I received this email from someone just the other day….

I recently graduated from …. MBA program and have not really found it to be providing any of the opportunities that  I had hoped for, even given the current economic and employment conditions. I have a desire to change careers and would like to ….., but unfortunately, I have no technical training or experience. I am currently …………. I have been doing this for 10 years, and I have hit the wall. I have to do something else, but I am having a very hard time finding what that something else is exactly as well as how to get there. I just know there is more out there, and I know I am capable of so much more than what I do or have done up until now, I just have no experience in anything else. Constantly surfing employment boards and firing out resumes is not getting me anywhere. I thought that a MBA would provide these for me, but …..

I have left the details as …. to protect the particular programs they are talking about. Fact is, the details do not matter. I hear this from so many people in so many career paths. It has become the mantra of the current tech community.

A few key points here…

1. An MBA is NOT the answer. Yes, I have one – and it was not the answer for me either!

2. Firing off resumes is not the answer!

What works?

1. Change your thinking! The education system most of us were programmed by (yes – I said programmed) is broken! You need to think differently. You have to think like an entrepreneur – even if you want a job! See a reading list you should add to your library.

2. Networking. But not the same old hat networking you have been told about. For most technical people that type of blind networking strikes fear into their hearts. Remember walking into a crowded room and seeing tons of unknown faces. You search for a face you know, but your hands get sweaty and your heart starts to race. You look to the door and think about running. Guess what – this does not work – for the obvious reasons. Instead do something that DOES work.

Try Networking for Introverts! Click Below to Read Parts 1 and 2 of this process (and there are few videos in there too!)

Part 1

Part 2

I do some work in the home school market writing DVD courses for home school math. This week we’ve really been swamped with calls and emails about parents getting ready for the Fall and needing answers to some key questions.

In getting all of this done, we missed one phone call. The lady had called us and left a message but during the recording her phone clicked out just as she was saying the last digits of her phone number. So we couldn’t tell what her number was to call her back. It was right on the day that we were updating our phones, too, so we didn’t have a record of the missed call and had no way to call her back. It wasn’t really anything we could have avoided, and she took the time to email us later so we talked eventually, but it was an enlightening moment.

Even things we can’t avoid or change will impact our customer service, which impacts how our companies are reflected to the world.  I think too many companies let customer service fall second on their priority list. Returning the phone calls or getting back on that email are not put up there as being important. But they really are just as important–if not more important.

As you are looking at your business, whether you have your own company, or you are in a contract with another company that you serve, you have a customer. And as you are serving this company or your company’s customers, remember that how you treat people matters a whole lot more than whether or not all your i’s are dotted and your t’s are crossed. How people feel they were treated by your company is what they will remember when deciding to do business with you. Keeping up good relations is always better than trying to mend broken ones. Make your service a priority.

When you look at starting a new venture–a new business, a new move, or really anything “new” and shall we say “adventurous”? — The temptation is to be reluctant on the grounds of being responsible. And you have to sort of weed between the two. Being responsible and planning are both good things to do and to be in anything in life. But realize that while saying that you are a responsible person might make you feel less guilty about never trying that one idea you had, or while it might make you feel less self-resentful that you never even tried to reach your goals in reality, self placating is all you are doing. Don’t let responsibility be the scapegoat for your fear

If you are starting a new business and you really believe in what you’re doing, just go for it. Don’t sit on a great idea and never try it just because you don’t know how you’d be able to swing it.

Like, take this situation: You have a very smart, very like-able guy. He is in his 50′s now, but right after high school he started at medical school. Being a doctor was his dream job. About halfway through school, he got married, had a baby, and chose to pursue those family things instead of his medical career. Now a granddad, he works 50+ hours a week (sometimes arriving and getting off at 3, 4, 5 in the morning) at a job he hates, so he can “pay the bills”. He and his family live on an income that barely gets them by. They are constantly counting pennies, getting into debt, and scraping by financially. He is a happy person, but it is safe to say he is not very fulfilled.

Then you could have this situatiuon: There is a great guy, but he spends his time bouncing around from job to job. And when I say job, he is in his thirties, holds 3/4 of a college degree (he, too, ran out of money to finish), and works pizza delivery type jobs to support his wife and kids.

For both these men the goal is paying the bills. Not happiness, not personal fulfillment, not working at a job you love instead of just one that just gets you by. They have no ambition and no drive for life.

A friend of mine commented on these situations really well when he said “The difference is the mindset. For you, it is about making a job but for them, it is about finding a job”. Both of these hypothetical men want to change careers, but instead of making for themselves a career they love–by staying focused on what they WANT instead of what they can live with—they are choosing to put in applications at Papa Johns and Publix because those are the places who “are hiring”.

I don’t know about you but when I look out at my life and my future and I think about what my children are going to remember me as being, I don’t want pizza delivery guy to be how they think of me. Don’t get me wrong, I love pizza and I’m glad people deliver them, but to me those are the kind of jobs that “pay the bills”. If I could advise these two guys I’ve been talking about I would ask them why they aren’t using their extra time to carve out a career they WANT.

I get that babies have to eat and the lights have to be paid for, so sometimes you have to hold down the job that best supports your family and that is a noble, responsible thing to do. But while you’re doing that, be planning, be saving, be thinking, of how you can get from where you are to where you want to be. If your dream job is a pizza guy then go for it! But if you want something more from your life, then MAKE IT HAPPEN. Stay focused on what you want and don’t wait on life to hand it to you.

When you have just graduated high school, the world is before you. You have all of your dreams and aspirations ready to go. You look at your parents and say things like “I want to major in acting. I want to be an actress” or “I want to go into photography” or maybe “I want to major in a foreign language”.More than likely your parents stare blankly back at you with doubtful looks.

But you didn’t care back then. You had no fear about stating these things then, because they were purely, simply, exactly, what you wanted to do with your life.

Then you graduate with those degrees and feel dismayed because all of the “now hiring” signs are not looking for a photographer, an actress, or a specialist in foreign language. So what happens?

These same people go on to get jobs waiting tables, being a sales clerk, or punching cards behind the desk of some government job, because those places were “hiring”. The job made money, the money paid the rent, and that was the main priority.

Thus, we have an entire society of people who “have to have a degree” but they almost never work in their degree field.

What’s wrong with this picture? Well aside from the discussions we could have about businesses who require you to have a degree, then don’t care what your degree is in, mainly we need to talk about why people don’t choose the things they want AFTER college the way they did before.

Ignorance? Fear? Practicality? Responsibility?

There is nothing irresponsible about pursuing the career you want instead of just pursuing anything that pays money. In fact, pursuing money above all else, is the exact kind of mentality that leads to criminals. Set your priorities towards what really matters. You may need a job to pay the rent, but you aren’t doing your family any favors if you come home every day miserable because you just spent 10-12 hours doing something you hate.

If you got that degree in acting, see if you can’t make a career of that. You don’t have to be a starving artists. Keep the day job, but be looking for ways to create yourself a career that is fun for you AND makes the money you need for your family.

Looking to be a photographer? Who says you can’t open up a website where you sell your photographs? That doesn’t take anything away from what you’re doing now, but it allows you to be doing something you love. and who knows? As that website grows, maybe you can reach a point where that is your main career. Really, it is possible. IF you work at it.

The point is, as you look at your career, stay in what you’re doing if it is what you WANT to be doing. Otherwise, don’t be afraid to pursue change (responsibly)

Born October 8, 1939, he died early in the morning July 12, 2010 at his home in Cleveland Heights. He is a famous American comic strip writer known best for writing the comic strip “American Splendor” where he chronicles the every day life of the every day man. He created an entire career out of things we do all the time.

He started out as a file clerk at a VA Hospital and through the advice of friends (see “reverse interview” and “Networking“) he made a career out of his hobby, and spent his life doing what he loved.

Famously a “curmudgeon”, you can see his trademark curmudgeon-ry here in this clip of an interview with David Letterman:

According to Nick Swinmurn, a 30 year old billionaire  the key to success is to “be scrappy”. In an interview for the BBC news blog, he talks about how it is the guys who don’t give up that succeed the most. It doesn’t matter, he says, if you don’t know how you’re going to do it. It only matters that you DO something. Fight against the odds, go against the grain and “try everything and just fight and claw and keep adapting, keep trying things.”

Don’t let yourself get distracted with side-ideas. While you’re working if you come up with something else that might be awesome–great. But make a list. Finish one thing well, then move on to the next. Don’t chase 4 million rabbit trails. If you spent only one dollar on each of those rabbit trails, you’ll be broke instead of 4 million dollars richer. Or $800 million dollars richer in the case of Nick. He just sold his latest company, Zappos, (a shoe selling company) to amazon.

Watch his video here. And while you do, ask yourself: Why aren’t you making shoes again? (or whatever it is that you haven’t tried because it is “too simple” or “wouldn’t work”) Yeh, maybe you should take a second look at that “crazy idea”.

Recently Gerard Butler (Famous actor) did an interview on The Bonnie Hunt Show.

I don’t always put much stock in the musing of actors, but I happened to hear this interview and I felt what he was talking about is really relevant to entrepreneurs. Originally, Gerard has actually studied at law school and started a career in law. After he was established in his law career he realized that it was not his passion, not his “purpose” (his exact words in the interview). He said that growing up being an actor was something seemed rather unattainable because when he was young if he said he wanted to be an actor, people would scoff and suggest: “hey what about medical school or being a lawyer instead?” So he followed their advice and became a lawyer because he thought it was the path he was “supposed” to take, but once he got there he just felt unfulfilled. He admitted in the interview that while he knows that there are people for whom being a lawyer is great, it was not what he was meant to be. So one day he packed his bags and moved from Scotland to London and said “I’m going to be an actor”. When he did it, his family was not happy–they thought he was ruining his life, and he himself thought as he did it, “This is a disaster”. He said, “I knew this is what I wanted to do, [what I was passionate about and what I needed to be doing], but it didn’t feel like that at the time.” He talked about how even though he was pursuing his dream, it was hard at the beginning. And now, he has starred in several blockbuster films and is enjoying a career he always dreamed of doing.

I think a lot of people who are in corporate America hesitate to pursue their dreams because they are afraid of that initial hard time to reach their goals. But if Gerard Butler had never took those first steps, he would still be working miserably as a lawyer in Scotland instead of enjoying a hugely popular, and lucrative career doing what he loves to do everyday. So sometimes, taking those first hard steps are the crucial ones to living the life you dreamed of.

Watch the complete interview here.

Catrina Callahan wrote something on Facebook today and it is just brilliant. So here I have copied it. You need to read it :

Someone once asked me “Is there a place left on this earth where I can have a chance to be what I want to be? Because it sure ain’t America.” Honestly, that is the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard. This country was built as, and still is, the ONLY place on earth where you are allowed to be creative, inquisitive, self-sustaining, and have the opportunity to be whatever you want to be. But just what does that really mean?

What is this ‘opportunity’ they speak of? Does that mean at every corner of whatever avenue you choose, the streets will be lined with lush Opportunity trees where you can pluck different opportunities off like apples? Sadly, most people think so. They think that “The Land of Opportunity” means that they will have options and prime, plump, choices lined out for them on a silver platter where all they have to do is pick between them as they stroll along on a paved road to success and happiness.

Well, isn’t that idea just dripping with sugar and gumdrops? Indeed, that would be nice! Surely that is what “Opportunity” means right? Or is it? Let’s looks closer.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language states the definition of Opportunity as this:

op•por•tu•ni•ty: A chance for progress or advancement.

A chance. Not a fresh fruit platter with a chocolate fountain in the middle. Look alive people! Try having a shot for a decent life in Cuba, Russia, China, Sweden or Germany. Yeah sure, people around the world aren’t always living in third-world conditions. A lot of them are ‘happy,’ good, people just living their lives. But where is it they all flocked to back in the 20’s and 30’s….? America, that’s where! Why did they come? Because we could give them a chance. And unless you are pure blooded Native American, then your ancestors came here before you looking for what they couldn’t get elsewhere. A shot at making for themselves what no one else would let them achieve. They could be here what they couldn’t be elsewhere. Dreamers, goal seekers, and success finders.

It takes work though. When they said your great great grandpappy came to this country with five dollars in his pocket and died a millionaire it wasn’t because he walked off the boat and they handed it to him in a big sack. He worked for it. Worked hard, worked against the grain, worked against all odds, till his fingers bled, through rain, sleet, snow, and hail; but in the end he got it. Others countries have nothing but pain as a reward for that kind of labor. You are what you were born as, and you can’t change it.

What America offers is not assured success and happiness. It does not promise grandeur or greatness. It simply lays before you a chance. A chance to dream and the opportunity to accomplish it if you have the guts to get off your sleepy keister and run after it.

If you want opportunities, as is a plural sense, well you are going to have to make them through the definition of hard work your forefathers used, rather than our diluted definition of work that we use today. But if you want the chance to even go after your dreams at all, the chance to make those opportunities? If all you want is the single “opportunity” to try to succeed in your life, then America is the only place you’ll find that.

So go get em.

To see Catrina’s article in its’ original form, as well as the comments being made on it. Click Here.

I don’t think you’ll argue when I assign the word “crazy” to Tom Cruise, but did you ever stop to think that if all of us had some of that same kind of “crazy”, we might be successful at our own risky business?

Of course, I’m talking about *legal* risks in business. You know–the ones we all face when we look at a new endeavor. The finances, the time, the location, the people, the software, any number of things come up on the list of “if”s “and”s “but”s and “maybe”s. Funny isn’t it, that when you start your own business–or make major changes at your current one—one of the first and foremost concerns on your mind is the amount of risk you’re taking. Rarely does the fact that we are stepping out there into  new realm that could make-or-break us escape our thinking. Somewhere in the back of our minds as we shake hands with our reverse interview-ee we are confident that we have no idea what we’re doing.

But as anyone who has started a business knows, sometimes perseverance brings freedom. And as the movie line goes, “Freedom brings opportunity. Opportunity makes your future.”

So as you look at making new decisions for your business, approach risks as obstacles, not road blocks. Don’t be afraid to ask people already where you want to be about how they got there and what they did to get there. Learn from their mistakes and listen to their advice on steps to take. Not everything about their journey will makes sense for your business, but some of their thoughts could help you turn those mountains back into molehills that are easily avoided or eliminated all together.

As Andre Malraux put it,

“Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not [that] one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one’s ideas, to take a calculated risk – and to act.”

Sounds like a criminal title, doesn’t it?

Serial Entrepreneurs are a special breed of human. Instead of starting a company just once–they love the thrill of starting a business, selling it off, and moving on to the next big thing. They take raw materials and build teams, business models, financial plans, and entire corporations completely from scratch. Then, they do it again.

With each new venture, they build experience. As they gain this experience, they gain insights and wisdom about the formation of businesses that allows them to take greater risks than what might be afforded to someone else. The opportunity to take greater risks makes for the opportunity to have greater success.

But not all of the ventures of serial entrepreneurs are successful, and according to K Ganesh, that’s not the point. K Ganesh is one of India’s leading serial entrepreneurs, and he claims that “The previous experience, irrespective of whether it was a success or failure, becomes vital. ‘After going through the entire process of creating a new company, a new team, and new business models and processes from scratch, you are now ready to do something bolder and bigger,’” (Read full article here)

I know a guy who does this for a living and he does quite well. Although, his motives are not purely thrill seeking. He likes helping people fulfill their dreams, so he helps them do it mostly as a financier. He puts up the money to start a company and he gets bought out once the company is on it’s feet. Sometimes the businesses work, other times they don’t, but if you ask him, the experience was worth it every time.