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Lesson Info

Establishing Your Skills

Moving from wantrepreneaur to entrepreneur. So I'm sure you have people in your life who talk about ideas all the time. I have these people in my life and I'm so sick of hearing about their ideas because they always have a new idea when we meet up for a drink or something, and next time we meet up they're still talking about it. And they have not done anything. So the goal is that if you, if you have an idea, we wanna move you from just talking about it to actually acting on it. And I think one of the most important mindset shifts you have to get is to know the difference between a hobby and a business. So to me, the business has to exist to make money. And I don't say this in a greedy way. I think some people kind of get weirded out when they're talking about business. But I think as an entrepreneur, if you're not making money, especially early on, what is going on? Like, does the business really have a future? So, the business has to make money. And the goal is to make money. As soon...

as possible. Even if it's $10 or something like that. Once we start making money, something clicks in your mind. And you start to move from this, maybe I'm an entrepreneur to, oh wow, this might actually work out. So, how do we do that? The first thing, and maybe you are in this class and you an idea for a product. But a lot of people come to me and say, how do I know what business to pursue? Like, what should I do? A lot of my friends are like this. And a lot of these entrepreneurs that I talk to on my little kind of vetting phone calls, sometimes they say, I'm really good, like, as a developer at marketing. But I wanna make my own company. So how do you know what business to pursue? So in the workbook that you have, I've given you a bunch of questions and things that you can consider to maybe guide you down this path. If you think, you know, I have a lot of the qualities that I believe an entrepreneur needs to have. But I don't have that idea yet. These questions should really help you. So, first of all, one thing I like to think about is what are you already doing in your life that people might pay you for? Maybe you're a photographer. And you don't do it as a business. But, like, your friends have asked you to take pictures of their baby. And then they pay you money afterwards. And you weren't planning to get paid. But they did that. Or maybe you are like an organizational genius. And your friends ask you to come help them organize your closet. Or maybe you are good at public speaking. And your friends have asked you to help, like, coach them on public speaking. So think about what are people already paying you to do. Or say that they would pay you to do but maybe you're a nice person and you don't accept the money (laughing). So next, what do people ask you for advice about? You know, do you find that every time you're talking with these certain types of people in your, in your life, they're asking you for advice? For me, going back to that portfolio course example, the reason that I ever went down this path a year ago was that I noticed by inbox was full of email from people, sometimes paragraphs upon paragraphs long, saying how do I make a user experience portfolio? I don't know how to make a portfolio. Like, what should I do? And in my head I always kind of thought like, this is kind of part of what your job is. Like, you design things. You organize information. Like, this should be easy for you. But for some reason it's hard for people in my industry to do this. So I thought, okay, if all these people are asking me about this, maybe there is a solution, or a problem. And I was a little skeptical. But, boy was I wrong. Because now, I think 430 people have taken this class from me. So what do people ask you for advice? What do people say you should do as a business? have you ever had people in your life say, wow, you should start a cake business. You should do this business. Because I think a lot of times people say these things and we just blow it off. But if you really start to take stock of that and think, wow, maybe they do see something. Because I think a lot of times, we don't see those things in ourselves. Or we think, oh that's just something I do for fun. Or you, you know, downplay your talents and things. But try to listen a little more about those things that people are saying. You know, you should really do that as a business. What are your natural talents and skills? Think about those things. I'm sure you have things in your life that you think, I'm really good at organization. I'm really good at listening. I'm really good at, whatever it is. And then what do you truly enjoy? You might be good and something. You might be good at baking. But you might hate it. I don't know, maybe you have the skill to make the little flowers and everything. But at the end of the day, if it were a business would you not get the pleasure out of it anymore? So what do you actually enjoy doing? And what doesn't feel like work? You know, I think it's everyone's dream that your job is something that doesn't feel like a job when you go there. So, think about what are the things that don't feel like work. For me my dream future is that, I love skiing and I've always thought to myself, like, wow, it would be amazing to just like, be a ski instructor. It doesn't feel like work. It would be a, just ideal. So I think a lot of times we don't recognize this though. So that's why I put this in this workbook for you to do this like self-assessment and reflect so you can maybe start to narrow down, what might my business be. But don't overthink it. Because here's the thing. You could easily be in August, or in three months, or 12 months, and still be thinking about this. And the point is, you don't want to overthink it. You wanna put it on your calendar as a to-do. Or set a timer on your phone. And say, I'm spending 40 minutes doing this because with anything in life if you give yourself a deadline, you're going to do it. So you don't wanna overthink this. Because I have told friends who want to get into business for themselves, like go do these things. And then six months later, I say, what did you learn? And they didn't do it. So make sure you do this fast. And another thing, I'm sure maybe this applies to some of you, don't become an idea hoarder. Be an idea implementer. I am very guilty of buying domain names. And then I log into the domain name thing. And I think, what was I thinking? I won't even bore you with some of the horrible ideas I've had. But it's always interesting to go back. Or maybe you have a notebook. Or maybe you have a friend you always talk about business with. And you kick around ideas. So don't just kind of hoard these ideas. Actually go act on them. Because most people, I think one reason we like to hoard these ideas is we like to have options in case someone else comes and steals our idea then we'll have this backup, you know, thing of ideas that we can go back to. But the reality is maybe someone has the same idea. 20 people might have the same idea. The likelihood of any of them acting on that idea or getting past like step one or the first month is so slim that you don't need to worry about that. So don't keep your ideas secret. Don't hoard them. And make sure you act on them. So another thing you need to think about is what is your why for doing this? What is your why for wanting to be an entrepreneur? And go into business? And, it's important to come up with this why because entrepreneurship is crazy. It's hard. Things will come up. There will be like amazing highs. Amazing lows. But when you have that why, that purpose, that's gonna help you not quit when you put up a landing page and no one gives you your email. Or you have a product and no one buys at the price point you put it at. Or whatever negative things happen. Or stumbling blocks happen. If you have this why, then you're going to be less likely to quit I think, because you can always remember back and think, okay, this is why I'm doing this. This is my vision. My plan. So what is your why? And I think sometimes people get uncomfortable talking about this stuff. But I think your why, for some people, it's super altruistic. They're going to save the oceans. Or educate children. Or do something in health. Whatever it is. But I think, you shouldn't compare your why to anyone else. It has to be what is going to motivate you. And you have to think about yourself. And your personality. And know what is gonna be helpful for you. So maybe your why initially is just, I wanna quit my nine to five. Or you have debt you wanna pay off. Maybe you wanna save money for a house. You wanna be location independent. That's the dream for some people. And you could be donating money. Or doing whatever you want to. I, what is my why? I have many of them. But one of them is really I wanna learn, or I wanna help people learn to think like a designer. So, I want people to understand the principles of design. Whether or not their, their job title has the world designer in it. It's kind of my overarching goal. So think about what is your why. And I gave you some more prompts in the workbooks as well. And one thing to think about is what businesses can you do with the skills you already have? Because I think many times, especially in the online world today, we see a lot of people popping up that may like sell fitness things or health things and all these online businesses you can join. But oftentimes, and I think of specific people in my life who have joined up to you know sell this supplement, or sell this health thing, or whatever it is, you know these people. And they're really excited about it. And then they're not doing it in three months. And why are they not doing it? Many reasons. But one of them I think is that they didn't think about the skills they would need. Like if you were going to sell health stuff online, you probably need to be excited about social media and be willing to put your self out there. So if you're really really introverted and you think Facebook is evil and all these things, like, maybe that is not the business for you. So think about what business you can do with the skills you have because you could easily get down the path where you have an idea but if the skills you have don't match up then it's not gonna work out too well.