Following your dream can give you the passion needed to pursue an opportunity.
‘Do what you love and the money will follow.’
Marcha Sinetar
By now I’m sure you’ve heard this phrase, or a variation, a hundred times. When deciding to pursue an opportunity, this advice is crucial. It’s incredibly challenging to start something new without a strong personal motivation and the prospect of getting personal value or fulfilment.
Personal value is about the intangible value that exploring the opportunity will bring to you - the inventor and innovator. This value could be that it gives you an opportunity to work in an area you’re passionate about or to develop your skills and knowledge. Being passionate about an opportunity means you care about it, you understand it, and you want to address it. You gain value by exploring an opportunity, including learning and developing new skills, contributing to the development of your knowledge, and reinforcing your existing competitive advantage. Some opportunities will be more suitable for this and provide more value as they may be in an area or field where you’re trying to develop your skills, whilst for others you may just be fine tuning existing skills.
Example
Let's say you have identified and developed an innovative opportunity that helps the elderly who are living alone move around safely. You could develop your knowledge surrounding domestic disability devices, further your skills in product design, or broaden your communication skills. All these things contribute to the development of new skills, personal satisfaction and your competitive advantage, therefore providing you with personal value. Additionally, you may have a personal attachment to this area, such as a grandparent who could benefit from having this opportunity addressed. This can increase your motivation to pursue the opportunity, giving you a reason to care.
However, if you had already been working in this field for years and already had highly developed skills in this area, this opportunity might not provide you with as much value. If your opportunity isn’t providing variation, new skills or something new, then the personal satisfaction you feel might not be as significant. In addition to skills development, addressing an opportunity can give you the chance to develop valuable contacts and networks that assist you both personally and professionally through mentoring, investment or general advice and support. It’s also likely that through addressing the opportunity, other opportunities will open up for you.
There are a myriad of other aspects of personal value that could have more substantial intangible benefits. For example, it can have a positive impact on your mental health and general wellbeing which can have flow on effects for when you’re not identifying opportunities, such as finishing your day with a sense of satisfaction and achievement.
