In a recent video I prepared to our large list of Thinktank subscribers I talked about the secret of taking action.

You get an idea. You start taking action on it. You make adjustments and discoveries along the way. And voila! As a result of your desire, focus, vision, and action, mixed in with a little hard work along the way, you create the next Microsoft! Sounds simple, huh?

If it were really that easy, most people would own their own business. And most people don’t.

The action part is where most people who want there own business get stuck!

Why? Because they don’t know what they want.

You’ve probably heard the saying, “You can’t move toward a goal if you don’t know what you want.” I think you can! And here are a few ideas to help you do just that!

Lots of people focus on what “business” would be “right for them.” You could go through the Yellow Pages and look at all of the traditional businesses as well as the more obscure… and you just might find something that fits.

But I would suggest that you think about what problems people have that you could help them solve, or what goals you could help people achieve.

People will pay you dearly to help them solve their problems or reach their goals.

Just flip on QVC or the Home Shopping Network any day of the week, any hour of the day, and you can watch people spend money on miracle cleaning products, clothes steamers, hangers that reduce their closet space by one half, or software to help them speak a foreign language!

Search the Internet for information about a particular problem, challenge or interest. What do you find? Books, e-books, subscriptions, CDs, DVDs, and MP3s about how to do it, and people including myself are forking out lots of money for it.

Don’t wait around for the perfect time to get started with a great business idea. Get started right now by thinking about problems that you can solve for yourself or other people if you only had the right product or information.

That’s how great companies are born.

Check out some other great blog posts on this topic:

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Entrepreneurs, by nature, are emotional liars.

Our nature is to get so excited about our vision, adopt an unstoppable optimism, and refuse to face the realities of market factors. We get emotionally attached, and we lie (not in the malicious sense) to ourselves and others when market truths scream that something is wrong. It’s a classic formula for failure.

Here’s why this isn’t all bad; the truth is, your initial failures associated with emotional business decisions can eventually be the key to your future success. Ford’s famous Edsel was a massive flop in 1957, but because of it, the Mustang emerged in 1964.

The idea is that you want to fail fast, learn quickly, and hopefully the failures, while painful, are not fatal. In the case of Ford, they could afford to learn this painful lesson without going out of business. In the case of an independent entrepreneur or small operator, you might not have as much room for error, so you must consider this carefully. (Want some extreme examples? Recall the great flops of the late 90’s.)

So, keep this in mind…first and foremost, don’t get too emotionally attached to your business idea. If you find yourself defensive or angry when someone effortlessly pokes a hole in your concept, or if you have to work real hard to “prove” that it’ll work–you’re in very dangerous territory. Second, understand that there are a thousand ways to get where you want to go, and often the first idea might not materialize, but a new solution or idea will eventuate in ways you could never have planned. It’s amazing how this happens.

You’ve just got to stick with it and keep learning.

PS-Need some more evidence that “liar” can be an appropriate term for eager entrepreneurs (hey, I’ve told many standard emotional lies myself!)? In a classic post, Guy Kawasaki provides a list of The Top 10 Lies of Entreprenuers from the perspective of a seasoned Venture Capitalist.

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Check out these great posts for more information about this topic:

“No Surprises, Jeff”