The Divide Between Struggle and Success
Chronic unemployment and underemployment is widespread. The people who escape it usually start by asking what's in your house. Many people are affected. Yet at the same time, others are flourishing and blossoming. What sets these two groups apart? What do the people who are flourishing know that others don't?
Years ago, while attending either a teleseminar or an online workshop, the leader said that if we needed money, we needed to look at our computer hard drive. His message was that we could find information that we could sell. That's information hidden away that's not working for us.
What Quonda Renee Asks
More recently, Christian entrepreneur Quonda Renee asks the question, “What's in your house?” Your pain can produce profits. What can you identify that you can bring to the Lord so he can multiply?
She talks about the story of Elisha and the widow with a small jar of oil.
The Widow's Jar of Oil
In 2 Kings 4:1-7, the widow cries out to Elisha, telling him that her creditors are coming to take her two sons into slavery.
The prophet asks her what she has in her house. She tells him she has only a small jar of olive oil. He tells her to ask her neighbors for empty jars, and to get as many as she can. She goes inside and pours into the empty jars until they're filled. Elisha then commands her to sell the jars of olive oil, so she'll have the money to pay her creditors.
Jacob's Sticks and Sheep
Another example of working with what you have to generate wealth comes from Genesis 30:37 and 41. Jacob used the resources he had to create wealth.
Jacob had no wealth of his own. He'd worked years for Laban, and his pay was only the speckled and spotted animals born in the flock. It was a small, unreliable share that Laban expected would barely amount to anything.
Jacob peeled white stripes into ordinary branches and placed them at the watering troughs. He made sure to use this method when the strongest animals were breeding. He had no flock, no land, no capital. And he used what was already in front of him, sticks and a water trough he had access to through his existing work arrangement, to build wealth out of someone else's resources. \
Whether the branches themselves caused the result, the deeper point stands. Jacob used what was in his hands instead of waiting for better circumstances.
Three Stories, One Question
These three examples are really the same. They answer the question of what's in your house. What do you own that you can sell? What information do you have that you can repurpose? Or what resources do you have access to?
The widow, Jacob, and the person staring at an overflowing hard drive all answered the same question. They looked at what they already had instead of waiting for something new. Before you chase a new job, a new market, or a new idea, ask what's in your house.
Start With Your Knowledge
What do people already ask you for help with, for free? What did you learn the hard way, over years, that you now take for granted? What's buried in your notes or files that nobody has seen yet?
Look at Your Past Work
What have you built that solved a real problem? What are you quietly good at, something that has nothing to do with your job title? What did you create once and never touch again?
Count Your Pain as an Asset
What problem did you fight through and solve on your own? What would you have paid for, back when you were struggling, that you can now teach? What do you complain about that you happen to be qualified to fix?
Consider Your Access
Who do you know that other people would pay to meet? What rooms or platforms can you reach that most people can't? What can you get cheaply or freely that others cannot?
Look at What You Own
What's sitting unused in a closet or a drawer? What tool or skill can you borrow through work or family? What raw material, like Jacob's sticks, is already in front of you?
The answer to what's in your house is rarely far away. It's usually closer than you think.\
Next Steps
Wondering what to do next, you can do all of:
If you want access to my Bookish Notes, please consider joining the wait list for my membership site, the Institute for Applied Knowledge.
This post contains affiliate links and The Invisible Mentor® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. For more details, see here. Thank you so much for your support!
