187. “Find a Problem and Create a Cool Solution” – Clients on Demand

“My first love, from as far back as I can remember, was acting,” Russ tells host Don Hutcheson. But that was because it was a child’s view of how to get money and freedom. He enjoyed performing, so he went to a high school for performing arts, then to UCLA to study acting. But like many aspiring actors, he took another job in entertainment: tending bar to pay the rent.

As Russ approached the Big Three-O, he was going on auditions, still tending bar. Some friends were landing great acting jobs, but most of them were very unhappy with the demands. “They were essentially employees, trading their time for money,” Russ said. He began to rethink his goals. At a Barnes & Noble near the bar where he worked, he picked up a copy of Tim Ferris’ book, The 4-Hour Workweek. In this interview, Russ describes how he now is pursuing an entirely new—and very rewarding—vision.

With the advent of the Internet, business opportunities are exploding, offering many ways to make money and increase your freedom. But it’s not enough to launch a website, dominate social media or kill yourself writing killer blog posts. “People don’t give you money so you can have a great business. They give you money so that you can solve a problem that they have.”

1. Find a problem many people have and create a cool product or service to solve it.

2. Overcome your fear of asking for the sale. Many ideas never succeed because of this fear.

3. Focus on transformation, not on information.

4. Find ways of making a powerful impact on the world. Let this vision drive you.

The 4-Hour Workweek, by Timothy Ferriss

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