of competition your up against. Please don’t let the competition stop you; Remember there are always people out there that know less about a subject than you, and they can be your audience.
Just for the sake of understanding what kind of competition there is, let me make a suggestion, based upon the following statement. “Good ideas that haven’t been thought of like .com website names, with 1 or 2 words, that haven’t been taken.” To see what I’m talking about go to Godaddy and search for a website name. Think of any word or 2 words you can put together in anyway that sounds good to you at all, and see if you can find one that’s not taken. If you find one you like, you might want to purchase the domain name, because it’s rare to find one. Doing this kind of searching was revelatory for me, because it gave me an understanding of how many people are hard at work, capturing any idea they think might possibly be worth something to them.
Now that you know there’s a lot of competition out there, decide how you are going to provide quality that’s valuable to others. If you do something at a high quality level, you’ll be ahead of some of your competition from the start. If you know you create the best of your particular specialty, get right on to creating it.
Once you’re beginning to create, you’re going to want an outlet to deliver those creations to others. A lot of people are finding the internet a great way to get exposure to lots of people. We know there are close to 7 billion people in the world and many of them use the internet. That number is only going to grow in time. How to get your creations exposed to those people is at least one big book, and could be many books.
There’s also the possibility of using radio or word of mouth for local distribution of your goods. You can even work out of your home. Whatever your primary method of getting your products in front of people will be, it’s a good idea to get started on the promoting part before you have your product completed. I learned this the hard way by creating a book before finding an audience I knew wanted to read it.
Ask people if they are interested in your creation. Create a survey. Find out who would like to buy from you now. This is going to make it a whole lot easier to sell your product once you’ve made it. I’m going to wrap this up for now; Maybe I’ll write some more on this subject if I see a strong interest generated by readers.
I want to leave you with the following: Even though it’s not easy, creating things is a very rewarding process and can lead to more freedom in your life; Your creations could possibly provide you enough income to live on. Everyone is unique. Your particular lot in life gives you a unique perspective that no else has exactly. Use that to your advantage and remember; What you know, has value for others. Start down the path of doing the things you’ve always dreamed of doing. If you don’t start, you’ll always wonder, What if? When you do start it may be challenging but you’ll grow from those challenges. You’ll see reality more clearly at least, and maybe you’ll open up the door to living the life you’ve always dreamed of.
