“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
Howard Thurman

I am an idealist living in a world of realists. The majority of my colleagues are realists who give me and their clients excellent advice. They encourage me to “find out what the market needs are and deliver what they are asking for better than anyone else.” Or they challenge me to consider if “I were the most impatient consultant in the world, what would I recommend.” I considered adopting this stance until this weekend. My poor old laptop breathed its last breaths and I was forced to shop for a new computer. I have thought about a mac for a while and decided to venture into the Apple store.

Oh my goodness…Mac had me at hello! I now realize that the Apple store is the place that idealists like me can go and pay homage. I was greeted at the front of the store by a guy holding an iPad. I marveled at all the new iPhones and square iPods. All of these products are innovations that the market didn’t ask for but now is clamoring for. It makes me realize that there is a place for creating opportunity. You don’t have to just let the market needs dictate what you do. You can successfully let your own voice do the talking.

Here’s my five reasons to not worry so much about what the market says it needs but do what makes you feel alive:
1. Alive is…alive. There is energy and passion which leads to growth.
2. Sometimes we have the opportunity to meet needs of others that they didn’t even know they had. If you give the market exactly what it says it needs, you may miss out on meeting significant and unspoken needs.
3. If you only give the market exactly what it says it needs, you put artificial limits on what you can create and thus what others can experience.
4. You stifle progress. No one asked Walt Disney to envision a theme park in the orange groves of Florida. No market actually really needed a man to go to the moon.
5. It’s boring and sucks the life of you if you spend your life worrying about what other people think and trying to please them.

Join me in my idealist revolution and ask not what your market wants you to do for them…ask what you want to do for your market!

© Betsy Jordyn 2010. All rights reserved.