First Opportunity

As I’ve talked to people about my trip, I’ve repeatedly said how I anticipate opportunities to present themselves as a result of what I’m doing. I always said how it’s hard to put a specific timeline on my trip because it could be dramatically changed based upon those opportunities. It could last a week, it could last a year. I just don’t know. However, I didn’t quite expect to have opportunities come to me until AFTER I’d started my trip. So, the phone call I got last Saturday came as quite a surprise to me.

In order to best introduce this, lets talk about what I’m looking for in an opportunity or in a new “life” for me. My main goal is to be an entrepreneur, and so any job I do get I want to contribute to this goal. I also want to enjoy what I do. By analyzing what I’ve liked/disliked about my post-graduation jobs, I think I’ve come up with a checklist of things I need in a job to really love it.

1. I want to live where it’s warm. I lived in AZ for high school and my first 2 years of college and so I got spoiled. Two years in Provo was enough cold for me. I just want to live where it doesn’t snow.

2. Performance-Based Compensation – I don’t really like working for an hourly or salary wage. I want to get paid what I’m worth. If I work hard, I want to get paid based upon that hard work. I think hourly jobs can lead to a lazier mentality. At least for me. Also, as an entrepreneur, this is a good thing to learn and get used to.

3. Authority to implement change – This one is big. A lot of sales jobs give me the ability to make lots of money, but don’t allow me to implement change. I like to be efficient. I like to fix problems. When I see a problem that could be fixed in a business, I want to have the authority to implement a solution. I want to be able to give feedback that improves the companies I work for. I often am excited about creating systems that will encourage more efficiency in business. This is one of the things I look for that is the hardest to come by as a “recent grad”.

4. Variety in task – If I do the exact same thing every day, I tend to struggle. The task can even be similar every day, as long as the situations and problems continue to change.

5. I want to avoid the application process – I know a lot of people might think this is unrealistic, but I hate going through the application and interview process. I want somebody to offer me a job because they know me and they can see the potential that I have. I don’t want it to be because I look good on paper and I interview well. Which, I do consider myself to be good at interviewing. I’d much rather work for somebody for free for a week or two and then have them offer me a job, rather than go through a series of interviews and applications to find a job.

So really, those are the main things I want. I’ve realized that all of these things are important to me. So, you’re probably wondering what the phone call was that I received. Well, I received a call from a cousin of mine last Saturday. Him and his dad had been reading up on my blog about my trip and my different ideas, and they thought I might be a good fit to work with them. I didn’t know anything about their company or what they were doing before we had this conversation.

So, their company name is Despain Craftsmanship. Basically, they do wood repair and restoration for commercial buildings. It was started by my uncle and was fueled mostly by word-of-mouth. Once my cousin decided to get into the business a few years ago, it has started growing much more rapidly. Well, they’ve expanded the business into Las Vegas, and they’d like me to be in charge of Sales and Marketing of their office down there. Also, they are wanting to create a replicatable business model that they can then franchise out.

It sounds like a great opportunity and appears to meet all the criteria that I’m looking for. There is a huge potential for the business in Las Vegas because of all the repair and maintenance that could be done on Casinos. They’ve already done work on the City Center and Venitian in Vegas, and they are getting great feedback from those projects. I like that with this job there would be a lot of flexibility to fix and improve things as I see fit. I would also be able to be an integral part of learning how to grow a business. Very valuable experience. It actually seems like with my experience, it’s a greater opportunity than I really deserve.

Although it looks like a great opportunity, I still want to gain experience from traveling and having this adventure. So, I’ll be working with them for a week or two so we can see if it’s a good fit for both of us. I’m going to hitch a ride to Vegas and start working for them next Monday. If it’s a good fit, then there is potential for a long-term position in the future. It’s just funny because I really didn’t anticipate finding an opportunity so quickly that I was interested in.

So, now that I’ve started this blog and got my hopes all up to travel around and experience life, I don’t want to give it up for a job so soon. If it really is a great fit for both of us, I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out so that I can still have the experiences I’m looking for. I’m really hoping that Vegas is just the beginning of my journey…

Living the Dream?

While I was at work today, I overheard my boss use the expression, “living the dream”. This is an expression that I hear a lot, and I’m slightly confused at to what it’s supposed to mean. Most of the time, people say it in a somewhat sarcastic or facetious way. When somebody says it in that manner, it seems to me that they are saying that their life is less than interesting.

For example, you see a friend you haven’ t seen in a while, and they ask you what you have been doing. A common response in this scenario can be that you’re “just living the dream”. This response seems to be said when someone feels they don’t have anything too noteworthy to report. Now, I may be reading into this statement wrong, but that seems to be the underlying meaning of the statement. You know, they aren’t doing anything that exciting, just going to school, going to work, dating, blah, blah, blah.

It’s funny because I’ve heard this statement in conjunction with the lifestyle of a college grad that still lives in Provo. As I’ve tried to explain to people what I’ve been doing, my friends have sometimes pointed out that I’m just “living the dream”. Basically implying that I’m doing nothing with my life by still living in Provo.

So, why is “living the dream” not a good thing? Don’t all of us hope that we’ll go after and achieve our dreams? I think that most of us do. However, “the dream” is often associated with societal norms and expectations that we’ve been raised with all of our lives. So yes, “living the dream” should be a negative statement, because if we’re living “THE dream”, we’re not living our own.

My dream is not to graduate from college and go work for a big corporation in New York, Boston, or D.C. My dream is not to find a “career”, and work for somebody else for my entire life. My dream is not to go to medical school, law school, dental school, or get my MBA. My dream does not align with a lot of the normal, predictable, and expected post-graduation plans of college grads. So, when I say I’m “living the dream”, I’m doing just that. I’m not doing what I want to do, rather, I’m doing what I’ve been taught I should want to do.

That’s really why I’m going on this trip. Too many people settle for “living the dream”, because it just seems too risky or scary to go after what they really want. Even then, often times people have a hard time deciphering between what they really want and what they’ve been taught they should want. I kept quitting jobs without having any other plan, because I never wanted to just get comfortable and settle for life. I hear people all the time say that they don’t love their job, “but it pays the bills”. That, to me, is living the dream.

So, are you living the dream?

Flakiness?

Well, I did a bunch of packing today. It felt a little weird because I’m trying to pack things up well, since they’ll be sitting packed up for a couple months. But, today was one of the days where the realization of what I’m doing dawned on me. I so excited and nervous to see what is actually going to happen with this. I mean, I can think of all the ideas that I want to. I can have specific purposes and everything. But, until I really get out there and see how difficult it is to accomplish what I want, I’m really not sure how it will be. But, I’m really going through with this.

Ya know what I hate? When you want to do something fun, like go on a road trip, or do something kind of spontaneous. So, you start inviting your friends, and everyone gets excited and says they are “in”. Then, when it really comes down to it, half the people drop out and only a select few end up following through. I think we, referring to humanity, always want to be the kind of people that are down for anything. But, often, we left fears or other daily pressures get in the way of things we want to do. So, when a friend invites us to do something, we all WANT to do that thing, so we express our initial excitement. Then, as the date gets closer, we start worrying about the financial implications, homework that’s due, getting off of work, etc. So, lots of times we don’t follow through. I’m surprised at how often we are all talk. I know I’ve done it plenty of times. But, I’m not going to be that way with this trip. I’m not just going to talk about doing it and then back out at the last moment because of some fears or pressures that I have. I have to go through with it, because if I make a habit of not going after what I want, I’ll have a life void of fulfillment.

Well, those are the main thoughts I had today as I was packing up. Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. I’m excited. I’ll be starting it at 5 AM. Better get some sleep.

Go by foot or car?

The more I’ve thought about traveling, the more confused I’ve become as to whether or not it will really solve the problem. In reality, I just want to feel fulfilled and happy, and I just haven’t felt that way since I’ve graduated. I look back at these last few months, and they have kind of been a waste. I haven’t really done a whole lot, and I just have not been happy with any of the jobs I have. Upon further reflection of this unsatisfied feeling, I’m wondering if a lot of it has to do with the fact that I’m in Provo. I have loved Provo for the last couple of years, but now that I’m graduated, I just don’t feel like I fit here anymore. I think it’s time for me to move on.

So, it may not even be the fact that I’ve hated the jobs I’ve had, although I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed all of them. It could be more that I’m just restless and ready to move on, and I won’t be completely happy with what I’m doing until I pick up and go.

I also think that my feeling of satisfaction has a lot to do with my social life. That is something that is really struggling here in Provo. It’s weird, but for me, the longer I am in one place, the less social I am. When I’m new, I’m extremely outgoing and much less shy. The more comfortable I get and the longer I live in one place, the more reserved I become. It’s like I have that feeling in the beginning that I really don’t care what people think, but then the longer I’m in a place, I care more and more what people think. So, for my social life, it actually might be the best thing for me to go move somewhere else.

After thinking about all these things, I really do think it would be in my best interest to move in December. Now, it’s deciding how I want to move. Do I want to just drop off all my stuff at my parent’s house and be a wanderer on my own with no money? Or, do I decide where I want to move to and drive there and start my life there. Well, one problem is that I really haven’t been to many places in the country, so I don’t really have any specific place in mind that I’d like to live. There is a company in Salt Lake that I’d like to work for, but, I don’t know, that just seems so uneventful. I wonder if I’ll still feel the same restless feeling if I’m living in Salt Lake.

I’ve also been thinking about all the experiences I’ve had that have contributed to my growing desire to get out and see more of the country. My very first experience was in the MTC, when one of my teachers was talking about how he worked for an airline, and every weekend he would just fly to a country and hang out there for a few days. I thought that sounded so fun and so I wanted to do the same thing when I got back. Then, last summer Josh Pratt mentioned how he would like to hitchhike across the country. Once again, I thought that sounded so much fun and I was completely down for the idea. Then, there were some trips that I went on that made me realize how much I love going on trips and just having to figure things out. When I went to a national park with Josh Pratt and Chelsea that we didn’t plan on going to. Then, there was the time I was going to Disneyland, but because of a car crash I ended up spending the weekend in Cedar City. Those trips were so much fun because I didn’t know how things were going to be when I went on the trip.

In conclusion, I’ve pretty much decided that I need to move somewhere. But the questions still remains whether or not I want to move with my car and possessions somewhere, or if I want to completely rough it, and just kind of wander and explore the country. Hmmm, I’ll have to reflect more on this…