The pace of my life during the week is hectic, but on Saturdays and Sundays I spoil myself with a steaming hot bubble bath. The hotter, the better. That heat permeates my body and I can feel the week’s stress just sliding out of my body. I will keep on topping up that bath until the water runs cold.
So these bathtub sessions can last as long as an hour. My mind wanders and I try not to think of anything specific as I need to unwind. After about half an hour or so of wallowing, something really interesting happens. I start getting these ideas out of the blue. I now call them my bathtub epiphanies.
e·piph·a·ny
[ih-pif-uh-nee]
A sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.”
Last weekend I was thinking about how much I had enjoyed my time doing digital scrapbook designs a few years ago. The reason why I decided to stop is that it is hours and hours of work to produce one kit and then you don’t sell that many to make it worth your while. The added burden was if you were selling through an established store you were obligated to take part in their promotions, so you would be designing a full kit that would be ultimately given away. This was great for the customer, but really hard on the designers because of the work involved.
So I have an entire external hard disk drive with all these scrapbook kits that I designed, just sitting there. And then I thought about the new book that I had written the previous week on “How to Create your FREE e-commerce store in 24 hours”.
Ding! An ah-ha moment where I connected the dots. I could setup my own store and just load my kits on there and sell from there. The best part is that I would not have to take part in any of the extra work that I was obliged to in the past. This means that I can still focus on my core business and have an extra revenue stream on the side that does not involve too much work as it was all already done.
I spent the Sunday setting up the store and started loading my products. You can see it here: Legacy4Life. And then I started marketing. Imagine how much I have learned in the last three years about marketing on the internet? And it paid off. Last night I made my first sale which was enough to cover the cost of the advertising and marketing that I had done. Onwards and forward.
Today being Saturday I indulged myself in a hot bubble bath again. I have been a little stressed this week so I got into the bath feeling sorry for myself. I was moping a little to myself in my head and then I had one of those in-your-face thoughts.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Look at what you do have; a roof over your head, food on your table and a warm bed to sleep in. How many millions of people do not have that at all?
When you take time to evaluate just how lucky you are, you stop feeling sorry for yourself. There and then I made a decision that I was going to give away a blessing today. This led to me making an offer on Facebook to the first person who sent me a message to get anything they needed, such as a new domain, hosting, website development etc. The first person got hold of me within 60 seconds of posting that. All they wanted was a logo design which now done and dusted.
Do I feel better? Yes!
So I have a challenge for you. What can you do for somebody today that will make a huge difference to them, might give them hope as they are floundering, give them a much needed break?
You know what you are good at, so go out and offer your expertise to someone today for free, without any expectation of reciprocation and just enjoy the feeling that flows through your body when it is done.
Happy Giving.
Di
Diana Heuser specialises in e-Business and e-Commerce Solutions. Connect with Diana Heuser on her personal website, her business website, via Twitter @DianaHeuser or on Google+.
