Are You Flexing Your Mental Muscles?

I had a severe case of "empty-head" this morning.  It’s going to be a busy day; on-site client meetings, project work and an evening event.  I had to make arrangements for day care, prep my husband for the homework that will need to be done in my absence and generally get myself ready for the day.  Too much stuff going on and not enough time for some of the most important preparation — the growth and profitability of my business.

Thankfully the brains at Small Business Trends have been on the job.  My visit this morning was fruitful because I read this wonderfully thought provoking post by Scott Shane where he talks about the entrepreneurial ability to spot fresh new opportunities in all kinds of economic environments.

This prompted me to focus on the entrepreneurial mindset and the fact that much of it is nothing more than working that mental muscle.  So, I thought I’d start a list of brain-flexing, opportunity spotting questions — and you can add your own.  How fun would it be if we actually were able to come up with some useful entrepreneurial opportunities?

The set ups is this; every trend and economic event breeds both winners and losers. Foreclosures are up, some brilliant entrepreneurial real estate agents decided to run bus tours.

So here’s my economic bad news bit and some brain-flexing questions to go with it. 

Gas prices are up.  Transportation costs, travel costs, and the cost of getting from here to there is way up.

• What’s missing?  I wish there were a way to map out all the things I have to do so that I don’t waste time and money back-tracking?….
• What do we need more of?
• What assumptions am I making?  I’m making the assumption that we should travel and move less.
• Reverse the assumptions.  Transportation costs are up, we will travel more….

OK – gotta run and start the day – can’t wait to see what you guys add to this.