I've been on this forum for a little while now and figured I should finally write an introduction. My name is Alex and I'm from Ontario Canada, I'm 21 and new to entrepreneurship so I'm taking as many notes as I can from all you awesome value producers out here on the forum.
My story in a nutshell: Graduated from High School in 2013, didn't know what to do with my life and my parents decided I needed to go to college so that I could do something with myself. So as I had no awareness back then on college, life and how money worked, I went for anything that seemed "cool". So I ended up moving out at 17 and took Pre-animation. I drew during high school as a hobby so I thought it was a good idea at the time. I'll always remember my first day of college when my teacher said "Your diploma, the piece of paper you'll receive at the end of your program will be worth nothing. All that matters is your portfolio and results." As I went on, excited about drawing awesome backgrounds, characters and so on, the work started becoming, well, work. And over time I began to lose my "love" for the pursuit of drawing.
Soon after that, I quit my program and ended up taking Health and Fitness Promotion (I've always been very active) because I thought that was "my passion" at the time and seemed to fit "my desires" best. Long story short, I ended up graduating, and as I was supposed to get a great personal training job at a functional training facility that my boss from co-op offered, she told me "I think it would be best if you got a retail job for a year and then came back to see me". Then she hired someone the after with no skills/knowledge in training, but had sales and marketing experience. Go figure. I eventually decided to move away from the fitness world as it is extremely saturated (anyone can become a trainer just by taking a weekend course now..) and I was "losing my passion" for it as it became work again.
Now I'm currently working at Home Depot (Had previous jobs selling hot sauce, TV's, making smoothies and pizza pizza CSR) and have no debt thankfully. I'm trying to save up as much as I can (1000$ so far) but it's difficult with rent in the city and a minimum wage job. I literally walk to work and bus when walking isn't possible, just to save as much money as I can. But it's better than owning a car and being trapped by debt I guess.
All that to say, I'm now currently studying sales, marketing and copywriting during my off time for now. I think I've learned more/faster than I ever have self-educating myself than when I was in school since half the shit they talked about isn't relevant or practical. I learned a lot more about fitness and health outside of college than in college but that's a whole other rant..
Now I just need to find a need and learn the skills to help people. I was thinking about starting out small and trying things like finding clients to do cleaning, mowing lawns, carpet cleaning, window cleaning, learning how to fix phones or computers, web design, copy, etc. But I can't do most of those first one's without a car, so I'll have to do the best I can with the options I have.
Sorry for the long post, if you've read this far I hope you've enjoyed and maybe even learned from my mistakes about "following your passion" for some of you. I've read TMF and am almost done reading Unscripted, they are definitely 2 of the best books I've ever read and I resonated a lot with the book like most of you.
Nice to meet you all and if you have any advice or perspective on where I am right now, I'd really appreciate it
My story in a nutshell: Graduated from High School in 2013, didn't know what to do with my life and my parents decided I needed to go to college so that I could do something with myself. So as I had no awareness back then on college, life and how money worked, I went for anything that seemed "cool". So I ended up moving out at 17 and took Pre-animation. I drew during high school as a hobby so I thought it was a good idea at the time. I'll always remember my first day of college when my teacher said "Your diploma, the piece of paper you'll receive at the end of your program will be worth nothing. All that matters is your portfolio and results." As I went on, excited about drawing awesome backgrounds, characters and so on, the work started becoming, well, work. And over time I began to lose my "love" for the pursuit of drawing.
Soon after that, I quit my program and ended up taking Health and Fitness Promotion (I've always been very active) because I thought that was "my passion" at the time and seemed to fit "my desires" best. Long story short, I ended up graduating, and as I was supposed to get a great personal training job at a functional training facility that my boss from co-op offered, she told me "I think it would be best if you got a retail job for a year and then came back to see me". Then she hired someone the after with no skills/knowledge in training, but had sales and marketing experience. Go figure. I eventually decided to move away from the fitness world as it is extremely saturated (anyone can become a trainer just by taking a weekend course now..) and I was "losing my passion" for it as it became work again.
Now I'm currently working at Home Depot (Had previous jobs selling hot sauce, TV's, making smoothies and pizza pizza CSR) and have no debt thankfully. I'm trying to save up as much as I can (1000$ so far) but it's difficult with rent in the city and a minimum wage job. I literally walk to work and bus when walking isn't possible, just to save as much money as I can. But it's better than owning a car and being trapped by debt I guess.
All that to say, I'm now currently studying sales, marketing and copywriting during my off time for now. I think I've learned more/faster than I ever have self-educating myself than when I was in school since half the shit they talked about isn't relevant or practical. I learned a lot more about fitness and health outside of college than in college but that's a whole other rant..
Now I just need to find a need and learn the skills to help people. I was thinking about starting out small and trying things like finding clients to do cleaning, mowing lawns, carpet cleaning, window cleaning, learning how to fix phones or computers, web design, copy, etc. But I can't do most of those first one's without a car, so I'll have to do the best I can with the options I have.
Sorry for the long post, if you've read this far I hope you've enjoyed and maybe even learned from my mistakes about "following your passion" for some of you. I've read TMF and am almost done reading Unscripted, they are definitely 2 of the best books I've ever read and I resonated a lot with the book like most of you.
Nice to meet you all and if you have any advice or perspective on where I am right now, I'd really appreciate it
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