Follow Your Bliss

2008 was a bad year me for for more than one reason. I lost a friend to cancer. Marsha was a friend and a client, in that order. During a time in my life when I was mourning another loss, I was struggling to answer critical questions and doubts about the direction of my personal and professional life. Marsha gave me some advice disguised as a casual statement. "Follow your bliss, Tom: it'll take you where you're supposed go" she said. At the time, I didnt it much help. I feel differently now.

When I started writing this series of blogs about starting your own business, Marsha came to mind. Marsha followed her own advice. She started her business because she saw a need for her unique skill and a desire to be financially independent. Marsha was an ESL (English as a Second Language) expert. She was a gifted teacher; she knew and understood the federal regulations that compelled all school districts to provide services to immigrant children in the community. She translated that knowledge and skill into contracts and then into money. She got all that she wanted from the relationship: doing something she loved and financial independence.

That leads me to you and your choices about the business you'll pursue. What is your "bliss"? When making a choice about a business to pursue, consider a few of these ideas:

• What skills do you have?
• What is unique about those skills?
• Do you have specialized knowledge?
• If you don't have the knowledge, what will you have to do to acquire the knowledge?
• Do you know about a need in the community for a service that is unfulfilled?
• How will your business be different from others that are similar?
• What do you like doing?

Remember, your business has to fill a need in your marketplace to have your product or service desired. With the Internet, your marketplace can be global.

Best of luck in your search.

Thomas Hicks is a Certified Public Accountant working in Brewer, Maine. For more information or to contact Tom, click here.

Photo Credit: Brian Moore, TheTruthAbout