I never had a good job working for anyone else. Regardless of it was me or the company, I realized pretty early in life that I was unemployable.
So now what?
What does an unemployed and unemployable person do? Become an entrepreneur of course!
But that is easier said than done.
After my first few miserable jobs out of college, I didn’t really even know what “entrepreneur” was. In fact, my entire goal in life simple became, “how I can make a living without having to work for anyone else ever again.”
That’s it…simple right?
I did whatever I could to try to make money including finding all sorts of marketing jobs on craigslist, doing search engine optimization work, and writing articles for various organizations.
The reality of the situation was that I was a struggling young kid not making much money. But that’s not what I told myself.
Nope…what I told myself was, “I am a young entrepreneur building a life for myself that I truly want to live.” This became my motto and I repeated it many times a day.
It was hard for a long time. I wasn’t making much money, just barely enough to cover my expenses which thankfully weren’t that much. I was single living in San Francisco with a roommate. I had no car, no kids, no wife, and no mortgage.
I learned an important lesson early on in my entrepreneurial journey which was “Fake It Until You Make It.” In my mind, this translated into focusing on the positive self-talk and telling myself a narrative that I wanted to become reality (being a successful entrepreneur) even though it was really just a made-up story (I was really just a struggling young kid with not much money).
What you believe and what you tell yourself matters. Because it will guide your behaviors, your actions, and how you feel about yourself.
Here’s a clip from my talk at TED Academy in front of around 2,000 people filmed in Athens, Greece where I talk about this in more detail and share some personal stories. I hope it motivates and inspires you!
I made a video about this which you can see below. If you want more content like this then make sure to subscribe to the Be Your Own Boss Podcast Youtube Channel where my wife Blake and I teach you how you can be your own boss.
You can think of yourself as the struggling kid with no money or you can think of yourself as the young entrepreneur who wants to build a life for themselves that they truly want to live.
How you talk to yourself and the story you tell yourself is a choice.
What story are you telling yourself each day?
Fake It ‘Til You Make it!
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