Want to know how?

As I’ve been telling people about my trip, I continually get asked how I plan on doing things. People ask me how I’m going to find places to sleep every night. How am I going to find rides and get where I need to go? What am I going to do if I can’t find rides or places to sleep, etc. So, I intend to answer those questions in this post.

In reality, I do have some ideas about how I’ll accomplish my goals. I’m of the opinion that as I meet and talk with different people and I tell them about what I’m doing, they will want to help me with my journey. The more people I can get to follow my blog, and the more people I meet, the larger my network will be to pull from. Every person I stay with, will probably know somebody else that might let me stay at their place, an so forth. However, I don’t intend to plan every single thing out about my trip.

Sometimes, you just have to act, and things will work out. If I waited until I had everything figured out about how to survive on this trip, I might never go. There is absolutely no way I’ll be able to plan everything that is going to happen. I know it will be hard at times, but I just plan and expect things to work out.

I see this trip a lot like I view entrepreneurship. I mean, a lot of people will talk about their good ideas and talk about how they want to start businesses, but then they don’t do anything about it. Really, you’ll never learn until you get out and start DOING stuff and learning from your mistakes. Too often, people are held back by their fears of the unknown or not having everything figured out.

That is what has bothered me about trying to figure out what to do with my life. I’ve had a variety of different jobs, but in addition to my jobs, I’ve also taken personality profiles, read different career assessments, and looked at job profiles online. But, we learn so much more through our experiences than we do sitting on a computer. I feel like the best way to learn what kind of things I might enjoy doing is to get out and DO stuff. The more people I meet, the more opportunities I’ll find. I can also learn from all of the different people I’ve talked to. I’m sure a bunch of people have gone through my same situation, and unless I get out and talk to them, it’s hard to learn from them.

So, no, I don’t know exactly how I’ll do everything on my trip. But, I think that if I just go out and do the trip, I’ll learn a ton from it. There will be so many cool experiences that I can’t foresee at this time. That’s the great thing about action. Just do stuff, and things will eventually work out.

Same Old Thoughts

I think that I continue to have the same thoughts about my options, but writing them down just seems to make those thoughts that much clearer, and it seems to help me make a decision. The nice thing at this point is that I don’t feel pressure to make a decision soon. I have time. I mean, I still have two months, or, more like a month a half to make a decision. So, I can continue to weigh the pros and cons and see what kind of options come up for me.

As far as the job search goes, I’ve decided that I don’t really want to keep looking for jobs the traditional ways. If I meet somebody and they tell me about a job, then great, but looking for jobs and submitting my resume to companies and stuff just isn’t my style. I think once I get my first job, that I’ll never apply for another job in my life. I just think I’ll continue to see opportunities because of people I meet along the way. However, at this point, I’ve never been looking for a job and so those opportunities may have presented themselves, I just wasn’t ready when they came.

The two jobs I’ve applied for right now are to work for Ragnar Relay and Launch Sales and Marketing. Ragnar seems like it would be a fun work environment. It’s a new company and is growing really fast. It is in an industry that I’m passionate about, and I’d be getting involved in Sponsorship sales. I haven’t heard back from them yet since I submitted my resume, but I think working for them is a great option.

Second, is Launch Sales and Marketing. They are a B2B sales outsourcing company that takes care of different portions of the sales cycle for technology and service companies. I’m not exactly sure how it would be, but it seems like the job would involve a lot of change. That’s what I would like. I could see myself selling something for a certain company for a while, and then getting moved over to a new product or service after a few months. It seems like it would be a good job to have because it would help me get experience selling lots of different things. Not only that, if sales is all the company does, you would think they would have a good training program and have their sales cycle pretty well figured out.

So, those are really the only two jobs I’m interested in at this point. If I decide to work for one of these companies(assuming they offer me a job), I want to work for them for a while. The only question that remains is if I’d be happy working for either one of these companies in Utah.

One of the problems with me getting a job is that I always wonder what else is out there. If I don’t enjoy some aspects of my job, I instantly start trying to think of other options that might exist that I would enjoy better. I wonder if these part of me will ever go away. It may not. That’s why the trip might be beneficial in helping me explore and see what other types of careers and jobs are out there. I really just think I’m very hands on. I can do all the research I want and I can read up on what careers do what. But, until I get out and talk to people and actually see what’s involved in certain jobs, I really don’t know what to expect. So, unless any other jobs come up that I think I’ll really be interested in, it looks like I’m deciding between one of these jobs and the trip.

Wait for the Check

I didn’t sell anything today at my sales job. Since I work on commission only, I didn’t make any money. It kind of sucked. But, we also just got a new dialer and there are a bunch of kinks to work out. That has also been annoying. The people that I did talk to gave me their sob stories of all the money they’ve spent on coaching and how it hasn’t helped them anyway. Listening to them made me sad. It’s true, the coaching industry is pretty shady. It’s hard for me to want to sell to people after they’ve told me about all of that. Although I do think our product can help people be successful, I know a lot of times that they won’t be successful, no matter what products they purchase. As I was reflecting on that, it made me want to do B2B sales a lot more. There isn’t any emotion to the sale, rather, it’s very logical the decision making process in a business. I won’t ever feel bad about selling something to a business.

So, that was an interesting day at work. After work our FHE group met at this Pirate restaurant for dinner. It was really fun and the restaurant was really well put together. We had a big group of us and so it took forever to get our checks at the end and to get out of there. I remember that was the most annoying thing about going out to eat dinner when I sold pest control. We always had a big group of us, and it always took way to long to get our checks at the end of the night. However, tonight I realized that’s a big problem that might present itself as an opportunity for a business. It’s so funny how I see problems now. Before, I got annoyed at how long it took. Today, when it was taking a long time, I realized how that’s a problem that needs a solution. Whenever a problem exists, there is opportunity for a business. So, I don’t know enough about credit cards and why things are done the way they are done now, but I know there has to be a better way. I’m pretty sure I’ve slid my credit card for services or things before I knew what the exact total amount would be. If that’s possible, there is potential for people to pre-pay for their meal. I mean, with big groups they charge everybody a certain gratuity anyway, so, that wouldn’t even deter the tip-giving. Anyway, that’s a problem that I could think more about.

Junto Partner?

I like to be able to look at different times of my life and see the things that I’ve accomplished. I just don’t feel like I’ve accomplished a whole lot over these last two years of my life. That second summer of summer sales really made me think upon my life and realize I was working really hard and trying to get places to fast. Unfortunately, that thinking led me to do the opposite, and do really do much at all. I mean, if I started partying a lot more and going on tons of trips and what not, that’s one thing. But I didn’t even really do that. So, I eliminated a lot of the hard work and ambition from my life, and I didn’t really replace it with anything else. I look at these last two years of my life, and I have some regrets. I don’t really know how to define them. When I think of those years and the idea of my nomadic trip, the words of someone I respect come into my mind when he is describing my age group as “twenty something peter pans”. Or whatever it is that he says. He talks about how people in this age group are postponing the responsibilities of marriage and family.

I don’t want to be like that. Next year, I want to be able to look back at this past year and see all the things I have accomplished. I want to be proud of what I’ve done. As far as my trip is concerned, it’s not completely off the table, but I think going on the trip will only perpetuate that feeling I have. I do have a desire to go travel and I love seeing places and hitch hiking and what not. However, I also know that when I go on a weekend trip or something, it satisfies my desire for a little while. I remember when I was working at Qualtrics, I was really wanting to just travel the country and do my thing. Well, after I went on the trip to San Francisco with Ty, it quieted that part inside of me that wanted to do that. I was content for a while after the trip to just work.

Also, when I didn’t have a job or much money, there were some opportunities that I missed out on because I didn’t have any money. My cousins went to Havasupai, which I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. I couldn’t go because I had no dough. I also had a friend invite me to go with him and some friends to Hawaii for a week. I would have loved to, but again, I had no money. So, I think that if I have a job and a fairly steady source of income, I’ll be able to afford to go on trips and see places. I also will be able to look back at my life and see the experiences I’ve gained and what I’ve learned in the workplace. I really think the next job I have I’ll be able to stay at for a while.

The diversity of experiences I’ve had have come to show me where my interests are. I think the two main reasons I had a hard time sticking to jobs were because I wasn’t sure what else I was missing out on, and I wasn’t content staying in Provo. Now, with me moving, and having had quite a few jobs, I don’t think I’ll have the same problem. Now, I know that I need to stay at a job for a while in order to learn as much as I can. I need to become a master at what I do before I ever decide to move on. For a while I convinced myself that maybe I just wasn’t interested in the internet or technology businesses. I also don’t think this is true. I still have plenty of interest in these businesses, and I’d love to learn how to be good at B2B sales.

I’ve decided now that I’m just going to apply to every job I hear about that sounds interesting at all. I don’t need to stress about it, but I’ll just apply when a job sounds like it might be a good fit. Then, I’ll wait and see who I get offers from. At that point, I’ll decide what job offer to take. If I don’t get any job offers by January, then I’ll go on my trip. I’m not staying in Provo, so if I don’t have something else to do, I’m not going to sit around and wait for a job. That’s when I’ll travel around the country, networking, sightseeing, and making lots of friends in different places.

I don’t know why, but now I almost kind of want to stay in Utah. Well, I kind of know why. I know there are great entrepreneurial opportunities in other places, and maybe once I move to a place like that, I’d be interested in staying. But, Utah has so many startups and companies that I’m interested in working for. I’m mostly interested in working for startups or small companies, and I don’t think that I have to work for a company to become proficient in sales. I feel like it’s one of the best places to work and live in order to get in on a great startup that I can get passionate about. If I get an offer that I really like that is someplace else, then great. If not, I think I’ll probably move to somewhere in the Salt Lake Valley. Another reason I kind of want to stay in Salt Lake is because I really would like to do the Junto Partners program. It’s basically a free entrepreneur training course that lasts 6 weeks or so. At the end of the six weeks, they pick 5 of the 20 participants to become Junto Partners. I’m not completely clear on what a Junto partner is, but it sounds like you become involved in a group that is designed to help people start businesses. Access to capital, entrepreneurial coaching and mentoring, among other things are involved. I want to be Junto Partner next sumer.

Explore the lives of others

I’m kind of feeling sick right now and so I don’t feel like writing in this blog too much. I’m not too sure how long this will be, but I’ll do my best.

I was having some doubts about the trip this morning, but now I’m feeling pretty good about it. I think that I should have two main purposes of this trip. First, I want to use it as career exploration. That means, I want to talk to as many different people as I can about what they do and the skills that are useful in their occupation. I was actually thinking about requiring myself to write in my blog every night about a different occupation. So, that could mean that I need to either jobshadow or interview somebody every day about their occupation. Second, I want to see more places, and decide on where I would like to move to next. I think if I have those as my main purposes, it will be a lot easier for me to focus on and get something out of the trip.

That means, I don’t want to have to worry about money so much on my trip. I’d like to be able to make enough from my job in the next few weeks, or be able to work during my trip doing sales. At least I want enough to start out my trip so that I don’t have to worry about money for the first little bit. Maybe once I’m out on the road I’ll see different opportunities for jobs and what not, and it might not be so bad to run out. But, in the beginning, I’d like to have enough to not have to worry about it.

I think one reason I’m feeling really good about it right now is because I was surfing around on the CouchSurfing website. All of the experiences that people share help me to see how it would be a great experience because I’ll be able to meet lots of different people. I could stay with a different person every night and get a glimpse into their life and their lifestyle. That will help me explore occupations and how people live even more.