Adventurous Mom

Part II of “I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up!” we explore find­ing your niche…or what really inspires you.

[I write this for one of my very tal­ented friends that could do almost any­thing but she is strug­gling with find­ing that “niche”. ]

Inevitably I was fooled by think­ing that when one grad­u­ates col­lege, or even high school, that the fairy-career-mother strikes you over the head with what you are des­tined to be for the rest of your life.  This has never hap­pened to me, and from my dis­cus­sions with all of my 20–50 year old  peers, this is not the case for them either.

Don’t Always Fol­low the Leaders

My dad has worked at AT&T for his entire career.  He is the excep­tion not the rule.  My mom on the other hand has worked in quite pos­si­bly every indus­try there is: Amway, Real Estate, UPS, Finance Bro­ker­age, even Taco Bell.  There may not be just ONE right career or busi­ness for your, but maybe several.

Minds change, soci­eties change and so do economies.  Think­ing that you will be in one career or busi­ness for the rest of your life may lead to per­pet­ual dis­ap­point­ment.  Your career or your busi­ness might some­day be extinct is another possibility.

In the early 1900’s, the type­writer man­u­fac­tur­ers and busi­nesses were liv­ing high on their prof­its.  Lit­tle did they know that just a few decades later, the basic word proces­sors would become extrav­a­gantly pop­u­lar.  Oh but that’s just a fad! Or so they thought.

The need for telegrams – extinct as the tele­phones and faxes became more preva­lent.  Med­ical tran­scrip­tion­ists? Maybe soon to be extinct as voice tran­scrip­tion tech­nol­ogy is improving.

Don’t get stuck on one idea as the end-all-be-all.  Be as flex­i­ble as the kelp in the ocean, flow­ing with the tide…and ready to break free and catch the wave to the shore.

I want to stress that, it is impor­tant to be adapt­able, and adjust to the cur­rent mar­ket.   It doesn’t mean you won’t be doing what you love; just keep your eyes open for the oppor­tu­ni­ties instead of stuck on ONE idea.

Be Like  a Blackberry

As Wal­lace D. Wat­tles explains in his book “The Sci­ence of Get­ting Rich” ,  you must pro­vide more in use value than you receive in Cash value.  Is the niche that you are look­ing at get­ting into going to pro­vide more to your employer or your cus­tomers than maybe you receive in cash?

At first I thought his think­ing was back­ward, “Um hello?  I need to get paid too!”  But it is a very sim­ple philosophy.

I like to take for exam­ple my Black­berry.  I paid $100 for my black­berry plus a monthly fee.  I could argue that my black­berry is worth many times that amount because the use value that I receive is far greater than the actual value.  I can’t count how many times I have been able to close a deal, or keep big dis­as­ters from occur­ring because I had my lit­tle infor­ma­tion por­tal attached to my hip.  So my thought is that the black­berry is worth far more than the $100 and the monthly fee that I pay for the service.

Ask your­self, what skills or knowl­edge do I have that is worth value?  Is my employer or my cus­tomer in need of the value that I can pro­vide them?  What am I really good at doing?

Phone a Friend

Every­one knows the old adage about opinions….everyone has one?  Yet, lis­ten intently on what your friends, cowork­ers, or fam­i­lies are say­ing about your tal­ents.  Are you great at bak­ing?  Are you great at strate­giz­ing? Can you sell ice to Eskimos?

The les­son here is that, although YOU may think you know what you are good at; it is dif­fi­cult to stand and view your own tal­ents from third person.

If you are truly try­ing to find your niche, maybe this is a good time to get oth­ers involved and seek feed­back regard­ing your tal­ents.  It could be as easy as send­ing out a sim­ple sur­vey ask­ing oth­ers to answer what they think are your tal­ents.  Don’t for­get to offer to buy them cof­fee for com­plet­ing it!

Find­ing your niche is a process that con­sid­ers the exter­nal envi­ron­ment and your inter­nal tal­ents.  With the right effort and some help from oth­ers, you may be on the right path to com­ing up with your Dream Life!

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