I Solved a Problem

by | Feb 2, 2018 | Life

A friend of mine, a really great guy, is one of the best ‘sounding boards’ I’ve ever met. As much as I like to think out loud and theorize about possible business ideas, he’s gone out and actually tried a variety of business ideas. We work well together; my ideas can be tempered by his experience, and his ideas amazingly get tempered by my experience.

We’ve started joking that I should be called we should be called Reality Makers – a Reality Maker is someone who takes people’s ideas and shows them how to make it work. I seem to be good at putting traction to the wheels of people’s potential, turning dreams into possibilities. He seems to be good at spotting holes and flaws in plans, which is fine, because that gives me a new problem to solve. Within a few minutes, we can put together a pretty solid proposal for an idea. Last week we talked about a book series, a YouTube channel for elementary education, and a full-fledged entertainment service covering DJs, websites, and social media management. Those were the ideas that worked. There were twice as many that didn’t make the cut.

However, “Reality Maker” looks really, really close to the world “realty,” a real estate term. I don’t want to be mistaken for someone who sells houses. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but that’s not what I do. I turn possibilities into reality. I work with what could be possible with the right pieces in place. So I made a new job title for myself: I am the Possibilicist. I think that has a nice ring to it.

One of the fun things that makes him unique is that he’s married to a great Chinese woman. They maintain ties with her family and keep up-to-date on the politics going on over there. We’ve had many great conversations about the stereotypes, the realities, and the weird and unknown cultural truths of life in Chinese cities. Also, the Chinese news services are… interesting, so when something fun pops up, he likes to share it with me.

Apparently, a few months ago, one of the popular posts on Chinese social media was a question that a mathematician posed to some 5th graders. It apparently took a while to solve because it’s more of a “thinking outside the box” thing than a real math problem. Forget solving for X, let’s solve for life. In 5th grade.

My friend and I decided that I need to start putting myself out there as a general problem solver. I finally agreed. You can read more about the math problem (including the answer, you lazy Americans) over on the page I launched for my new business service: The Possibilicist.

Thanks for reading.