3 Unusual Lessons from 7 Years of Entrepreneurship
I’ll be speaking to some undergrads tomorrow.
Here’s what I was asked to do:
“We would like you to share your entrepreneurial journey and the critical business and life lessons you learned along the way.”
Lesson 0: Do what creates most value instead of what people ask
I talk to a lot of undergrads as part of my outreach. Inspiration and life lessons is NOT the best thing I could give them. They could easily watch the best speakers in YouTube.
What’s the unique value I could give in a face-to-face event? I’ll run a habit building workshop instead. This is the one thing I would teach my college self.
I still want to give the organizers what they asked for. But writing is a better medium for sharing life lessons — at least in my case. So here are my top 3 lessons in 7 years of entrepreneurship. I share the lessons I don’t see other entrepreneurs sharing.
Lesson 1: How to train yourself
Entrepreneurship is like the Olympics. There is a myriad of games, each of which requires different skill sets. How do you train yourself in the skills you need? See my answer in Quora:
TLDR:
1: Have a real business problem to solve. This makes business extremely interesting. And without it, learning business could be extremely boring.
2: Know the leading minds in that area, and saturate yourself with their thought by focusing your daily consumption of content on them.
3: Apply what you learn immediately to solve real problems.
4: Teach.
Lesson 2: How to master your monkey brain
Entrepreneurship is largely a mental game. How do you train your mind to function in high stress environments? I share 3 ways:
- Meditation
- Status fasting
- Peer pressure design
Lesson 3: How to know what you should be doing in life
I wrote this for my siblings and younger cousins when several of them just graduated or were about to graduate from college. They all call me Manoy, which means “big brother” in Cebuano.
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