In today's episode of Join up Dots we are responding directly to two listeners who have dropped us a line asking for help. Both of them have issues that are holding themselves back from living a dream life and creating their own business. The first is a lady who is a very talented artist, but is struggling to find a way to market her art to the world in a way that will develop a constant stream of income in to her own life. And the second is from a gentleman who is struggling to find an idea that would make a great business for him (even though as you see there is one sitting right under his nose already) Lets read the first email from Jenny Kimble: Hi David and friends! I am literally listening to you most recent podcast right now, I love it and all of your other ones are so inspiring as well. I need help please! I am an artist, and I want to be an artist full time or have a shop or something that I can do that is creative, where I can paint all day and sell my work. I have been evolving with my art and I feel that i know who I am as an artist and I continue to grow. My full time job is very draining and stressful and I sit in an office all day and people that come in are 90% rude to me all day long. My son and husband and I are living with my mom ...my husband cant work due to many health reasons and we are in a big time rut. Its making me mean and cranky and depressed and I dont want to be that person ..to my family especially. You said to just make it work and change your life...but i just need a little advice or something to get it going. Im willing to do anything to be happier for myself and my family. Help! So 6 years ago when I started painting I mainly used acrylic paint and had a very abstract focus. But as I evolved I did so much research on how to use the paint in different ways and did so much experimenting that my style changed from only abstract, to abstract and illustrations combined using many mediums and materials. I had a stent of being obsessed with refurbing furniture and still do a bit of that as well on the side. I continue to grow and right now am trying to get a coloring book going as well as boost a new etsy shop for canvases, commissions and possibly pet portraits. My instagram id is @jennykimbleart and you can find me under that name as well on Facebook. And now the second from George: I hope everything is great. I love your show! I just started to listen to podcasts about 2 months ago because I was looking for a way to not get bored at my cubicle. That is how I found Join Up the Dots and even though my native language is not English, let alone that for me the British accent is more difficult to understand, I got so engaged with your show that I can't stop listening to it. I have been dreaming of having my own business since I was a kid, the funny thing is that I have never gone that way in my life. I am born and raised in Peru and about 5 years ago I was getting bored with my job and I thought that I should try to challenge myself and pursue an MBA abroad. That is how I came to Canada, where I am currently living and working. After finishing my MBA last year, I tried to get a job in my field, a task that ended up being very difficult. I couldn't get any job offer in my field and I was running out of money so I had to be creative and do something to earn some cash. I was doing some temporal jobs where I had to do about anything, even whipping floors. In the meantime, I kept applying to different positions and one day I saw a job posting to do administrative work, I thought that I could leverage my knowledge of working with MS Office and decided to apply. Fortunately, I got the job and after 2 months, due to good performance, I got hired for a full-time position there. The salary just allows me to survive, I cannot save money, but at least I can eat and pay my bills. The thing is that I still have the same dream of creating a business, I don't see myself working all my life for someone. I want to create jobs and opportunities for other people and I, of course, want to own my time and life. I am a hardworking individual and don't care if I have to work 80 or more hours per week in something I like doing. I am very creative, I have good ideas all the time, but my problem is that I don't know how to execute and take action, maybe because I have been working for someone so long. The reason for me to write to you is because, as I commented, I listen to your show every single day and I heard you saying that you can help people like me to unleash the entrepreneur inside. I don't know where to start, what to do or which of my ideas I should pursue and unfortunately I don't have money to invest because I spent my life savings in my master degree. I read, breath and eat business information every day and I am very passionate about entrepreneurship and small businesses. I hope you don't find this email so long and please excuse my bad English, but it was hard to comprise all my story here because there was even more information I wanted to share. I also hope this email is part of my first step to take action as the call you did to one of your favorite shows some years ago where you tell the host your feeling about his show and your desire to become an entrepreneur. It would be great to look back and found this email and see my entrepreneurial journey with proud as you see yours now. Thank you for your attention and please keep doing the show because you makes us believe that by joining up the dots and connecting our past is the best way to build up our futures. Show Highlights During the show we discussed such weighty topics such as: Wky Ikea and Amazon are such amazing paces to do market research. Why the most obvious easy thing you can do, might just be what you should be building a business around. Why a business is 50% what you want to do, and 50% what you customer is looking for. and lastly…. Why going niche is the key to getting rich. Market to a tight group and start solving their problems.