Yesterday I listened to an interview with two actors.
They started teaching improv classes and wanted to open a brick and mortar improv school, with I guess the goal of attracting unemployed college students or improv-curious but uncommitted middle-aged people like myself.
Then, through some process that wasn't quite clear to me, they figured out that the skills they were teaching people in improv classes were actually brilliant for...
Trial lawyers.
Now these two actors have a successful business where they coach lawyers on opening statements and cross examination strategy and just being better storytellers and presenters in the courtroom.
In the past few years, these two actors have been involved in trial settlements worth $41 million.
And while they have only been getting paid an hourly wage ($200 for prep time, $300 for court time), they are starting to think of working for a share of the settlement money.
I bring this up because of a post from last week, about ways to break from your circle and into another industry.
I imagine, though I could be wrong, that the first step to doing this is to have an idea of the industry you want to break into.
How to identify a good industry to go into?
I mean, how do you specifically, based on what you've got and what you do, find some new industry or niche where the exact stuff you're doing now is worth 10x or 100x what your current audience is getting from it?
How do you generalize or what those improv teachers did?
I thought and thought, and thought some more. And...
I don't know.
And so I'd like to ask for your help. My best idea is this:
* We start a new thread here in Daily Email House
* Anyone who wants to participate (and there were 14 people on a poll to say they are in) writes up what they currently do, what they would like to do more of
* And then the rest of us brainstorm ideas for new industries or niches where these skills or offers or products could be useful
... the idea being, we are all too close to what we do to see our opportunities well. But maybe a bit of detachment, plus the wisdom of the crowd, can come up with 10x ideas and valuable solutions. Maybe after a few rounds of this game, we can draw some general conclusions which could be useful.
So here's what I'm hoping you can help me with:
1. Is my proposal above workable for coming up with good new ideas along the line of "improv for trial lawyers"?
2. If not, what could be a better approach? (It can be completely off the wall, and unrelated to my proposal above)