Create Your Own MBA
This post is based off an article by Tim Ferriss. He discussed how he wanted to get an MBA, but ended up investing the equivalent of tuition by investing in startup companies. I have an MBA (Cornell ’08). I felt it was excellent education. At the same time, I wish I had learned more about real-world business. A traditional MBA prepares you for the corporate world, but does not prepare you fully for the world of entrepreneurship. Now that I am at the point where I want to move into the life of an entrepreneur, I am moving into phase 2 of my MBA education. The following are steps to take to gain your own real-life entrepreneur MBA.
Get Involved in an Industry
Pick an industry that interests you and become involved. Network with contacts in the industry, read the trade magazines, and peruse the Internet for blogs and other information. Soak in all you can about the industry.
Volunteer
Start out by consulting for free. This gives you another opportunity to learn the industry and make contacts.
Take the Plunge
Once you determine that you’ve found the right industry and have found an opportunity, jump in. The best way to learn about entrepreneurship is to do it yourself. Launch your own company in your chosen field. No Ivy League MBA can give you the training that your own business environment can provide.
Freedom and Success through Elimination and Delegation
About a year ago I read The 4-Hour Workweek
Elimination
- Eliminate all non-core tasks.
- Turn off your email inbox notification.
- Only focus on the aspects of your business that grow the business.
Delegation
- Even if you knew how to do everything yourself, you are still better off having others handle tasks, especially the more mundane tasks.
- I have hired freelance writers on elance to write content for my website. I will likely hire somebody to fine-tune my website for SEO purposes.
- I focus on the overall strategy of the company and hire others to do everything else.
How to Eliminate W4W
W4W = Work for work’s sake
Our society encourages working for work’s sake. We go to work for 40+ hours per week. Somehow we magically need to work the same number of hours each week, regardless of workload. We feel as if we have shortchanged our work ethic if we are not constantly busy. I am thoroughly convinced that it is more important to focus on outputs than inputs.
To illustrate this principle, I’ll use an analogy of baking a cake. People who are guilty of W4W would be proud of how many cups of flour they used and how long they baked the cake. Those who have conquered and eliminated W4W focus on the wonderful taste of the finished product (and they may have even bought the cake from a bakery!).
The alternative to W4W is:
- Identify what truly needs to be done (and filter out everything else),
- Make a plan,
- Do it,
- Learn from it and move on.
These steps are extremely simple, yet we often don’t do them. I am using these principles to structure my tie business. I recognize that my largest struggle will be my own inefficiency. Once I conquer my own inefficiency, I will be able to create a company that can:
- Make a difference in the world,
- Support my family and my lifestyle,
- Give more excitement to my life!
Amazing Video about Lifestyle Design
Here is a video by Ki’une, an entrepreneur who started up http://www.pickupdance.com. He uses his autopilot income from the business to support his lifestyle. He was a contestant for Tim Ferriss’ Lifestyle Design Case Study competition. Ki’une not only created an amazing video, but has given me inspiration to plot out my dreamline and go out and make it happen.
Wednesday Advice
My advice for Wednesday is, “Live life on purpose.” This is my mantra in life. Many people go through life doing what the “smart people” tell them. They blindly follow the advice of parents, teachers, and political leaders. This is not to say that we should inherently rebel. Quite the contrary. We should inspect our lives and make sure we make active decisions about our lives. I am currently an employee. I want to be an entrepreneur, yet I continue to get up in the morning and go to a job that does not fulfill my life’s purpose. I need to do better and start living the life that I want. The life that you want is there for the taking. I am going to go live it. Will you join me?
Mercenary vs. Missionary
I watched a video of a speech by John Doerr, partner at Kleiner Perkins. He discusses a mercenary vs. missionary frame of mind. A mercenary is the type of entrepreneur who is in it for the short-run–to pump and dump a company for a quick buck. A missionary, however, starts up a company for a deeper purpose. A missionary has a very succinct, meaningful mission statement that guides his company. While the missionary seeks financial gain, it is not the only objective.
I am working on defining the deeper meaning behind my latest venture. I know that my purpose needs to be about more than just money for this company to be successful. I will be posting details about my new company very shortly.
100 Ways to Attack Business Issues
Entrepreneurs are highly skilled in the are of idea creation and innovation. Coming up with new ideas can be one of the biggest obstacles in the entrepreneurship process. Here is an idea I read from an article. The basic gist is you set out to write out 100 ideas to solve a problem. When you commit to thinking of 100 unique ideas, it forces you to really think of innovative solutions to the problem at hand. It is important to stretch yourself to think of a full 100 ideas, because it overcomes lack of creativity and overcomes circular thinking.
I’m going to try this out. Please comment if you have ever tried something like this or if you have any ideas.
Intrapreneurship – 3 Methods to Become an Entrepreneur at Your Current Job
Intrapreneurship is a modified version of entrepreneurship. It can be a stepping stone from corporate slavery toward entrepreneurship. It is also a path for those who do not have the desire to completely go it alone and become a full-blown entrepreneur. There are 3 main ways to become an entrepreneur at your job.
Method #1 – Get an entrepreneur’s schedule
Most entrepreneurs aren’t sitting around in their hammocks all day with nothing to do, but they do have control over their schedules. In your job, you can mimic an entrepreneurial schedule by negotiating telecommuting and/or flexible schedules. Many jobs can be done from almost any location and don’t need to be done at a specific time.
Method #2 – Get an entrepreneur’s job
What do entrepreneurs do best? They innovate. If you want to improve your skills as an intrepreneur, you need to be working on projects that stretch your entrepreneurial muscle. If all you do is execute tasks that have been done thousands of times before, you are not being creative. Seek out opportunities with your employer to be put in charge of innovating new products, finding new target markets, approaching new sales channels, etc.
Method #3 – Get an entrepreneur’s paycheck
True entrepreneurs typically do not make a salary. They make their money when the business does well. If you want to be more entrepreneurial at your current job, negotiate a payment system that is tied heavily to your performance. If your employer truly sees your value, they will be willing to give you an incentive to work hard by rewarding you for the additional value you add.
50 Life Secrets and Tips
I came across an article written by Jordan Lejuwaan. He explains 50 tips for life. Most of these are things that nobody would doubt to be good things, but few of us ever do them. Check out his article to get the full list, but here are a few of my favorites:
#1 Memorize something every day
#4 Remember people’s names
#13 Get in the sun
#15 Set aside a specific time to worry each day
#29 Visualize daily
#38 Come up with a life mantra (mine is “live life on purpose”)
#40 Work out those abs
#43 Do what you love
#46 Keep a journal/diary
The Unlimited List of Entrepreneurial Quotes
Below is a list of quotes to inspire and encourage. Some are directly related to business, others are here for general motivation. Please comment and add your own to this list. I’ll come back and add more to the list.
“Fall seven times; stand up eight.”
Japanese proverb
“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.”
James Oppenheim
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
Anne Frank
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
Epicurus
“The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
Chinese Proverb
“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
“I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”
Pablo Picasso
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
Theodore Roosevelt
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”
Thomas Edison
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
Charles Darwin
“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”
Peter Drucker
“An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.”
Roy Ash
“The best reason to start an organization is to make meaning – to create a product or service to make the world a better place.”
Guy Kawasaki
“Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.”
Elbert Hubbard
“Some people dream of great accomplishments, while others stay awake and do them.”
Anonymous
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
Alan Kay
“Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
Albert Einstein
“The cover-your-butt mentality of the workplace will get you only so far. The follow-your-gut mentality of the entrepreneur has the potential to take you anywhere you want to go or run you right out of business–but it’s a whole lot more fun, don’t you think?”
Bill Rancic
“I have always found that my view of success has been iconoclastic: success to me is not about money or status or fame, its about finding a livelihood that brings me joy and self-sufficiency and a sense of contributing to the world.
Anita Roddick
“Fight fair, but avoid fair fights.”
John Czepiel
“Judge a man by his questions, not by his answers.”
Voltaire
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
Seneca
“Individuals and organizations that are good react quickly to change. Individuals and organizations that are great create change.”
Robert Kriegel
“The higher you go in a company, the less oxygen there is, so supporting intelligent life becomes difficult.”
Guy Kawasaki
“Failures are divided into two classes – those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.”
John Charles Salak
“The things we fear most in organizations – fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances – are the primary sources of creativity.”
Margaret J. Wheatley
“When you compete with a person, you only have to be as good or better than the person to win. If you compete with yourself, there is no limitation to how good you can be.”
Chu Chin-Ning
“If things seem under control, you’re just not going fast enough.”
Mario Andretti
“Only the one who does not question is safe from making a mistake.”
Albert Einstein
Emancipate Yourself From Corporate Slavery 