The other day I was driving to Nashville cursing the rain that was coming down.  My old truck doesn’t have a wiper delay and the rain was just heavy enough to require me to manually hit the switch about every 10 seconds.  As I rounded a corner, a large panel truck drove past me.  On the front of his truck was a sign that said “Thank God for Rain.”  I called him a moron under my breath until I saw that he installed and repaired rain gutters.  Then the sign made sense.

Every time we watch Shark Tank and see the innovative ideas people come up with, we probably wished we were that creative.  But if you think about it, most great ideas come when we look at our annoyances and figure out a way to fix them.  Think about it:

• Somebody cursed the rain until they figured out that rain gutters fail during heavy rain and realized gutter repair could make some money for them.
• Someone probably got sick and tired of stepping in dog crap so they came up with the idea of dog waste pickup as a service and ended up franchising it.
• A creative person got tired of sitting in traffic and put the notion of driverless cars into production.  Some reports say that by 2025 most cars on the road will be self-driving.  This guy will be rich.

There are two ways to look at inconveniences.  Either we get frustrated and complain or we get creative and come up with a way to leverage and profit from them.  If you’re an entrepreneur, you already do this, but if you work for someone else, you can take this mindset into your workplace and add value by look at new ways to benefit from solving problems and eliminating wasted time.  You may not come up with a billion dollar idea but you’ll let your boss know that you’re an employee worth keeping.

This week, take a look around and find that opportunity to turn inconvenience into opportunity.

What will you be thankful for that you used to curse?