One of my major strengths (at least I think so!) is my attention to detail and inability to cope with an untidy living space. I apologize for the long thread but I wanted to try to paint a picture as best I could.
For example, a few years ago I was dating this girl. She was incredibly untidy. Her apartment was so bad that every time I was at her place I would feel physically uncomfortable. I'm talkin' clothes EVERYWHERE (She was a manager at a fashion store and thus had a mind boggling amount of clothes), kitchen a disaster, things strewn about all over the living room and bedroom. She had bought these 2 shelves from IKEA but they sat un-assembled in her livingroom for weeks. Her apartment was extremely unkept, but she worked so much that she didn't have time to clean it up. The mess clearly didn't bother her, otherwise she would have cleaned it up, however it was absolutely unbearable to me. I could not be at her place without cleaning something up.
One day while she was at work, I tidied up and cleaned her entire apartment top to bottom, built both of those shelves and populated them, put things away, cleaned up the kitchen, put all of her clothes that were laying around into a huge pile in the bedroom. She had 2 cats, and this pretty nice big floor rug, which had cat hair basically embedded throughout. To illustrate my compulsion I used her cat-brush which was like these fairly fine wire brushes designed for pulling hair out of your cat and keeping it in the brush, to literally brush her entire rug while vacuuming it at the same time, several times over (because that's how much it took to get the hair out) until it was literally a different colour when I was finished. The colour it was intended to be!
When she got home from work, she was basically mouth agape, like "whoa" but the first thing she said was "but that's not where the shelves are supposed to go."
I was mildly crushed in that moment. My thoughts were basically "Really? That's the first thing you say? That's not where the shelves go? What about "Wow, thank you so much." That was one of the first indications to me that the relationship was likely not going to work out. I could live with her being a messy person, some people just are, and that's the way they are and I am OK with tidying up. But that was kind of a nasty thing to say after how much work I had done. Later that evening I also said hey, you have an ungodly amount of clothes. Maybe we should go through them and sort them into KEEP, DONATE, DISCARD piles and whatever you keep we find a place for. She was onboard with it and it was a nice bonding activity. We threw the discard pile into the dumpster, took the donate pile to goodwill, and found a place for everything that remained. Sadly the relationship didn't work out in the end (for several reasons but mostly because it was long distance and I couldn't afford to keep seeing her)....but I digress.
Another example is much more recent. I'm staying with a friend of mine and to give us both some space, and myself some space to set up my computer workstation etc, I tidied up and cleaned out the entire garage and workshop by myself in 2 days. It's difficult for me to paint a picture for you, but the space was an absolute disaster. He treated the workshop and garage basically as a dumping zone for things he didn't want to bring in the house. It was filled with trash, boxes, clothes, old girlfriends' things, random things that should be at his business' workshop, tools, just....absolutely horrific in my eyes. I even assembled all his old girlfriend's things, called her myself (she's somewhat of a mutual friend) and was like hey, there's all this stuff here, I'll send you a whole bunch of photos and you can tell me what you want to keep and I'll bring it back home (we are all originally from the same town) and give it to your parents next time I go back. She was like whoa, wtf? I left all that stuff there? crazy. Yeah, ok, I'll go through it and let you know.
I use it as my office now, complete with enough space to use my VR headset, with plenty of room to spare.
My buddy had not actually been in the workshop since I tidied it up because he never really has any reason to go in there but he came in the other night and was like whoa...it's so clean in here! I'm just like
yep. You literally could not even see the floor when I started. To go from the entry door to the garage you had to climb and walk over stuff.
Anyway, with the backstory complete, does anyone have any ideas how I can leverage this strength. This... compulsion for tidiness into a business? Cleaning companies already exist, there are several of them set up in this city already. My friend has one come to the house every friday morning. So, just being another cleaning service, I don't know...unless I can set myself apart in some way.
A few years ago I tried to turn this compulsion into a side business while working my normal job. I set up a facebook page and regularly posted in the city's community facebook group. I made the idea a little more broad and called my facebook page "Let me do that for you!" It was likely the wrong approach, but my idea was that in this particular city, there were a lot of people with excess money (it was an oil town) and not a lot of excess time (many had families and worked long hours). I thought, hey, if I have a bunch of free time in the evening, I can use that time to do things for people. Run their errands, clean up their house or their office, etc. I didn't recall having any inquiries, but looking back at the email I associated with the page I did actually have 1 request from a person from out of town asking me to go serve a legal document that required it to be served in person, not mailed. After obtaining some more information from the potential client, I was concerned for my own safety in this task and turned it down (the people he was asking me to serve this document to were reportedly violent drug addicts he was trying to evict. His own words. Yikes). As my normal job's demands increased, this idea fell by the wayside, and since I wasn't getting any requests, that was an easy thing to ignore / let go. Checking Facebook now, I can see there are actually a few pages with that same name, one of them still appearing active. At the time I made my page I didn't see a single page with that name, so maybe people saw mine and stole the name idea 😀
Lately, since I'm now unemployed, I've been again trying to think of how I can leverage this strength. A cleaning business in and of itself is not fastlane though, and I'm not sure it really satisfies CENTS.
The main one being that it doesn't divorce my income from Time, unless I charged by the square foot or the room instead of by the hour. Then I could work as fast as I want. Entry is kiiiiinda weak. I mean, basically anyone could start a cleaning business. It's not the EASIEST thing to start, but it's pretty easy. Get some supplies, throw it in your car, do some advertising, start a facebook page, voila. But would they have my level of attentiveness? Doubtful. My skill is more detail and organizational than just cleaning. I've been mulling over how I could spin this and I'm just struggling to see anything beyond starting a more specialized cleaning service. I was hoping some outside eyes might have some different ideas.
I think I actually hate cleaning up, as funny as that might seem. A lot of the time my own personal bedroom is a mess, up to a certain point, but then something just *clicks* in my brain and I go into this almost delusional mode of hypercleaning and can't stop until everything is immaculate and in the perfect place. I'm talkin' the coasters on my coffee table perfectly aligned in adjacent corners (at least to the eye). It's not so much the process that I enjoy, it's the feeling. The end result. Looking at the space and thinking wow, I did this, or wow, I got rid of all that useless stuff? How great! I love getting rid of stuff! Whenever I step foot into a messy place, I often have to stop myself from tidying it up because it's not my space and people might take offense.
Honestly, if someone said "I will pay you $X to go through my unruly garage and make it into a usable space." with free reign on what to keep or get rid of (using my common sense, of course, I would sort any questionable items into piles for further consideration by the owner) it would be a freakin heyday. As long as the price was right 😀
Thinking back, I'm kicking myself that I didn't take before and after photos of both my x's apartment and my buddy's garage. I could have used them for this idea! I just wasn't thinking about that at the time. I might actually have one more opportunity with his back yard shed which is an absolute disaster as well...
For example, a few years ago I was dating this girl. She was incredibly untidy. Her apartment was so bad that every time I was at her place I would feel physically uncomfortable. I'm talkin' clothes EVERYWHERE (She was a manager at a fashion store and thus had a mind boggling amount of clothes), kitchen a disaster, things strewn about all over the living room and bedroom. She had bought these 2 shelves from IKEA but they sat un-assembled in her livingroom for weeks. Her apartment was extremely unkept, but she worked so much that she didn't have time to clean it up. The mess clearly didn't bother her, otherwise she would have cleaned it up, however it was absolutely unbearable to me. I could not be at her place without cleaning something up.
One day while she was at work, I tidied up and cleaned her entire apartment top to bottom, built both of those shelves and populated them, put things away, cleaned up the kitchen, put all of her clothes that were laying around into a huge pile in the bedroom. She had 2 cats, and this pretty nice big floor rug, which had cat hair basically embedded throughout. To illustrate my compulsion I used her cat-brush which was like these fairly fine wire brushes designed for pulling hair out of your cat and keeping it in the brush, to literally brush her entire rug while vacuuming it at the same time, several times over (because that's how much it took to get the hair out) until it was literally a different colour when I was finished. The colour it was intended to be!
When she got home from work, she was basically mouth agape, like "whoa" but the first thing she said was "but that's not where the shelves are supposed to go."
I was mildly crushed in that moment. My thoughts were basically "Really? That's the first thing you say? That's not where the shelves go? What about "Wow, thank you so much." That was one of the first indications to me that the relationship was likely not going to work out. I could live with her being a messy person, some people just are, and that's the way they are and I am OK with tidying up. But that was kind of a nasty thing to say after how much work I had done. Later that evening I also said hey, you have an ungodly amount of clothes. Maybe we should go through them and sort them into KEEP, DONATE, DISCARD piles and whatever you keep we find a place for. She was onboard with it and it was a nice bonding activity. We threw the discard pile into the dumpster, took the donate pile to goodwill, and found a place for everything that remained. Sadly the relationship didn't work out in the end (for several reasons but mostly because it was long distance and I couldn't afford to keep seeing her)....but I digress.
Another example is much more recent. I'm staying with a friend of mine and to give us both some space, and myself some space to set up my computer workstation etc, I tidied up and cleaned out the entire garage and workshop by myself in 2 days. It's difficult for me to paint a picture for you, but the space was an absolute disaster. He treated the workshop and garage basically as a dumping zone for things he didn't want to bring in the house. It was filled with trash, boxes, clothes, old girlfriends' things, random things that should be at his business' workshop, tools, just....absolutely horrific in my eyes. I even assembled all his old girlfriend's things, called her myself (she's somewhat of a mutual friend) and was like hey, there's all this stuff here, I'll send you a whole bunch of photos and you can tell me what you want to keep and I'll bring it back home (we are all originally from the same town) and give it to your parents next time I go back. She was like whoa, wtf? I left all that stuff there? crazy. Yeah, ok, I'll go through it and let you know.
I use it as my office now, complete with enough space to use my VR headset, with plenty of room to spare.
My buddy had not actually been in the workshop since I tidied it up because he never really has any reason to go in there but he came in the other night and was like whoa...it's so clean in here! I'm just like
yep. You literally could not even see the floor when I started. To go from the entry door to the garage you had to climb and walk over stuff.Anyway, with the backstory complete, does anyone have any ideas how I can leverage this strength. This... compulsion for tidiness into a business? Cleaning companies already exist, there are several of them set up in this city already. My friend has one come to the house every friday morning. So, just being another cleaning service, I don't know...unless I can set myself apart in some way.
A few years ago I tried to turn this compulsion into a side business while working my normal job. I set up a facebook page and regularly posted in the city's community facebook group. I made the idea a little more broad and called my facebook page "Let me do that for you!" It was likely the wrong approach, but my idea was that in this particular city, there were a lot of people with excess money (it was an oil town) and not a lot of excess time (many had families and worked long hours). I thought, hey, if I have a bunch of free time in the evening, I can use that time to do things for people. Run their errands, clean up their house or their office, etc. I didn't recall having any inquiries, but looking back at the email I associated with the page I did actually have 1 request from a person from out of town asking me to go serve a legal document that required it to be served in person, not mailed. After obtaining some more information from the potential client, I was concerned for my own safety in this task and turned it down (the people he was asking me to serve this document to were reportedly violent drug addicts he was trying to evict. His own words. Yikes). As my normal job's demands increased, this idea fell by the wayside, and since I wasn't getting any requests, that was an easy thing to ignore / let go. Checking Facebook now, I can see there are actually a few pages with that same name, one of them still appearing active. At the time I made my page I didn't see a single page with that name, so maybe people saw mine and stole the name idea 😀
Lately, since I'm now unemployed, I've been again trying to think of how I can leverage this strength. A cleaning business in and of itself is not fastlane though, and I'm not sure it really satisfies CENTS.
The main one being that it doesn't divorce my income from Time, unless I charged by the square foot or the room instead of by the hour. Then I could work as fast as I want. Entry is kiiiiinda weak. I mean, basically anyone could start a cleaning business. It's not the EASIEST thing to start, but it's pretty easy. Get some supplies, throw it in your car, do some advertising, start a facebook page, voila. But would they have my level of attentiveness? Doubtful. My skill is more detail and organizational than just cleaning. I've been mulling over how I could spin this and I'm just struggling to see anything beyond starting a more specialized cleaning service. I was hoping some outside eyes might have some different ideas.
I think I actually hate cleaning up, as funny as that might seem. A lot of the time my own personal bedroom is a mess, up to a certain point, but then something just *clicks* in my brain and I go into this almost delusional mode of hypercleaning and can't stop until everything is immaculate and in the perfect place. I'm talkin' the coasters on my coffee table perfectly aligned in adjacent corners (at least to the eye). It's not so much the process that I enjoy, it's the feeling. The end result. Looking at the space and thinking wow, I did this, or wow, I got rid of all that useless stuff? How great! I love getting rid of stuff! Whenever I step foot into a messy place, I often have to stop myself from tidying it up because it's not my space and people might take offense.
Honestly, if someone said "I will pay you $X to go through my unruly garage and make it into a usable space." with free reign on what to keep or get rid of (using my common sense, of course, I would sort any questionable items into piles for further consideration by the owner) it would be a freakin heyday. As long as the price was right 😀
Thinking back, I'm kicking myself that I didn't take before and after photos of both my x's apartment and my buddy's garage. I could have used them for this idea! I just wasn't thinking about that at the time. I might actually have one more opportunity with his back yard shed which is an absolute disaster as well...
Dislike ads? Become a Fastlane member:
Subscribe today and surround yourself with winners and millionaire mentors, not those broke friends who only want to drink beer and play video games. :-)
Membership Required: Upgrade to Expose Nearly 1,000,000 Posts
Ready to Unleash the Millionaire Entrepreneur in You?
Become a member of the Fastlane Forum, the private community founded by best-selling author and multi-millionaire entrepreneur MJ DeMarco. Since 2007, MJ DeMarco has poured his heart and soul into the Fastlane Forum, helping entrepreneurs reclaim their time, win their financial freedom, and live their best life.
With more than 39,000 posts packed with insights, strategies, and advice, you’re not just a member—you’re stepping into MJ’s inner-circle, a place where you’ll never be left alone.
Become a member and gain immediate access to...
- Active Community: Ever join a community only to find it DEAD? Not at Fastlane! As you can see from our home page, life-changing content is posted dozens of times daily.
- Exclusive Insights: Direct access to MJ DeMarco’s daily contributions and wisdom.
- Powerful Networking Opportunities: Connect with a diverse group of successful entrepreneurs who can offer mentorship, collaboration, and opportunities.
- Proven Strategies: Learn from the best in the business, with actionable advice and strategies that can accelerate your success.
"You are the average of the five people you surround yourself with the most..."
Who are you surrounding yourself with? Surround yourself with millionaire success. Join Fastlane today!
Join Today
