The major difference between a good entrepreneur or business owner and a great one usually comes down to the exact same element: the quality of their business idea.
To arrive at a viable business idea, you need a moment of inspiration, but a lot of people assume that this moment must be more positive than it really is. Sometimes people get inspired by taking a walk through the park or by talking to their loved ones, and that’s perfectly OK. Others feel like the ideas just aren’t coming because they’re too frustrated.
Believe it or not, that’s even better.
You can turn your biggest frustration in life into your biggest inspiration for your next big enterprise. In fact, it’s easier than you think it is. You just have to keep a few key things in mind about this process.
Maybe the most important thing you need to understand about turning your biggest frustration into your best business idea is that, at the end of the day, frustration is just a trigger. Experts agree that you can absolutely be frustrated without having that experience lead to true innovation; it’s something that most of us feel every single day.
When you have that moment of irritation in your life, you need to acknowledge it as a helpful starting point on the path to innovation. However, it’s what you do next that will determine whether you’re able to overcome these feelings and, more than that, whether you’re able to use it as fuel to drive yourself toward finding innovative solutions.
To put all of this into context, it can be helpful to examine what occurs in our brains when frustration begins to set in. Frustration just means that you’ve identified a problem — something that is keeping you down and holding you back. The analytical side of your brain has done its job; now it’s time to turn on the other side of your brain and put it to work.
Once you’ve examined the source of your frustration, you need to use your creative, strategic and thinking skills to come at the “problem” from a variety of angles. Don’t just consider how the problem can be solved in a macro, literal sense. Think about the situation in terms of questions like:
They may seem like simple questions on the surface, but what you’re really doing is identifying: a) your target audience; b) a product that you can design; or c) a service that you can launch that will help relieve this frustration in not only yourself, but in as many people as possible.
Truth be told; this is an experience that nearly every business owner that you admire has had at some point in your life. The greatest businesses ideas of all time may be complicated, sophisticated and have little in common. But the one quality that they all share is that they were all created the same way:
One great way to make sure that you don’t forget about these moments of frustration is to carry a notebook around with you at all times. Whenever you have these experiences, be sure to jot down a few notes, regardless of how minor things appear at the moment. At the end of a week (or after some other period of time has passed), review your notes and consider each frustration individually. Figure out which one represents the biggest potential opportunity and start to workshop it to see what you can come up with.
In the end, just remember that we all grow frustrated with certain elements of our lives at various points. Indeed, it’s one of the qualities that makes us human in the first place. But even the biggest problem is nothing if not a solution waiting to be discovered. For a startup founder, it can also be an opportunity just waiting to be capitalized on and developed into a business plan for those among us who are paying attention.
They say that “necessity is the mother of invention,” and frustration is a significant part of that. But innovation is an equally important part of that story, too. Innovation is absolutely born out of frustration. But with the right perspective on things, you can absolutely use it to spot opportunities that may have otherwise gone undiscovered.
At that point, you’ll have more than just another business idea — you’ll have laid the foundation for the next big success of your life.
About Sonu Shukla, CPA, CFP
Sonu Shukla is a Certified Public Accountant as well as Certified Financial Planner. He believes in proactive tax planning and has the skills, education and experience to demonstrate passionately planned financial strategies. His firm tailors highly efficient tax plans for his small business clients, all in a one on one environment where he and the client can bounce ideas around until every detail is worked out. Located in Orlando, FL, he services all of Florida.
