Surreal Entrepreneur

Let me explain…

Tag: Small Business

January 5, 2014

We started from the bottom now we…

Ke$ha likes to remind us that we’re young, our mentors like to remind us of that as well. In similar fashion, before entering the “real world” I liked to imagine that I had all the answers to solve any business problems I would ever encounter. Based on no experience, based on no actual real world work, I had inflated vision of my own abilities. This is the same problem a lot of our generation deals with.

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It’s time to be real with yourself and stop spinning your wheels. You most likely have no experience, no chance of getting your dream job right out of college, and you need to find humility before you find greatness.

I know those are some hard things to deal with and if you’re still with me, let’s talk about the next step. After graduating college I took a job to act as a placeholder while I worked on my masters degree. This job wasn’t necessarily in my desired field, but it was steady, full-time, and offered benefits. Although it was a safe job, I wasn’t fulfilled. I started considering the field of marketing because of its importance to the entrepreneurial world (where my passion lies). No matter how incredible your business idea is, if no one knows about it, you won’t succeed in changing the world.

I allowed myself to be humbled. I took my last months pay from the safe job, moved in with my parents, and groveled for a volunteer position with a marketing company that I believe in. Allowing myself to drop down to the bottom of the totem pole and soak up any information thrown at me has been integral to getting experience. I learned more in that month of time that I wasn’t getting paid then I did in all of the marketing classes in an undergraduate and graduate level. The most important thing is that I loved what I was doing enough to show passion and talent, and from that I was offered a full-time job.

Will this work for you? Maybe it’s not the exact model, but understand that the opportunity for you to move into your desired field is always there, once you get over your own ego. Put down on paper your expectations of what you want out of life in the long term, then talk to someone in that field currently. Most of the time, they started from the bottom…

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January 5, 2014

Let me save you some time…

Have you ever tried to read and watch TV at the same time? It’s like having a serious conversation in the middle of a nightclub. We’ve all been there, trying to relay to someone our feelings concerning a very important topic but being constantly interrupted by “fun”. Well, like oil and water, entertainment and productivity don’t get along.

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I’ve always tried to make the bridge between productivity and downtime. I’ve hoped that I could be doing something that I needed to do, while enjoying something that I’ve wanted to do. For instance, reading a thought-provoking book during the commercial breaks of a movie on TV. As pleasant as that seems, I’m pretty sure that I missed some really good parts of the movie and also I’m going to have to re-read the last few chapters of that book.

How can we apply this to every day life? Here are some small suggestions:

1. Turn off your notifications from Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Vine, Instagram, Myspace, Friendster (I’m dating myself). Allow yourself to be “in-the-zone” without distractions. Once you start working on something and are not paying attention to your “Social Life” you’ll get your important tasks completed a lot quicker giving you more time to be devoted to your Vine creativity.

2. Stop multi-tasking. Allowing yourself to be absorbed in two things is most likely asking you take even longer on both tasks and it certainly affects the quality of the work you’re doing. Allow yourself to prioritize and then attack one problem at a time accounting for greatest reward first.

3. After being productive and accomplishing a task, let yourself relax. We spend most of our lives lost in thought. Wandering through an endless maze of possible situations and solutions that we will never encounter. Instead of causing yourself more stress, allow yourself time to be still mentally. Not only will this skill refresh you during stressful days, and make you more productive in the long run, but it will also allow you to start enjoying the present instead of worrying about the future. Some would recommend meditation, I recommend meditation after reading scriptures, others would even suggest yoga. Whatever you need to do to take a mental break, just be sure to hang a sign from your forehead “Back in 5 minutes”.

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