Is Your Everyday Life Hiding Valuable Business Lessons?
Coming up with authentic, quality content for your blog or online marketing can certainly feel like a struggle sometimes. You may start to wonder if you have anything new to say or anything valuable to offer. Meanwhile, amazing life lessons and business insights are likely hiding in what seems like mundane, everyday life. You just need to know how to pick out the lessons and how to spin everyday life into a valuable insight or engaging post.
To do this, you first must identify a situation that you have witnessed or experienced that sticks out in your mind — for whatever reason. The first step is to determine why it sticks out. What emotion does it evoke for you? What is the lesson here, or the opportunity? There is no right or wrong answer as the lesson you take a way will be particular to you. And that is the really genius part of pulling lessons from your everyday life: your own perspective can’t help but shine through in what you write, meaning that the post is almost certain to authentically match your brand values.
I have found the opportunity to pull lessons from my own life experiences on many occasions. Some of these experiences have given me inspiring, light-hearted insight into business and life, such as the time a group of children playing nearby caused me to reflect on how we network as adults; or the wi-fi free cafe that had me thinking for days about the positive aspects of a bygone era. Others have got me thinking about customer service: the fantastic experience I had flying with WestJet, and on the flipside, the not-so-fantastic experience of travelling through the Calgary Airport while it was under construction; the lessons IKEA has to offer in regards to creating an experience for their customers; or simply translating over 14 years of experience in the hospitality industry into advice for sales people. There have also been tougher lessons that stuck in my head for a long time and took quite a while to process into a helpful post (don’t mistake fresh anger for insight!), such as this lesson in discrimination.
As an exercise, think of something that has happened in the past week that sticks out in your mind. Don’t stretch to find something that seems to relate to your business. Now ask yourself the following questions:
- What is about the situation that sticks out in your mind?
- What lesson can you share from it?
- How does that translate to the business world or, specifically, your industry?
The great thing about this type of post is that there are endless how-to posts and list posts out there, and this gives readers something different and more personal. Your customers have a chance to see the world through your eyes and really get to know your values, and, if they are your ideal client, also to relate to you on a deeper level.
If you’re struggling to find the lessons in your own everyday life and turn them into a blog for your business, our writers are experts at doing just that. Call today and see what a conversation with a writer can do to turn your own life into an inspiring blog!
