The great thing about learning is that it is not confined to certain times or locations. Learning can happen anytime, anywhere.
I like to highlight this fact by, once a month, looking at things we encounter on a daily basis and seeing what important lesson we can from them.
In today’s installment of “Five Things We Can Learn From Everyday Objects” we are going to talk about our cell phone cases. No, not our cell phones, that would be too easy – those things have Google, so of course we can learn from them. Don’t think we can learn anything from a cell phone case? Think again.
5 Things We Can Learn From Cell Phone Cases
1. It Helps To Have A Little Protection
If you Google, “what is an iPhone made of,” you will find a list that looks the periodic table had a baby with the nutritional facts on a cereal box – potassium, fiber, indium, silicon, & boron, just to name a few. But more than anything, the phone is made up of glass. Glass does many things well, including break (check out what it does when it meets a blender).
We know our phones can break, so we buy a phone case. The case doesn’t eliminate 100% chance of our phone breaking, but it does give us a little piece of mind. And that piece of mind comes in handy since we are ferociously pulling our phones out of our pockets and purses dozens of times per day.
Is it smart to chase your dream of becoming a voice-over talent? Yes, of course. It is smart to quit your steady job, which provides for your family of four, and dive head first into the competitive field of voice-over work, if you have never done a minute of voice-over work and you don’t have any money saved? No, of course not.
I am all for chasing your dream. But it helps to have a little protection. Before you quit your current job, make sure you have some piece of mind. It can come many forms – a savings account, freelance experience or a great network. It will come in handy when we are ferociously trying to survive pursuing our dreams.
2. One Size Doesn’t Fit All
In a stat I just made up, approximately 95% of all cell phone cases are useless to you. That doesn’t mean they are bad products. They simply do not work for you, because they aren’t built to handle your needs. They will not fit your phone. What may work for your phone might not work for mine.
When you are chasing your dream of becoming a writer or starting a podcast, you are useless to approximately 99.99% of all people. Again, I made that stat up, but it illustrates one thing. Not everyone is going to like you. Heck, hardly anyone is going to even know you exist. That doesn’t mean you have a bad product, it simply means you are not the right fit for that person. Accept that and move on to the next person.
3. Once Things Start To Break Down, They Go Quickly
I have had my cell phone case for over five years. I have definitely got my money’s worth. But recently it started to chip a little and peel on the corners. Before I knew it, my entire case was falling apart. Now it seems like every time I pull my phone out of my pocket, a little part of the case breaks off.
The old saying goes, “when it rains, it pours.” That is great news if you are an umbrella salesman, but for most of us, it is not something we want to hear. No matter how much protection we think we have, nothing is invincible. And when our protection starts to unravel, it happens fast. Our savings accounts only last so long if they are not being updated or replenished. Be proactive and stay ahead of as many breaks as you can.
4. You Don’t Have To Be Boring…
On the surface, cell phone cases sound pretty boring. What is exciting about the plastic that protects our phones? But if you Google Image cell phone cases, you will see things far from boring. You’ll see luminous colors and cases that look like cats and footballs. Pretty much any interest you have, someone has created a case for you.
On the surface, a podcast about dentistry sounds pretty boring. But that doesn’t mean it has to be (don’t believe? check out this). You control how exciting your product can be.
5. …But You Do Have To Work
For Christmas one year, my older brother & I gave my younger brother a cell phone case that looked like a Gameboy. For kids who grew up playing Gameboy, this was anything but boring. Only one problem…the case didn’t work. Sure it looked just like a Gameboy, but it didn’t perform it’s main function. It didn’t protect the cell phone. It was just a little too big and kept falling off. So eventually, no matter how much he enjoyed having his phone look like a Gameboy, our younger brother had to ditch the case and get one that actually worked.
In your pursuit to not be boring, don’t forget to make something that actually works. That last sentence was awkwardly worded and I think it contained a double negative, so let’s try it this way…Step 1: make something that is not boring. Step 2: make sure your non-boring product actually works.
Photo credit: Pixabay
