Why Being a White Van Driver Is the Best Entry Job For Starting Up Your Own Business?
As well as working for Manilife peanut butter, I’m a white van driver. A white van driver in all its glory…
Plenty of cigarettes
Lots of lucozades and Diet Cokes
Partial to a Drive Thru
A sucker for a meal deal on the go (Petrol station varies)
Why being a white van driver is the best job you need to be an entrepreneur?
Right you’re probably thinking holy hell where’s he going with this one…
‘Why would you?
A superhuman business don graduate?
Take a job driving a white van?
How preposterous?
How ghastly?
How ewwwww darlingg?’
*The voice of many parents whose kids have just graduated from University*
Parents want us to be in a suit from Gucci, heels from Jimmy Choo, a tie from Paul Smith and a purse from Mulberry, take glass lifts into the big monolithic corporate office.
I take a deep breath, look these parents straight in the in the eye, in a very calm and tranquil tone (think of the poetic GP, who could elegantly inform you that you have Malaria and you’d still be like ‘Fairs’)
Well in that tone, I softly and politely tell them to ‘Shit Off’.
Subsequent.
Enter.
Rage Mode.
Fire in my belly tingz.
At this point the tone changes, the GP moves from Dr. Nice to Dr. Vinny-Jones-after several-largers.
‘I will only wear a suit on three occasions:
My wedding. My court hearing. My Funeral.
…. you little MUG’
Parents may be a bit taken back by this approach, so proceed with caution and will definitely be taken aback by the fact you want to be a van driver.
And you’re definitely thinking ‘I ain’t being no van driver bruv’
Let me show WHY being a White Van Driver is the best job entry to get you into Entrepreneurship…
ONE — Rise and shine Mofo’s
5 a.m.
iPhone ringtone starts popping off, like Satan farting in your face. A hellish aroma of pleaseshutup. You silence it for a second.
*Snooze Button*
Omg. Thank God.
Drift off.
‘In coming you little MUG’…
Satan’s back with vengeance…. and the alarm goes off again.
Satan’s bought in the ‘heavies’ this time.
You lie there, the ‘heavies’ vibrating their tits off.
Until eventually.. the combo of Satan farting in your ears and the ‘heavies’ vibrations gets you out of bed.
When you drive vans. You get up early. Everyday.
‘Early bird catches the worm’
To begin with I genuinely couldn’t hack the mornings.
I’d get to the mirror.
“Holy Hell, what on earth is that thing?”
Barnett heading to a different stratosphere and bags under my eyes resembling a Kanagroo’s ball sack.
Shower on.
Tooth Brush on.
Downstairs.
Bang a triple espresso.
Get to the van still half asleep, always forget the height of these vans. Height isn’t exactly my Unique Selling Point at 5'7. 5'8 in Chelsea boots I hasten to add.
Thus, I pull out my mini trampoline. Eye it up. Take a run and a jump and land nicely in the driver's seat.
Perched high and mighty, I light up a fag, thinking “I’m the Sheriff of this town”.
My Crappy Mornings:
Mellow Magic. ON.
Nightmares of the cab back from the night before come flooding in. The birds in a chorus, sun poking through the trees, McDonald’s strewn to the left, Coldplay coming at you center and right.
MINGING.
I plea for Magic to play a bit of Wham! to take the edge off. Always get lumbered with James Blunt. The tone for the rest of the day is set.
Why getting up early is great if you want to be an entrepreneur?
As a Van driver you become used to waking up early so you keep winning (apart from Monday’s, you still feel like someone’s Pritsicked your eyelids together)
Getting up early means:
- You have an extra two hours to do work whilst the world sleeps.
- You are more productive as no one is trying to get hold of you because they are still asleep.
You can read books.
You can write down ideas.
You can go to the gym.
A lot of entrepreneurs write about making the first hour of the day THEIR hour.
By getting up early you make your first hour, your hour, no emails for other people, no to-do list imposed by your ‘loving’ corporation.
When you quit the white van job, you’ll be so prepared for getting up early that you can smash out your work.
TWO — Me, Myself and I
‘It’s just me and the road baby’
This holds true if you’re gunning it at 90mph in a Chevy or on a Harley across America, sunglasses on, the wind singing and dancing through your hair. But not so much on a
wet Tuesday morning, in a Ford Transit, stuck in traffic on a roundabout by an Industrial Estate, surrounded by a PC World, Halfords, Pets4Homes (for some bizarre reason there’s always a Frankie and Benny’s in these places.)
Everyone’s honking you. Cyclists like mosquitos pestering, swarming, generally getting on my knockers.
“Can you not see my helmet mate, can you not see my mini flashing lights, my fluorescent jacket? Watch out you van driving fool!!!”
‘Errrrr how about no mate’
‘You seen the size of this van fella?’
I win that battle every day of the week sunshine.
What is so great about being on Your own, Driving around a city?
In my case, London.
I fly up Embankment, thinking I’m the absolute nuts in my big van.
Woooooow Big Ben, Woooow the London Eye, Woooow Tower Bridge… Wooow another Pret A Manger.
The novelty of the greatest city in the world, like that cherished dress or shirt you’ve had for 2years + begins to slowly fade. Losing its mojo, it’s spark, it’s panache.
Magic FM tries to reignite that mojo, but you get to a point where not even Duran Duran’s ‘Rio’ will save you.
Eventually, you are all alone, on your ones, just Me, Myself and I
Why is this amazing though?
Podcasts.
You have 10 hours driving, to listen to podcasts and learn anything from:
Getting your business off the ground
Sales advice and techniques
How to be creative
How to utilise your money
How to follow your passion
Its BAREEE BRUUUV- YOU get me BRUV. TRUSST FAM. Its bare init
Personally, My sales pitch has gone through the roof — learning to make it more about the customer, not just scream your product in their face and how to do it elegantly.
THREE- You become THE IDEA MAN
Imagine Paintballing… Bare with me on this one.
When I was about 13–15, the idea of a paintball birthday party was harrowing.
A cold February morning, freezing my tits off in some Woodland that stunk of crap. You’ve got Darren, the 17-year-old Marshall thinking he’s Action Man/just done a tour in Afghanistan. (No mate, you work at paintball!)
‘Ahhhhh finally back to ‘base camp’, I can’t wait for a bacon sandwich, with the bacon to bread ratio completely off the mark. And a lukewarm ‘cuppa’. That is JUST what I wanted on this February Saturday.
Paintballs and Ideas??? What am I going on about??
At Paintball you have a target, a goal or aim- to shoot another person on the other team.
You have x amount of paintballs to get your aim, reach your goal or make your target.
The more paintballs you have, the more likely you are to reach your target or shoot that commando twat on the other team.
Let’s link paintballing with entrepreneurship…
Try to conceptualise that each individual paintball represents an idea that pops into your head.
And your goal, target or aim, instead of being to shoot a fat fella on the other team is to:
- having your own business,
- no work a 9–5,
- travelling when you want OR
- making a load of mullah.
The more paintballs (ideas) you have to play with, the more likely you are to achieve your target either shooting the twat on the other team (or having your own business)
So more ideas increase the likelihood of you achieving your goal.
Back to the battleground (with entrepreneurship in the mixer)
Now when you’re on the paintball battleground, hid behind a tree thinking ‘ Screw this’, you see your target on the Orange team, prancing around like Bruce Willis in Die Hard.
You’re gunna fire off about 20 or so paintballs, some will go far over his or her head, one will ricochet off a tree and another limply fall out the end of your gun.
Then BULLSEYE — you’ve shot him right in the ball bag.
In essence you need to fire off 19 awful paintballs until you reach your goal.
In starting your own business, online service, blog whatever you wanna do — you’re going to need to fire off 19 or so shoddy ideas. Before BULLSEYE.
Business schools give you one paintball to play with
Business schools teach you that you need one idea that will suddenly come down from the almighty heavens, floating on a golden dove who swoops in chirping away on a crisp spring morning and bingo — you have the next Air BnB or Uber.
Business schools neglect the other 18 paintballs you need in order to get that target.
I only realised this after reading Seth Godin and James Altucher…
Both entrepreneurs who’ve done extremely well, in a nutshell, both say you need lots of bad ideas before you reach a good one. A LOT of paintball misfires, before you find your great idea, that you think about all day and night.
Let’s go through some of my crap ideas or dodgy paintballs
Idea Number One — this paintball didn’t even get out of the gun, it feebly it the ground and I was shot in the ball sack- I raised my hand, looking for that bloody Darren aka Mr.Action Man Marshall screaming ‘HELP HELP! HELP!’
I like baths a lot, dim the lights please, candles on, Radox in, Sliders off, in the tub.
I also love reading. But I hate my books getting wet.
An idea I came up with was some sort of waterproof table/glove combo that would allow me to read in the bath, without getting me books wet.
MAXIN RELAXIN.
Hahahahahahahahahaha — it’s not a crap idea, but how do you market that ?????
Idea Two — this paintball came flying out the gun, rocketed through the anarchy on the battlefield and skimmed past the little mug’s earlobe into the neighbouring field.
There are a lot of school kids worrying about their GCSE’S, A-levels, University entry requirements etc. And all that crap that school system imposes on us.
Likewise there are a lot of students, who are miffed, probably because the 3 year bender has ended and they’ve realised they spent £27,000 on a degree that resembles a scrotum.
So the idea was to essentially create an agency, match the parents who don’t want little ‘Jim Bob to worry about flunking his GCSE’S with the glum postgrads.
Both parties are Happy. And little Humphery is off to his first choice secondary school.
This is a good idea- BUT it didn’t burn deep down inside.
Van Driver, lots of paintballs and entrepreneurship?
Driving a van gives you A LOT of time, to fire off lots of paintballs some good, some bad.
As you drive around to see different businesses, look at problems, how can you solve them? how can you make something better?
You’ll be surprised on the M1 up to Milton Keynes for the day, an idea will come, write it down, regardless if it’s a good or bad paintball.
Conversely…
The corporate job gives you less paintballs to play with as you have less time to THINK
-The commute to work
-The email to deal with as soon as you hit the desk
-The lunchbreak spent on Facebook or games
-The commute home
This all eats away at your precious time, meaning you’ve have less paintballs.
Less paintballs fundamentally increases the chance of you NOT reaching your target- a life of freedom and independence.
Let’s wrap this up…
The business schools teach that one paintball will miraculously fall on your lap. And you’ll have a great idea. This is WRONG.
The corporate job gives you less paintballs to play with. Less chance to find your dream idea and reach your goal.
The van driver job, gives loads of thinking time i.e. loads of paintballs.
The van driver job gives you TIME, to fire off plenty of woeful ideas.
The van driver job allows you to walk into the paintball gaff with £100,000 cash to blow on grenades, even rocket launches if you wish!!
The van driver job allows you to rock up to the Paintball battleground on bloody horseback, a cigar in your mouth. Miraculously Freddie Mercury has been resurrected, a live performance of ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ is echoing around the frosty woodland. You pull out your AK-47, spray off a load of ideas, strongly knowing that, eventually, you’ll reach your target.
Be a van driver, get more paintballs.
Originally published at whattheydontteachyouatbusinessschool.com on December 5, 2016.
