ARE YOU WAITING FOR PERFECT?
After 4 years living, working and volunteering abroad I returned to Sydney.
I ran out of savings.
Furthermore, the thought of getting a full-time job in corporate literally made my body ill and I couldn’t get out of bed for 2 days.
I moved into my Auntie’s place, which was already a full house, and slept on a mattress on the ground in her spare room (which doubled as her home office so it was anything but comfortable).
During this time, I learned something powerful:
It’s better to put your imperfect ideas and dreams out into the world and build momentum.
Not wait for everything to be perfect, get 1,000 email subscribers, instagram followers, or somebody to tell you that you’re good enough (because you already are).
With no capital investment, no real experience with building a successful business, no mentor, and just an idea to make a difference I took steps to make something happen.
I stopped…
- Looking at what free online courses I could distract myself with
- Reading blog posts about other people who were doing great things and telling myself that “one day” I’d do the same (but not doing anything about it)
- Watching inspirational youtube and Facebook videos
- Wasting time on social media being a follower and not a leader
- Hanging out with people who didn’t lift me up or get me
- Going out to social events and feeling like crap because I couldn’t afford lunches and dinners and would have to make lame excuses
Within 30 days of arriving I paid $25 (what felt like a big risk to me at the time) and attended a seminar.
It was there that met my new business partner and within a week we had started our new business together.
A couple of weeks later we hosted our first speaking gig at a Gloria Jeans in Parramatta (with 2 amazing attendees, and Khadine Aharon was 1 of them).
We made ZERO sales and we sucked at times…
But we just focused on delivering value, getting feedback, and getting better next time.
A week later in a cafe in Ultimo we nervously pitched our service to somebody who became our first paying client.
We continued doing speaking gigs monthly (sometimes 3 a month, combined with webinars).
Over time, and through consistently putting ourselves out there, people began to recognise us and our brand.
We were getting invited to speak and we were landing clients that were paying us $2k+ per month to manage their fb advertising.
Whilst we have moved on from that business, I am still applying the lessons that I learnt during that time now to grow my existing business.
In June this year I quit my day job to become full-time digital nomads with my wife, and to build our dreams together.
I now have a powerful community of 270+ amazing founders, creatives and entrepreneurs doing inspiring things.
Last week I pitched an idea for a workshop to a coworking space in KL and included my new speaker kit (made in Canva by the brilliant Tuyet Pham).
I don’t have a presentation deck, just a title with bullet points of what it will be about.
They accepted it and I’ll be presenting the talk next week.
As I write this from our amazing air-conditioned apartment and nomad life in Penang I want to leave this thought with you…
If your life is not where you want it to be right now, then ask yourself:
Are you waiting for perfection or are you taking imperfect action to put you and your dreams out there?
