Blessing in Disguise is typically applied as follows:
1. Using harmful factors (in particular, harmful effects of the environment or surroundings) to achieve a positive effect.
ouch Use waste heat to generate electricity
2. Remove the main harmful action by adding it to another harmful action to solve the problem.
ouch Add a damping material to a corrosive solution
3. Amplify a harmful factor to such a degree that it is no longer harmful.
ouch Use a backfire to remove fuel from a forest fire
Blessing in Disguise is essentially the idea of turning lemons into lemonade. How can you turn a negative factor into a positive one?
For example, some enterprising motor enthusiasts have learned that they can use leftover cooking oil from restaurants as fuel to run their car engine. Basically, they are taking a waste product and turning it into a valuable resource. Or think about singing the blues. Some of the greatest recording artists of our time have taken a bad scenario and turned their experiences into a hit record.
Another example is computer virus attacks or firewall breaches. When a hacker breaks into your company website, how do you turn that into a blessing in disguise? A great idea is to go hire people. In fact, I’ve worked for firms that did exactly that. Some hacker would break into the firewall and find out something we didn’t know. Instead of getting mad, we decided to use his knowledge to our advantage and made them part of our team.
breakfast with the birds
My wife and I recently took a trip to Australia. One of the stops on our trip was Port Douglas, a small town in Far North Queensland. Port Douglas has beautiful beaches that are truly remote and unspoilt. On our first morning at the hotel, we asked the concierge, “What are some of the most popular things people do while here?”
The concierge immediately suggested Breakfast with the Birds, a popular tourist attraction in the region. The show sounded like a unique concept, so we decided to give it a shot.
The concept sounds a bit strange, but the breakfast was actually quite good. They had a breakfast buffet set up outside with a canopy suspended over the eating area. All these different species of birds were allowed to walk on the floor under (and sometimes on) the tables. When you’re done eating, you can wander around the rest of the habitat and feed and pet the kangaroos. Getting up close and personal with exotic bird species was a really nice experience; and a very unique idea.
When the founders initially came up with their concept, they were most likely trying to figure out how to keep birds away from food. Birds flying overhead and dropping you know what on customers’ plates was not on the agenda. So they thought, “How can we make this work?”
That is a question you should always ask yourself. “What would it take to make this idea work?”
The founders eventually ended up designing the canopy over the eating area so that most bird species cannot fly over the tables. Rather than view the birds as an obstacle to their plan, they turned lemons into lemonade and made birds a key selling point for their product. The birds were indeed a blessing in disguise. The owners of Breakfast with the Birds took the resources available and applied them much more effectively.
We had also included a Rainforest Safari in our Australia itinerary. The Safari had caught our eye because of the way the trip was advertised – small groups only. The Safari website promised that there would never be more than four people on the tour.
David Armbrust, the founder of Rainforest Safari and our tour guide, came to the hotel on the day of our trip and picked us up in his Jeep. I quickly realized that the group size restriction is in effect mainly because David can only pick up four people in his Jeep!
David drove us about 40 minutes into the mountains and into the rainforest. Sure enough, once we got out of the Jeep, kangaroos, wallabies, and exotic birds flocked to our group looking for the treats that David had stuffed in a bag around his waist.
As we stood there, watching David distribute sweet potato and peanut snacks to all the animals, a question occurred to me. I asked David, “How do you have access to the rainforest?”
He informed me that he owned the land and said, “Well, this is basically my house.”
This guy picks you up in his Jeep and drives you to his backyard. He used all the resources available to him, things he already owned, to start his own business.
I asked David how long he had been feeding the animals and he told me that he had been doing it every day for the last 20 years.
I said, “Okay, so he was already feeding the animals, when one day it occurred to him to bring people along for the ride and charge them $250 a piece.”
David just smiled.
You have booked around five days a week on this Safari Tour using your available resources and applying them most efficiently and effectively.
Look at all the available resources you have in your business. Some of these resources may seem a bit invisible at first, but there are all kinds of resources that you already have that you can use more effectively to better market your product or provide a better product or service.
Available resources. How can you use them better? Can you make lemonade lemons in your business?