I'd also tell myself to do social media for those websites/apps too so I could learn how to effectively synchronize them and further build my skills. I realize at this point the old me would politely say "ok" in an awkward tone and wonder when the hell I lost my mind in the future. When would I make money you ask? Wouldn't I be working myself to death? Well the answer is yes and no.
I would NATURALLY be making money with all the value I'd bring people. See I'm at a point right now where I'm starting to think about how to naturally make money. That sounds weird right? Naturally make money...but think about it like this.
You know a cool confident guy who is great at programming, an experienced salesman, with great connections in multiple business fields and is great at marketing...how much money do you think he's making? Lets say zero for example because he focused on getting the skills more than the cash and is just down on his luck.
Well I think it's a matter of time before people naturally start contacting him for more work right? Perhaps some want to start a startup with him, perhaps they have a client they'd like him to meet, perhaps he has an idea of his own in one of the fields he helped out for free. I know those like me, skeptical ask: "what if everything went wrong?" Lets say somehow he made the mistake of helping all these people he admires and they were stingy and didn't want to give back.
Well simple, with all of his skills he can now write 10 ideas down on a paper a day until he finds a great one. He can then spec that idea out and get a company started. He has 0 money in his bank right? Well with all his skills he can convince at minimum those 10 companies to give him $100 a month to upkeep the websites and social media for them to fund his own ideas. Lets say we are still skeptical (which is never really bad to be), well then he'll have to get a job. Guess what? Remember all that free work he put in? Well now he can put those skills he gained down on a resume.
Worst case scenario he gets a job/internship for minimum wage at a tech company, (I think he'll work at a startup), but now he can afford his own place somewhere (no matter where) and as long as he has a laptop he just needs to work. The more he works the more opportunities he'll get, I think people forget that skills are more important than cash.
Our protagonist can blog about all of his failures, triumphs and even the people that screwed him. He can try out all of his ideas and finally succeed one day (whatever your definition of success is). As long as he keeps doing more than expected he'll be great. The more he does the better. I think the reason I haven't been winning is because I haven't been doing what's expected let alone more than expected. Let me know where you have been putting extra effort in and what's been happening with that extra effort.
Yesterday, I met two men at a coffee shop who both had experience in startups and were programmers. Both men I met at separate times had their fair share of victories (the latter selling stock in the recently acquired Sun Microsystems). Both worked at a multitude of startups, some got sold others failed. The thing they had in common was that they both didn't go on to start their own business (I couldn't help, but wonder why not). They both settled for regular jobs (not a bad thing), but I just couldn't help thinking of the potential they had. Then it hit me, they were doing it for the money and not the skills, they they both talked about how they always did what was expected of them and not more than that.
You could tell they caved on the business dreams they used to have and gave me excuses. "Of course at the end of the day: as one of them quoted "1 out of 1000 succeed you'll see". "I have kids and a wife" the other told me "I can't do the same things anymore". I did see...I saw that you definitely lose when you stop doing more than expected of you and settle. In my eyes they lost, not because they got jobs or built families, but because they stopped trying to go beyond that. "I still get ideas every once in a while" one of them told me. Hopefully he'll get up and follow them again eventually. We lose when we don't do more than the given expectations.
As always, thanks for the read. :-)
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