THE PRINCIPLE

Randomly matching your interests with your skills can give you new ideas for how to make money

This method is great when you want to come up with new ways to make money doing something you enjoy. It was first proposed by Fredric Lehrman in his Prosperity Consciousness audio programme (Nightingale-Conant). He calls it ‘Prosperity Scrabble’. Here’s how to play.

Cut up sheets of paper into squares about an inch wide, so you have 100 of them.

On one set of 50, write things that you really enjoy doing. These could be activities like gardening, drawing, listening to music, swimming, watching television, making your own wine, reading thrillers – anything and everything you can think of that gives you pleasure.

On the other set of 50, write down your skills. For example, maybe you are good at cooking, talking to children, doing accounts, helping friends with their problems or keeping fit. Again, write down as many as possible, one per small piece of paper. In some cases, the same thing will appear in both sets.

Turn them all over and mix them up (but keeping the two sets separate). Then pick one from each set and brainstorm how you could combine them (if you happen to draw two that are the same, pick another).

Another way to do this is just to make two numbered lists, one for what you enjoy, the other for what you do well, and then randomly match a number from one with a number from the other.

I’ll give you an example from my own two lists. From the ‘What I like to do’ cards I picked ‘going to the theatre’ and from the ‘What I do well’ I picked ‘podcasting’. (In case you’re not familiar with podcasting, it’s creating an audio or video programme to distribute over the internet, including via iTunes – you’ll find one on my website, www.CreativityNowOnline.com.)

If I wanted to find a new way of making money by combining these two, one option would be to create a podcast about theatre. I live in London, very near the West End, so I’m close to the action. And there is worldwide interest in the West End theatre world, so it’s not too hard to imagine either finding a sponsor for such a podcast, or selling advertising time on it once it attracts a large enough audience.

Another combination that I came up with was ‘watching television’ and ‘teaching’. How could I combine these to make money? Possibly I could assess which are the most popular TV shows at the moment, and develop a workshop around the topic. For instance, at the time I’m writing this, Dragons’ Den is very popular. I happen to have a lot of experience in pitching ideas for TV and film, which is pretty similar to pitching ideas for business. So offering a pitching workshop for aspiring entrepreneurs, using the hook of Dragons’ Den in my title or publicity (while, of course, being clear that I have no official connection to the TV show), might be a good idea.

Give it a try and you may discover all kinds of combinations that can be the starting points for profitable new ventures.