Certainly, some of us make half-hearted attempts to accomplish a few of our life and business goals. But how many people do you know who put everything on the line to pursue their deepest, most life-changing dreams? What are the rest of us doing, and what are we waiting for?

Choices and Challenges

Of course, circumstances get in the way. There are challenges, setbacks and detours. But each of us has a choice. Although it won’t be easy to navigate back to the right path, if we say that we can’t find our way around obstacles, we’re making a choice to leave things as they are.

Last night, I was reading about Roald Dahl, author of such hopeful and imaginative books as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. That might be my absolute favorite story about an underdog who overcomes obstacles while continuing to believe in something, even when all is stacked against him.

It turns out Roald Dahl was a lot like his character Charlie. Dahl’s personal life was filled with hardship and tragedy. In spite of all the challenges he faced, he remained positive and achieved great things. As it says on his website, “The series of misfortunes and tragedies Dahl… suffer[ed did not] made him more bitter. Loss and physical adversity seemed to stimulate his enormous energies to positive action. He fought misfortune as if it was a dragon to be slain.”

Time to Dream Big

I hope that 2011 will be a year of great progress toward achieving our deeply-buried dreams, and a year of doing things that require us to step out of our comfort zones and test our abilities, even if they lead to failure or, even more frightening, success.

I challenge you, as we round out these last few days of 2010: dust off those gutsy dreams and ambitions you’ve kept to yourself until now. Dare to put yourself out there; do something big this coming year. It doesn’t need to look big to anyone else, but you’ll know it is, because it will require you to go out on a limb and do things in an entirely different way.

For 2011, live the way you truly want to live, and achieve what you’ve only ever dreamed you could achieve.

What big, audacious goals do you have for 2011?

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When there’s so much vying for our attention and especially when we’re feeling more than a little burned out with our current efforts, a little “stick-to-itiveness” can go a long way. Here are a few ideas for developing the trait.

1. Allow yourself the occasional slip. There will be times when you simply don’t have the motivation or inspiration needed to stay on track and moving forward with your vision. On those days, it can be hard to break away from email, blog feeds and social networks long enough to make any kind of progress with your business, but an occasional slip doesn’t have to mean total failure. Make a resolution to get back on track tomorrow. In the long run, the occasional off day won’t be what determines whether you make it or break it, but rather the overall consistency that you manage over time.
2. Find ways to encourage patience and consistency. For a lot of business owners, it’s hard not to chase after every new opportunity that comes along. Whether we’re talking about new marketing tactics or altogether different business ventures, “entrepreneurial attention deficit disorder” is common for many a small business owner. Finding creative ways to encourage patience and consistency can keep E.A.D.D. at bay, while helping you keep your current efforts on track toward success. One solution is to consider starting side projects that build up over time and that won’t distract you from your main goals. Having several ventures or ideas at varying stages of development can keep your interest levels up, while allowing you to move your attention to and from projects as demand and priorities change.
3. Create “built-in” backup. One of the best ways to keep projects moving forward, while allowing you to focus on those areas of your business that most interest you, is to build in reinforcement through a team. By having more than one person concentrating on the key responsibilities within your company, you can feel confident knowing that the most important jobs are getting done, even if you’re not the person doing them. One tip is to use a “divide and conquer” mentality to separate your core responsibilities into chunks that can be outsourced, one at a time. As new responsibilities come into view, you can either create new roles or see if they fit within those already created.
4. Take a break. Often those feelings that show themselves outwardly are only symptoms of an underlying problem, and treating them will only mask or temporarily relieve them. If you’re feeling distracted or overwhelmed, there’s a good chance that you could simply be overworked. Don’t feel guilty about taking some much-needed R&R. By having some time completely away from the business, you might find that you’re able to regain your focus and motivation without having to make changes in projects or commitments.

So many great business ideas go by the wayside simply because the people behind them burn out and give up too quickly for the ideas to take hold. Developing a few insurances to help you stick with your plans and maintain consistency might be all you need to see your big idea to success.

What tactics have you found for increasing “stick-to-itiveness”?

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I think about this all the time as it relates to my business. Generally, we come up with plans, ways we’re going to market our businesses, manage them, and keep things growing and moving along smoothly, but what are we missing? Are there blind spots we don’t yet know exist that could potentially be fatal to the success of our companies?

Blind Spot #1: Giving Up Too Soon (or Not Planning to Weather the First Years)

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen small business owners make is simply giving up too soon. We all want to chase after shiny new distractions as they show up, but many times, we already have everything we need to succeed, if we would only stay the course and allow enough time for our business ideas to take hold.

It’s so important to plan for the hard times of that first year or so in business, when there’s very little money coming in. Plan to cut corners as much as possible, both with your personal and business expenses, so that you can afford to stick with it until you start generating revenue.

Many times, it’s easy to look back on past ideas and failures and think, “If I had only stuck with that, I think it could have worked.” You have to be willing and able to hang in there for the long haul, and so often, it’s just too hard for business owners to weather that first year or so.

Blind Spot #2: Not Consistently and Actively Promoting the Business

A close runner-up in fatal blind spots is not actively and consistently promoting the business. So many times, business owners get caught up in planning and tinkering the minor things within the business that they neglect actually going out and finding new customers or clients on a regular basis.

I was fortunate to have gotten my start in real estate, where you have to work under the guidance of a broker for several years before being able to go out on your own, and in the real estate industry, one of the first things you’re taught is how important lead generation is to your success. I can remember my broker telling us that the most successful and experienced agents in the firm still did lead generation a couple of hours a day. Of course, I had no idea what lead generation was at the time, but at least the importance of it stuck with me all these years.

Part of the problem for most business owners is not knowing what to do when it comes to promoting their businesses. There are so many different tactics for marketing and promotion that it can quickly become confusing and overwhelming.  It would be far more helpful for new business owners to hear that they should simply pick two or three tactics for promoting their businesses, plan to stick with them for six to twelve months, and to be very aggressive with them for at least two hours each and every day.

Blind Spot #3: Thinking You Can Do Everything Yourself

A third blind spot most business owners have is thinking they can do everything themselves (or thinking that they have to do everything themselves). Lack of money, time and even experience can make a business owner think he or she is not in the position to hire help, and the process of finding and building a support team can seem like a full time job on its own.

The good news is that it’s possible to inch your way into delegation by finding ways to outsource one piece of your work at a time, and if you don’t think you can afford a paid assistant at the beginning, start with a few interns. That way, you can slowly test the waters with a support staff, while also seeing if the interns you hire would make good permanent additions to your team.

For most of us, the thought of starting a new business is as exciting as first learning to drive: we just want to be given the keys, jump in the car, and go! Certainly, there’s room for the thrill of being in control and finally going where we want to go, but if we want to avoid as many fender benders as possible, it helps to know to look out for blind spots.

What blind spots do you think most small business owners have in the beginning?

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#1 Be persistent.

Fortunately, in every one of the situations I’ve had to resolve recently, not finding a solution was not an option. Although I would have loved to give up and declare a stalemate, I knew that wasn’t possible without accepting consequences I wasn’t willing to take, so I had to stick with them until I figured out a way to move forward.

Whatever problem you’re facing, trust that there must be a way to work through it and get to the other side.

#2 Stop avoiding it.

Although I’m pretty good at not procrastinating most of the time, when it comes to solving tricky problems, I’m one of the worst procrastinators. I want to take breaks, surf the Web, and call anyone and everyone I think might be available to chat. I’ll delay and avoid until I’ve wasted the majority of the day.

With one particular issue I had to figure out recently (which I had already postponed for nearly two months), I finally decided that I simply would not allow myself off the hook until I worked it out. I paced a path through my house and thought I’d never get through it, but eventually, the strategy worked, and I was very satisfied with the outcome.

Allow yourself breaks when you absolutely need them, but if you’re anything like me, you probably know when you really need a rest and when you’re just procrastinating. It won’t work 100 percent of the time, but there are occasions when not allowing yourself off the hook can really pay off.

#3 Work in reverse.

In the recent month or so, I decided to hire a couple of interns, in the hope of finding motivated and talented people I could add to my team permanently. I started the process of locating prospects through several university job posting boards, as well as a few privately-owned sites, but the pool of potential new hires was slim.

At first, I was a little discouraged, and in an effort to fine-tune my job postings, I started searching for terms like “what interns do” and “how to be a good intern” and began stumbling on blogs of actual interns who were exactly the type of candidates I wanted: aggressive, enthusiastic, eager, etc. Of course, these interns were already more than busy, but I started paying attention to the people who were commenting on their blogs, and it turns out, many of them were considering doing internships. As I followed the links back to their owners’ sites, I started finding unique, highly talented and motivated students who were perfect candidates for the job.

Instead of going more traditional routes for solving particular problems, try to think of other ways you might connect with the solutions you need.

#4 Pay attention to what’s right in front of you.

My latest dilemma was figuring out what to write for today’s post. I had been so busy with solving the other issues, I hadn’t backlogged ideas for this week’s article. After thinking on possibilities for nearly two hours, I finally said to myself, “I’m stuck,” and then it hit me: that’s it! I could have saved myself two hours, if I had only paid attention to what was right in front of me.

When you feel like you’ve searched high and low to find a solution, ask yourself if you’re missing the obvious. Turn to the resources immediately available to you, like pulling from past experiences or relying on your network of business contacts, family, and friends. Many times, the answer is not that far away.

What tricks do you use for getting unstuck and solving challenging problems in your business?

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Recently, I stumbled across a new service called Alice that lets you buy all of your household essentials online, things like toilet paper, toothpaste, trash bags and so on. Alice is awesome, and as soon as I figured out just exactly how awesome Alice was, I couldn’t wait to tell everyone I knew about the service.

Identify Your Customers’ Pain Points

I hate grocery shopping, especially for household items. I can be out of aluminum foil or coffee creamer for weeks before finally convincing myself to go to the store. There are many reasons why I dislike it so much, but here are the main two:

1. I hate making grocery lists. It takes too long. I have to think of everything I’ve been running low on or out of for the past month or so, and I inevitably forget something, which means I either have to go without out the item until the next time I convince myself to do this chore, usually two or three months later, or I have to go back to get the item. Plus, the list must be organized, or else I’ll end up running from one end of a 20,000 sq.ft. store to the other (which, let’s face it, ends up happening at least once per shopping trip anyway, because of some big conspiracy going on at the big box stores).
2. I hate the experience. I have to get ready and drive out to no less than two stores, because it’s impossible to get everything at one place, unless I go to one of the really unpleasant big box stores, which is a nightmare. Once I get there, I have to deal with parking, rude people, frustrated employees, long lines, price checks, loading the cart with the groceries, unloading the cart to check out, reloading the cart after checkout, and finally unloading the cart into my car, and then I get to go home, unload my car, and put all the groceries away, only to realize that I’ve forgotten something and to be discouraged, because I spent more money than I had planned, and a week later, I’ll need to do the entire process all over again.

Remove the Pain and Make Them Love You

Enter Alice (cue sound of choir). Alice solves my problems:

1. Alice knows me very well. When I signed up for my account, I got to go through and pick out all of my favorite and commonly-used household items and put them into my own custom, always-there product shelf. When I’m ready to shop, all my favorite items and brands are waiting for me, and all I have to do is load them into my cart and check out (if I haven’t scheduled them to be delivered automatically).
2. Alice will shop for me — automatically. I can set up my products to be delivered at specific times (say, toothpaste every two months and coffee filters every three). Alice will send me my items at preset times so that I no longer run out of things. Even if I do forget something, it only takes two or three business days for delivery, which is usually how long it takes me to convince myself to go to the store anyway.
3. The price is right. Manufacturers can sell directly to me through Alice and as there are no inventory costs as with regular retailers, the savings are passed on to me. However, even if the items were priced the same, I still don’t have to take time out to worry about restocking the toothpaste. Plus, there are no shipping fees, so I save on gas, not to mention the aggravation.
4. Alice looks after me. Just before checkout, Alice offers me some custom deals and coupons that I wouldn’t have otherwise found. Even if I don’t need the items just yet, Alice will save the discounts for me for a set time so that I can use them later.

But is It Real Love?

I could go on and on about Alice, and that’s really the point: I love this service and plan to tell everyone I know about it. Rarely do I get so excited about a company that I can’t wait to rave about them. That rarity is something that, if we’re smart, we can capitalize on within our own companies.

Make sure your customers love you, and I mean really love you:

• To the point that they literally have trouble listing all of the ways,
• To the point that they can’t wait to tell friends and family about you at every available opportunity, and
• To the point that they would hate to have to live without you.

Find your customers’ pain points and solve them. More than that, turn something they once dreaded into something they actually enjoy.

What companies do you love and rave about at every opportunity, and why?

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Apple won Marketer of the Year only once in the past ten years, but it was also a contender for the top honor nearly every year this decade, according to AdAge. The marketing publication cites many reasons for its victory, among them the launch of iAd, and the continued success of its brick-and-mortar stores.

Maybe the most significant piece of marketing savvy shown by Apple during the past year was its management of the “Antennagate“ scandal that threatened to tarnish its highly polished quality control reputation. Jobs and Co. avoided disastrous and long-lasting effects by offering free cases to affected customers, while at the same time, not actually admitting that there was anything really wrong with the device through clever double-speak.

The Advertising Legacy

If you want to talk about the last decade as a whole, though, you have to look back to its earlier marketing moves that have become so iconic. Remember the iPod silhouette ads? They debuted in Oct. 2003, and became iconic enough to inspire countless spoofs. The ads also featured songs, often by relatively unknown artists. Being picked as the track for an iPod commercial could make your career. Apple’s marketing could incidentally make a musician successful.

And if it’s entertaining ad campaigns you’re after, it’s hard to do better than Apple’s “Get a Mac” ads, known by the “I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC” tagline used in each. Though Apple dropped this campaign last year, it began in 2006, and more than 70 ads appeared in the series. Justin Long and John Hodgman, who played Mac and PC respectively, became more widely recognized for these roles than for their parts in film and television shows. Timed as they were to take advantage of the disaster that was Windows Vista, they probably did more for the Mac’s growth than anything had before.

Last, but not least, is Apple’s ”There’s an app for that,” the company’s recently certified trademark, which became synonymous with Apple’s App Store, and by extension, with the iPhone. It’s also possibly the most parodied and reused tagline in history, at least measured in terms of blog and newspaper article headlines, and derivative marketing campaigns.

The Brand

Say what you will about Apple; it’s done amazing things to secure its brand identity. The phenomenon of the fanboy is a well-documented one, and has even prompted attention from filmmakers. The loyalty Apple users feel for their preferred electronics vendor is unmatched by any other group.

Why does Apple attract such adamant defenders? I’d argue that it’s their continued commitment to quality. Apple won’t release a product that it thinks feels or seems cheap, no matter what the revenue benefits would be. The company’s never even tried something like starting an offshoot budget brand, as HP has with its Compaq acquisition. And say what you will about the iPhone 4′s antenna problems, but it’s still far and away the best phone I’ve ever owned.

That commitment to quality is closely tied to Apple’s customer service. Both on the phone and in person at the Apple Store, the resources the company has dedicated to making all of its representative-customer interactions as pleasant as possible has really paid off. Of course, there are exceptions, and people will no doubt cite many examples of poor service from Apple reps. But on the whole, AppleCare provides far less reason to complain than do many similar services offered by its competitors.

Jobs Himself

As we saw yesterday, a large part of Apple’s marketing success can be attributed to its charismatic leader, Steve Jobs. He seems to be unable to censor himself in direct interactions, something reflected in the famous Steve Jobs personal email replies that may or may not actually come from Apple’s PR department. Whether or not they do is besides the point.

Steve Jobs is part celebrity and part CEO. Even while maintaining an air of mystery and insisting on absolute secrecy regarding future product releases, he seems also to be available to customers and without a filter on his personal feelings. It’s an odd combination that’s obviously a winner with consumers, and it garners Apple a lot of press (see the thousands of articles about yesterday’s quarterly conference call circulating the web if you needed any more proof).

Can it Carry On?

So that’s how Apple achieved its place of prominence as Marketer of the Decade. But can it continue to reign? That’ll depend on its ability to maintain a high level of success with its advertising, brand and yes, even its CEO.

The advertising has already taken a turn for the worse, in my opinion. Apple seems unwilling to go out on a ledge and poke at rivals (plus it’s becoming the big fish anyway, and it looks bad to knock the competition from on high) or even to celebrate what makes it different by using indie acts for background music. The sentimentality of the FaceTime ads seems to be missing the edge that got Apple to where it is now. Maybe Apple’s customer base, as it ages, will appreciate the new direction, but I’m afraid it could lead to even more vanilla offerings.

Where Apple is safest is its brand image. Products continue to come out that provide a very high level of user experience, with relatively few frustrations. The iPad is a great recent example, as is the iPhone 4 if you leave aside for a second any antenna issues.

As for continuing to have an enigmatic and charismatic corporate leader who also provides a great public face for the company, that’s completely up in the air. Steve Jobs is obviously one of a kind, but it’s possible the corporate culture he’s fostered at Apple will produce a worthy successor from within the ranks.

What do you think is the main reason for Apple’s marketing success? Any or all of the above, or something not listed here?

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ambition, n.: an earnest desire for some type of achievement and the willingness to strive for its attainment

Thinking about ambition reminds me of Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement address at Stanford. The words “stay hungry” have followed me ever since reading his address in a magazine soon after it took place.

It also reminds me of my first years in business and of my first venture that was a real success: my web design business, which has since taken a back seat to other ventures, but still has the power to motivate me when I think of it.

In the first full twelve months of starting the business, I had earned what was for me at the time quite a bit of money, but I didn’t really pay attention to that fact in the beginning. I just did the work. Now, though, I can appreciate that accomplishment and how I achieved it by myself, and for me, that’s what ambition is all about.

Take away spouses and parents, mentors, physical possessions. Take away everything, and you’re left with yourself; knowing that, no matter what, you can create something from nothing, and you can survive. Knowing that makes you think anything is possible.

It’s not about being on your own or not having anyone to help you, quite the opposite. The greater that inner source of power, the more you have to offer those around you and the more you appreciate the true strength that can result from coming together around a shared passion.

However, it is important to know that we can build something with our own hands, that we have that ability within us. When challenges find us, and they will, we need to know that we are resourceful and that, as before, we will find a way through them or around them, whichever comes first.

That’s so very powerful, but wanting something and being willing to do whatever it takes to get it are two very different things, and lately, I’m coming to appreciate how you need both the wanting and the willingness in order to achieve.

I’m starting to apply that distinction to my own decision-making when it comes to where I spend my energy. I’m coming to accept that if I don’t want something bad enough, I’m never going to do the work it will take to reach it. My time and energy would be better spent on something I actually want to achieve and for which I’m willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish: those things that make me want to get up early and stay up late, where sleep becomes unnecessary and something I have to force myself to do, because I simply can’t wait to do whatever is next on the list to move the vision forward. It truly is a hunger.

Over the last year, I’ve found it especially difficult to build a team of people who take pride in their work and are ambitious when it comes to their own success or sense of accomplishment. I’m not sure what the ultimate solution to that problem will be, but when I think about adding someone to my team, I know that it’s important for that person to have dreams and goals of his or her own.

I’m OK with the fact that he or she might see my business as a stepping stone, a means to an end, because that means that while that person is with me, he or she will be striving, reaching for something. He or she will be ambitious, and I need, we all need, people like that around us in order to make each of our dreams a reality.

Do you let ambition drive your business and the decisions you make around it?

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I call these items a “moving to-do list,” and I’m always on the lookout for them. They’re those things that follow me around for weeks or months on end, until I finally own up to it and say, “I’m never going to get to that. I might as well quit moving it forward.”

I’m not talking about those pesky to-dos that eventually really do have to get done. I have a couple of them on my list right now, things like fixing a mirror on my vanity or the trip lever on my bathtub. Eventually, if I keep ignoring those to-dos and moving them forward on my list instead of just doing them, the mirror on my antique vanity will break, and my bathtub won’t drain (not good). Hopefully, I’ll get to those things before that happens, but the point is, eventually, as annoying as they might be, we get to these kinds of things, because if we don’t, there are consequences.

What I’m talking about are those things that might not have obvious consequences if we fail to do them, or that have consequences we’re subconsciously willing to pay. These are things like:

• Writing that book we’ve been meaning to write, or
• Launching that new product or service. or
• Making changes to our service offerings or websites so that we stop taking on certain types of clients.

These are those tasks that we’re avoiding for some reason, and we need to figure out why. A few of the possible reasons?

1. Obligation. We keep saying to the people around us (business and accountability partners, customers and clients, family and friends) that we’re going to write that book. We say that it’s something we really want to do, or we say that it will bring in additional revenue for our businesses, but it turns out that we’re not really all that motivated to do it, yet we keep moving the task forward, because we’ve promised that that’s what we’re going to do.
2. Guilt. We think it’s something we should do, maybe because everyone else manages to get it done or because it’s our “responsibility” to do it, but internally, we’re doing it for all the wrong reasons and don’t really want to do it, and we feel guilty because of that, so we just keep moving forward and saying that we’re going to get it done.
3. Motivation (or lack of it). A lot of the tasks we take on are driven by financial motivations. Maybe we want to (or think we should) make more money, but in reality, we’re quite comfortable where we are, so even though we might think or say that we want to achieve greater financial success, the financial motivation alone is never going to be enough to make us do the task, but we keep moving it forward, because we think we should want more money.

At the end of the day, it comes down to acceptance. Acceptance of what we really want, of our own definition of success, and of who we really are (and who we’re not).

Once you accept all those things and are OK, saying, “You know what, I just don’t even really want that. It’s not who I am, it’s not what I want, and it’s not important for me to be happy,” give it up. Take it off the list and file it away as a “someday/maybe,” if you think it will ever come back on the radar or if you need that little bit of security, just in case you change your mind.

The bottom line is that a moving to-do list adds unnecessary stress and frustration and a feeling of failure, when really you’re just attempting to achieve something that you don’t even want or that’s some arbitrary achievement that won’t even matter to you if you do accomplish it. Let it go, and be OK with it. Free up that mind space for something that you actually do want and that you stand a chance of accomplishing, because you won’t get in your own way.

What needs to be taken off your moving to-do list?

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“What makes the difference between wishing and realizing our wishes? Lots of things, of course, but the main one, I think, is whether we link our wishes to our active work. It may take months or years, but it’s far more likely to happen when we care so much that we’ll work as hard as we can to make it happen.” – Mister Rogers

Getting from Point A to Point B

We may have big ideas and hopes for our businesses, but getting from Point A to Point B is often where we run into trouble. Success, though, comes when we can connect our goals for our businesses to where we are today (and every day) through consistent action, but how can we ensure consistency each and every day?

We have to care about the work we’re doing — really care. If we love our work, we’ll be a lot more willing to stay the course and work as hard as we can (for as long as it takes) to see our vision to reality, and, in fact, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Loving the Work (to the Extreme)

I’m sure you’ve heard of Gary Vaynerchuk. He’s the author of “Crush It!” and the face of Wine Library TV, a daily video blog about wine, which took his family’s business from $4 million to $60 million annually in just a few short years.

I’ve read many times that Gary Vaynerchuk is a workaholic (he might even be a self-proclaimed workaholic). I’ve heard that he works 18-hour days, but no matter what you think about working that much, the real question is, do you love what you do so much that you are willing to put in that kind of time and effort?

From what I’ve seen of Gary Vaynerchuk, he’s one of the most passionate and enthusiastic people one could meet. Personally, I don’t know a lot of people who are all that passionate or enthusiastic about very much of anything (and they generally work far less than 18 hours a day).

Certainly, Gary takes his work to the extreme, but maybe that’s part of the reason he has been so successful. I don’t think very many people ever take anything to an extreme, opting instead to live in the middle and ending up bored to death with it. Passion and enthusiasm, though, can make you want to take your work to the extreme.

Finding Passion

Many of us are not so lucky as to know from an early age what it is that we want to do, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find passion just the same, and by finding passion and enthusiasm, we’ll be much more engaged in our work, which will lead to greater contentment and success in our business endeavors (whatever they may be).

So, how do you find passion when your calling is not so obvious?

• Find a way to serve. Many times (and at probably the most rewarding times), passion comes from helping others. Teaching, sharing and offering support to someone else can bring enthusiasm for finding more and greater ways to be of service.
• Do what you enjoy. If you love writing, there’s a way to leverage that to help you build a thriving business. The same is true for speaking, entertaining, or meeting people. You can integrate any of these talents and strengths into a tool for building almost any kind of business. You can also leverage things like your love of sports or home-making or technology.
• Follow your curiosity. Gary Vaynerchuk was curious about wine, so he started exploring that interest and then decided to share his findings with an audience who wanted down-to-earth advice on the topic. If you’re curious about something, leverage that curiosity and see if there might be an audience who is also interested in learning about it.

Finding work that you truly love to do is key to being able to stick with it and put in the time and effort necessary to build a thriving business. If you can find something that ignites passion and enthusiasm within you, you’re much more likely to find true and lasting success.

No matter what your business, how do you make sure you remain excited to show up and build your business day after day?

Photo by Flickr user laszlo-photo, licensed under CC 2.0

A post from Chris Brogan stirred my entrepreneurial spirit. In it, he discussed how the phrase “looking for work” used to mean mean looking for (and creating) opportunities to work, rather than just looking for a job. He laments that, “We’ve somehow decided that ‘security’ equals working for someone else who has all the cards and pulls all the strings.”

Brogan goes on to describe how people can create their own work by being entrepreneurial. Certainly, that applies to creating opportunities where others might say they don’t exist (starting a new business, for example), but it also applies to how you look at your business right now.

For the guy running the screenprinting shop, don’t just make t-shirts; create opportunities to make t-shirts. For the lady running the bakery, don’t just make cupcakes; create opportunities for people to want cupcakes.

For each of us, we have something we want to make, do or sell, but we can’t just do the work; we have to actually create the opportunities for doing the work.

So, how does this work in practice? Let’s take the cupcake lady. Business is slow. People aren’t buying cupcakes. She needs to find a way to make people want to buy cupcakes. How can she do that? A trendy idea I like is people substituting cupcakes for their actual wedding cake, so why couldn’t she position herself as the local baker for the job? She could find and create unique wedding cupcake displays and showcase them in her bakery window or in posters around her shop. Certainly, in big cities or in trendier locations, this might be something seen at every bakery, but what if she’s the first in her area to offer it? Cupcake gold, at least for a while, and then she’ll have to create a new reason for people to want cupcakes.

So, how can you implement this for your business? You just need to think outside the box.

Think about your product or service. How do people use it now, and is there a way that you can get them to want to use it more? No matter what your business, your customers and clients all want the same thing, whether that’s more time, more money, less aggravation and annoyance, or a greater sense of security, well-being, acceptance, or achievement. How can you help them get one or more of those things?

No matter what you do, no matter what product you create or service you provide, you can find ways to create demand around your business. All it takes is a little bit of that entrepreneurial spirit and a good dose of creativity.

How can you “find a place to apply what you know how to do”? How can you “create work” for yourself instead of waiting for it to come to you?

Photo by Flickr user shimelle, licensed under CC 2.0

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