Welcome to how I Built my Small Business . I'm Anne McGinty , host of the show . While full-length guest episodes are on hold for the holidays , I've prepared a collection of short , impactful episodes to keep you inspired until Season 2 . Let's dive in . Let's dive in .
Well , I wish that I would have known about entrepreneurship earlier . It's something that never even occurred to me . My career vision was always work at a big company , be an executive at a big company or something like that , and I don't know why that was just the trajectory . Maybe it was just like in college , I don't know . Everyone wanted to work in finance .
So I was like , oh , maybe that's what I should be doing , and I think I thought probably a little bit too much about my paychecks . But if I could , I would have encouraged myself to test entrepreneurship . I think there are ways that people can test the waters and see if they actually like it . I would have said to myself go start a business on the side .
Just start a little business making a couple hundred bucks a month and see if it's something that's interesting to you . Because the way this all happened to me was a headhunter called me when I was working at Viacom and said do you want to go interview with this company Freewheel ? And I had never heard of it .
I didn't even know what startups really did or what happens at a startup , and if I hadn't taken that call , I probably never would have even started B-roll . So it's like I wish someone in my 20s had told me entrepreneurship is pretty cool . You should test it out and see if that's inside of you .
Make sure that you are taking care of yourself and your mental health before you really need to .
Find what you like to do outside of work or making money doing that stuff .
If that's a sport , if that's a hobby , if it's you know , whatever , just find it and try to get started in an industry like that , because you'll soon to realize that whatever you're doing when you're working for it and you like it , it's really not work because it just naturally becomes part of your lifestyle and your day-to-day activity . And I know that's .
You know , do something love . You'll never work a day in your life . You know you're always going to work , right , but it's a matter of making it not feel like work .
Think really carefully about who you decide to have children with , because the biggest business decision that you make is who you partner with in life .
I think you can become resentful of someone that doesn't pull their weight with things and doesn't play their part , and it holds you back business-wise as well , because if you're getting frustrated or you're having to do all of these things yourself , it will have an impact on you in other areas of your life .
So I think being more careful around who you commit to and making sure that you have that it's important .
The zigzag pathway , where it just seems to make no sense as it's happening . That is actually what the pathway looks like . It is somewhat uncontrollable . The most valuable thing that you can do is be open to opportunities that don't fit your original thesis of what opportunity is , but that might turn out to be the most valuable thing that you ever did .
Just be open to where the opportunities are , rather than limiting yourself to where you think they are .
Take care of yourself first , because if you keep pushing and not taking care of yourself individually , you can't show up well to work and you're not going to be as successful . And learn some time management skills . That would be really good .
I always have my fingers in everything , so if I could figure out how to delegate , I think that would help with time management for sure .
Trust the process , be patient . I feel like those jobs that I had that I didn't like at the time . They felt like they were a little painful , but it's like the karate kid wax on , wax off thing , where you got to polish the car in order to learn how to block the punch . The repetition , the skill sets that you're learning you'll use them all .
You will use all of them and you have to just be patient and persist .
Take care of yourself and work your business around your life . Work will always be there . There's always time to make more money . Prioritize your health and well-being and happiness and prioritize your relationships , like spending time with the people that you care about , your relationships , like spending time with the people that you care about .
I'm not willing to sacrifice those times and those relationships . I'm not willing to be stressed in the way that I was before and that took going through burnout . It took really going through some hard times to learn that lesson .
So , yeah , it would be great to learn that earlier it's very hard when you are in your 20s to think about and to really strive to understand what you want to do , right , what journey you want to be on and why , right ? I mean , to me , spending time thinking through that can be very , very rewarding .
Right To me , that's a big piece If you think about it and figure out what that means to you and if you have the freedom or the support from your family , from your friends , et cetera , to be on this journey , to be able to dedicate a large portion of your life to something you really want is quite rare , right ?
Not everybody gets to do it , not everybody has the environment to do that , and that's truly a privilege if you do get to do that , to do that , and that's truly a privilege if you do get to do that . And then , if you actually find meaning , if you find success , if you find happiness as you're sort of going through this journey , it's truly a blessing .
This entrepreneur went on holiday and he saw a local going out and catching fish every day , and he stopped him on his way in one time and he said you know , if you just stayed out there for an extra hour , you'd be able to catch more fish , and then you'd be able to buy another boat , and then you'd be able to buy more boats , and more boats , and then
you wouldn't have to be catching the fish , and then you'd have all the time to do what you want . And then the guy stopped him and said yeah , and then I can go out and catch the fish for my family . So what is it that you truly want in life , and why are you growing this thing so big ?
Don't care about what other people think , don't care about what failure looks like I mean , we're only on this earth for 75 years and worrying about what other people think and about you know the path you're taking job wise is the quickest way to living a life that's , that's not fulfilling . Just be more accepting of failure and messiness and like that .
It's just okay to be messy , it's okay to look stupid , it's okay to fail , and I think I knew that in principle and I think a lot of people do , and they tell themselves that it's another thing to really like , actually do that and to put yourself out there .
You know , my dad used to wear a neck warmer on top of his head instead of a ski cap and I was just mortified . Growing up I was like how could you ever do that , dad ? And now I totally get it . Honestly , as I approach 30 , I'm like God I would go outside with a neck warmer on top of my head . Exactly .
Who cares .
Surround yourself with positive people . Surround yourself with people who really are going to encourage and listen . Judgmental , critical snipers are really going to tear at your soul tear at your soul .
Nobody is 100% sure of what happens when you die . Nobody is 100% sure , so this could be it , you know . So what do you want to do ? Do you want to , like , look back on your deathbed and say I should have gone after that dream that I always thought about , that was always on my bucket list ?
Or do you want to say I'm so glad I went out after that and realized I don't want that , you know , or it turned into something great .
This whole notion of mind , body , spirit . Important to get that alignment right . Important to understand that you have to in a very positive way and not an egotistical or narcissistic ways like have that self-praise and self-worth and self-talk that's positive and upbeat and really restorative and supportive right .
So you gotta get that mind and that body what do you do in your fitness , like self-care is healthcare right and spirit ? Entrepreneurs , by definition , have faith . They may be agnostic , they may be atheists , but you have faith , you believe you can build and create something that's sustainable .
Thanks for listening to this bite-sized episode of how I Built my Small Business . If you enjoyed it , share it with someone who might find it helpful , and don't forget to subscribe so you're ready when season two drops . As always , have a great day .