Stop Seeking Wealth

[Will Hodge]

So tonight, I was thinking. I'm a huge thinker. A lot of times, that plays to my disadvantage. I tend to act less and think more. That being said, sometimes I can use this thinking to my advantage and actually realize what is in plain sight. Hopefully, this thread can help someone view things in a different light to get them to start acting on their potential business ideas.

There is one main theme that resonates across the board on this forum: VALUE. The more value you can provide, the more wealth you can create. You can find this statement and statements similar to this one in hundreds of threads across this forum. Why? Because it's true. But what does value truly mean?

Definitions:


Let's point out some keywords here: worth, benefit, helpfulness, ethics, morals, principles.

These words get down to the root of what you can provide to someone. When you think about these words, what comes to mind? Self worth, advantage, kindness, sympathy, rights & wrongs, lessons, significance, essential.

You could be giving your future audience, customers, and friends the guidance, support, and physical help that they need in order to fulfill and live what they dream of achieving each and every day.

Being a fairly well-rounded person, I can think of dozens of things I have an interest in: sports, games, relationships, mobile technology, health, travel, history, videography, medical breakthroughs, and the list goes on and on and on... The goal is to find and focus on one thing that you can have a passion, devotion, excitement, eagerness, affection, tenacity, and emotional connection to, and figure out where you can help. What are these people struggling with? What do these people seem to need the most guidance with? What things are missing in these people's lives that can make enjoying this interest more easy to enjoy? Where can you really help?

How can you further narrow down a passion into a niche market? One great tool I would recommend is a mind map. A form of brainstorming, a mind map takes one central idea and breaks it into many different things within that central idea. This can help you open up more and more areas within a passion of yours to more easily find a problem area you can solve. Example below:


The help to a niche can be through so many different avenues, but it need not matter what avenue you provide this through. What truly matters is that you are able to connect with these people, figure out what these things are, and provide a solution, a path, and a key to unlocking their passion on a deeper level. Once you can find out the pains these people are facing, the research behind each pain, the current competition, the reasonable fixes, and the method of issuing these fixes, you will find something that can breed success, wealth, and purpose in your life. Use your own experience, but also ask questions.

Exercise: Think back to a time where you had a real emotional connection to something, a life changing event, or turning point that helped you with something you were passionate about? From here, start to dig deeper. What about that event was so special? What things made it so special? What items, tools, and services were at your disposal before that event occurred that helped you get there?

Example:
Event - First Team All League in High School baseball, and being looked at as a college recruit after playing JV nearly my whole Junior year.
What made this special - I actually felt proud about something after so many long hours of failure and training when no one was looking. I could say that I accomplished something, and I was around some of the best people in my life that I will never forget
What things made it so special - the people, the feelings, the memories, the eventual benefits, and the future it helped provide for me
What items/tools/services helped me get there - the basics (the cleats, gloves, shoes, bat, arm sleeves, etc. that helped me achieve my success throughout the season), the hours of preparation on and off the field, the guidance my coach gave me that led to my leadership of the team, the hundreds of dollars I spent at academy's and training programs that furthered my skills at my respective position, and many other things.

This exercise helped me take a look at something I was passionate about, and really dig deeper into what helped me get there. You want to do something similar with the people you are helping.

Now, don't get me wrong, surviving is necessary. Do what you need to do to pay the bills, but the whole goal of this thread is to make you think and see different words, phrases, and contexts on the same philosophy in hopes that you can have the same realization that I did recently.

To sum it all up, this thought process isn't news to anyone by any means, but once I actually looked at the different words, phrases, and meanings behind them, it put into perspective what you can truly create in this world. I hope that at least a few of the things in this thread can help at least one person take the simple phrase: PROVIDE VALUE and make it their own. It's all about taking something that a group of people LIVE FOR and making their experience with that unwavering dedication even more enjoyable.

TLDR: Stop seeking wealth, and start looking for emotions, passions, and desires. Wealth will follow.

 

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