A lot has been written about sexy, cutting-edge, ground-breaking businesses and careers. Scan the magazine rack and you’ll find that there is a mover-shaker, brainiac billionaire with a new idea or a big deal. I love these stories. I write some of these stories. But, the truth is that for every extraordinary entrepreneur, executive or corporation spotlighted in those glossy pages, there are a hundred or more that are passed over not because they are not as successful but because they are simply not as interesting. Who wants to read a story about the guy that manufactures wooden pallets or metal garbage cans? Who wants to read about the company that manufactures generic spices or the woman who manages a temp agency?
I do…now.
It occurs to me that sexy businesses and jobs get all of the ink in much the same way as the sexy people do. The business media–including authors of business books–feeds us the “super models” just as the popular media feeds women and girls anorexic blondes. Reading too much of this stuff can warp our ideas of what business is or should be. It can leave us feeling that our business ideas, our small businesses, our career choices are mundane or not good enough.
The truth is that if we all waited for big ideas and new discoveries, we’d miss out on the opportunity to start or build upon something that could be extraordinary, maybe not in terms of getting ink, but in terms of providing products and services that people actually need, employing talented people in their own communities and providing career and business opportunities that might not exist if we are all waiting to bring sexy back.
This message and lesson is particularly important in times of turmoil when everyone is scrambling about trying to find “extraordinary” opportunities. Reconsider your definition of extraordinary. I’m not suggesting that you lower your expectations or squash your ambitions; I’m suggesting that you consider a new, expanded definition that includes the following:
- A viable business model that solves a real problem for real people
- A job or career that supports the lifestyle you desire
- A job or career that allows you to do what you do best every day
- A business that allows you to give back to your community
- A business that allows you to secure your family’s future
- A business or career that does not exist at the mercy of trends
- A business or career that makes you and/or your staff feel good about opening the doors every day
The point of this post is to, hopefully, inspire you to get out there and deliver your best job performance every day, to find or create business and career opportunities that inspire and excite you…even if you’ll never be a “super model”, never be written up in Fortune or Forbes, never be the subject of a best-selling biography.
Extraordinary is only discoverable when we stop and appreciate the ordinary.
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