Inside Out Approach To Entrepreneurship, Part 1, Find The Niche

(Image by Patrick J Lynch)

So how do you become an entrepreneur?

This is the first post of Inside Out Approach to Entrepreneurship series. It is going to be a very important and experimental series.

As I wrote in A Year Without Paychecks Part 2, I quit my corporate job last September. I now work for myself, and my business is profitable. So I guess my readers would be saying something like, “Oh, that’s great, Akemi, but how can I start my own business? I want to become an entrepreneur, too, but I have no clue where to start.”

I’m more than happy to help. In fact, that is the reason I started this Yes to Me blog – to help aspiring entrepreneurs to actually start a small business.

I’ve had just one hesitation, however, about tackling this topic head on. I’m a new entrepreneur myself. It’s been a fun ride for me, but does my advice have any weight for the aspiring entrepreneurs?

My solution: What if I offer myself as a target of criticism while I ramble on my advice?

I think I’m on the right path, but heck, I’m open to hear any criticism. So I will be talking about the following steps to entrepreneurship and sharing my experiences. And I’m sending out open invitation to the following business experts online so that they can say whatever they please in the comments or in their own blogs.

Inside Out Steps to Entrepreneurship

1. Find the niche.
2. Polish your niche.
3. Check your readiness.
4. Learn marketing.
5. Build your system.

Everyone is welcome to participate. Here are some people who are pros on this topic that I’m hereby inviting:

Cath Lawson The bold business advisor

Tom Volkar Great life coach who specializes in career improvement

Tim Brownson Another great and controversial life coach

Tom Stine Yet another life coach, a spiritual one

Jen (MMND) Young millionaire retiree who is now offering coaching

I feel a bit of masochistic pleasure about including these successful life coaches because in this series I will have to discuss the failure of my own life coaching business.

Readers, if you are an aspiring entrepreneur, you might want to write your pending questions in the comments – as you know, I respond to all comments, and some of these experts may be kind enough to respond, too.

Step 1, Find the Niche

So, the first step is to decide what you want to do. And this is the biggest question. Most aspiring entrepreneurs seem to be stuck here.

I think you are stuck because you are looking outside of yourself. No, you first need to go within and know what you love to do. Then you figure out how you can develop it to products and services that people would love to pay for, which will be Step 2, Polish your niche.

Now I’ve already figured out what I love to do, but in order to show you how you might want to do this step, I’ll pretend I’m clueless. If you already know who you are and what you love to do, go ahead and skip this one. Just be sure it’s something you love, not just something you can do.

If you go into business with what you can do but you hardly care about it, even if you can do it well, you are setting yourself up for misery. You could be buried in money and feeling lonely and unfulfilled. Why would you want to do that? Is it any better than your current job?

How to find what you love to do

If you have been doing what everyone else wants you to do, you may have forgotten what you love to do. Very sad. So to remember who you are and what you love, pull out a sheet of paper and do a bit of inventory work.

Questions you may consider:

• Which books do I love reading? And why? (Check your bookshelf.)
• Which movies do I love watching?
• Which music do I love?
• What activity do I love to do?
• Which aspects of my current job do I love?
• More things that come to your mind regarding what you love to do

My list looks like this.

Books:

The Autobiography of Malcolm X – great life story.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie – I remember reading this when I was in high school (yes, in Japanese), long before the term “personal development” was in fashion.

Various books on personal and spiritual development including those by Alan Cohen, Deepak Copra, Tao Te Ching.

Greek mythology and various other mythologies

Movies:

Lost in Translation – sophisticated sense of humor and great story

Beautiful Mind – great life story

Amadeus – great life story with great music

Music:

Baroque, Mozart, some airs in opera (I’m not very specific)

Lois Armstrong and Billy Holiday – great voices. I like the human warmth and power.

Activities:

Reading and learning – I just never get tired of reading and learning new things.

Writing – I like sharing and communicating.

Quiet time, like walking in the park early morning

Aspects of my last job (assisting president of mid-size company, along with general admin responsibilities):

Variety – I like doing a lot of things rather than doing the same thing all day long.

People – I like dealing with many people and building long-term trusting relationships.

Creativity – I was allowed to do a lot of things my way because I was the only person who could do them.

Also, I used to be a teacher. I liked teaching (languages) to adults and young adults because it was a lot about communication and relationship building.

When I was in school, I liked history a lot. All those fascinating stories and movements! When I went to college, I thought of studying psychology, but was discouraged when I figured that it’s about treating “dysfunctions.”

Do you see a common thread?

“Great life story”came up a couple of times, and the factor of people. So are the aspects of communication and dealing with people. And the long time interest in personal development.

So . . . when I learned about a profession called “life coach”, I thought that must be something meant for me . . . (continued to Part 2)

Further resource: If you can shed out some cash, Naomi Dunford offers one-on-one phone brainstorming session on this. I have worked with her – not to find my niche but to market my niche – and can say she is a very smart and sweet pro.

How does your list look like? Do you know your love and passion now?

Your Money Or Your Life

Stay sane in the insane time

So last week, we saw financial news of the historic level. News and blog articles that warn people to prepare for the worst, to have plan B, or C, were everywhere.  (Photo by mygothlaundry)

In the local newspaper, I read about a man, a retired business owner, demanding to cash out $50,000 at the bank. He refused cashier’s check and wanted greenbacks, saying “I don’t trust anything in paper nowadays.”

Did you recognize the two signs of insanity in this story? One, greenbacks is just another stack of printed paper, and I don’t see why it is more reliable than bank checks (within the FDIC insured amount.) Two, far more critically, he is confusing what is really important.

What I learned about money and life in my bank job

My first full-time job in America was with a big bank (now part of JP Morgan Chase) as international banking coordinator. This was a very educational job. I learned the basics of customer service and sales. I also learned a lot about money and life. One lesson was simple and straight: In this country, people get killed for a few hundred dollars. Really. So don’t carry it around if you care about your life.

My department was in a downtown high-rise and the banking center on the first floor got robed a few times a year. Not that we ever had death or injury. The bank would definitely choose lives of its employees and customers over losing some cash, which was usually no more than a handful.

I really hope this man is still alive. With or without his $50K cash. (The news article had his full name and some more personal info, like the company he had, so it would be easy if someone wanted to locate him . . .)

How to stay sane by being aware of what is important in your life

This writing may be showing how sad I was. The US government is printing more and more money, and the value of the dollar is falling (this is why I say greenbacks are no better than bank checks – I bought some silver ETF by the way). But this is not why I am sad. I’m sad because so many people don’t know what is important in their lives.

Life is more important than money. Money is good so far as it lets us enjoy life.

Money comes and goes, which is the only way money makes sense. The greenbacks don’t have any intrinsic value – what it can buy has values. And we buy because we are alive.

So you are alive and reading this post. Beyond safety, what is important in your life? Go ahead and actually write them down. Awareness of what is important in life can keep you sane.

Turn your bad news into blessing in disguise

I’m also starting to think this financial downturn can be a blessing in disguise. I mean, if it lets you review your life and its priorities, you can turn it into a blessing in disguise. We all will die sooner or later, and I believe the value of life is more about the awareness we live with rather than the length of life.

As I write, I’m biting an apple – a new crop, full of sweet-tart smell and juice. This is good. And I have my own business – not because it’s a quick and easy way to make money, not because it’s everyone’s dream to be her own boss, but because I believe in myself and in what I do, and because I like helping people. And it lets me buy local apples. Very good.

Again, what is important for you in your life? And how do you see the financial news?

Gratitude And Train For Humanity, Online Gratitude Journal #13

Gratitude for the opportunity to give

As I wrote in my last post that reviewed my year without paychecks, I believe sense of service is empowering. I also wrote the opportunity to give is a gift. (Photo by Mr. Greenjeans)

Just as I was preparing to post that article, Kelly let me know about this project called Train For Humanity. Started by three handsome bloggers, Mark Hayward, Dan Clements, and Leo Babauta, this is a great fundraising that aims to help Darfur Peace & Development Organization. (Each link takes you to the blog post that the respective bloggers wrote about this project.)

What I really like is that they are literally sweating to raise funds. I love that attitude. Talking about humanity is nice for sure. Doing a fundraising is respectable. But actually training to participate in a race is a gutsy. I don’t see myself doing this (yeah, I’m such a wimp ) so I made a donation. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity to give!

Please check them out. There are various ways you can help.

Gratitude for the opportunities to participate in great projects

Recently I’ve enjoyed the opportunities to participate in two great projects. One is Jenny Mannion’s Heroes of Healing group writing project. This is a list of spiritual healing resources with personal reflections. The list is currently growing and when it is completed, will be huge. I’m encouraging her to take it to a higher level so that more and more people can see it. My contribution is here.

Another is the interview Hunter Nuttall did. He asked so many great questions about my Akashic Record Reading service. In fact, some questions were quite tough to answer, but I’m glad I did it. It helped me to see my service in third person’s perspective.

My Law of Attraction Dream Money Project, Week 12, $204,800

I was talking with a client the other day. Like many other clients to my Akashic Record Reading service, she was suffering from a loss of part of her soul. Of course, she never thought of the possibility of her soul fragmented, but as I explained how the loss happened and how she was experiencing the loss, she could relate so well. And she asked a critical question:

“What happens when a soul loses more part of it? Is there a point that the loss is fatal?”

I don’t have a complete answer for this honestly, but this is what I think. When the loss is relatively small, they can bring themselves up to services like mine for the healing. When the loss is bigger, that becomes increasingly difficult. And there may be a “fatal” point. Just like physical injury.

I’m proud I can help my clients who come to me. But going forward, I want to expand my service. I want to help those who can’t bring themselves to me. When I think of so many souls out there without access to help, I fell so sad.

This takes raising the awareness of soul issues so that the people around the troubled souls can notice and bring them to me. I suspect there are many many such souls – some are probably considered to be having psychiatric issues.

So with this dream money, I want to start the foundation to explore the soul – mind – body relationship. Maybe we can collect data of before and after the healing / clearing to show the difference in physical energy field and / or the brain. We can fund reading and clearing work for those who can’t afford it while collecting case studies. We can call to experts of other spiritual healing modalities to see collaborative work potentials. There are a lot of possibilities.

We are seeing a significant surge in the interest in spirituality at this time, and I don’t think this is by accident at all. We are becoming more and more aware. With this dream money, I want to think big and help this shift.

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