Have you ever planted a seed in your garden? And then watched it bloom into something wonderful?
Well doing the same in life to match a need you have, can be life changing. And just as blooming beautiful.
If you do you won’t be alone. You will be in very good company.
In 1976 a Brighton housewife in England needed to earn some income for herself and her two daughters while her husband was away travelling in South America. Being a keen environmentalist she opened a basic shop (between two funeral parlours) with only 25 simple, natural skin care products in refillable containers reducing cost simply because she didn’t have enough bottles to use. It ended up being what others needed too and within six months a second shop was opened.
The woman was Anita Roddick and this was the launch of the world’s first environmental high street brand, The Body Shop. When she sold the business in 2006 the price tag was £652 million. One seed met her need and did so for others too. And that’s often how it works.
Does that ring a bell with you? Maybe this will help.
Ringing up the profits.
Some of the most amazing ideas and products have come out of pure need.
Jamie Siminoff was a self confessed tinker. Taking gadgets and tinkering with them to see if he could add something new. Or creating his own version in his garage at home for pleasure. Hidden away creating in his den he kept missing deliveries because he couldn’t hear his doorbell. Frustrated by this he decided he needed to build some form of wi-fi doorbell that would solve his problem as nothing existed on the market.
So in 2012 he set about creating the bell and decided to also add a camera so as not to waste walking round to the front of his house for some everyday delivery that could be left on his porch. He hammered out his prototype creation on his workbench and called it the Doorbot. As a result she tried out the device in their home. She loved it telling him she felt safer now she could actually see who was behind the door without having to open it. It was the famous lightbulb moment.
The US investors TV show Shark Tank also heard about it on the grapevine. The Doorbot subsequently featured in front of millions of viewers who wowed at how the doorbell improved home security. He renamed the product Ring and immediately sales went through the roof selling 170 million within three years. Just six years after putting together his contraption in his garage to help fulfil his own missed delivery need, he sold the company to Amazon for $1billion. Perhaps the quickest growth of any business from nothing in history.
Needs must.
Often we see a need as a problem. An issue or challenge that’s stressing our life. Not so Anita and Jamie. They dropped a seed into something to fulfil their need and turned them into gold.
View your need or reoccurring snafu in the same vane. Take a logistic approach in your mind.
What skill do you possess you could put to use to meet that need?
Is there an interest or background knowledge you have that might be your route to a big breakthrough?
What need is actually your invitation to put something about you to good use?
We always assume amazing life change comes via a lottery win or a tragic event. Something unexpected that flips life 180. Therefore when an issue blocks us we don’t see that as the very opportunity we have waited our life for now showing itself. A need that we already carry the seed within to beat.
Take another look at your so called need. Maybe it’s what you always needed to discover how amazing you are.
What need in your life now needs what’s in you?
References; Anita Roddick – various sources, see mostly https://brightonmuseums.org.uk/discovery/history-stories/dame-anita-roddick-entrepreneur-activist-and-campaigner/.
Ring – Jamie Siminoff – ‘The Secret Genius of Modern Life – BBC TV.