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…

Why am I REALLY doing this?

Ok, now that I’ve had to talk to more and more people about what I’m doing on this trip, I keep feeling unsettled with my ability to explain it. I feel like people are confused by my intentions, and to be honest, I’ve been a little confused myself.

So, I’ve done the work to try to figure myself out, and I think I got it. I went back and read my oldest blog entries as well as just tried to reflect on what I’d regret not accomplishing with this trip.

I think the reason it has been so difficult to explain myself is because I started with an original idea for the trip. Then, as time progressed, I kept seeing byproducts and other things that I would benefit from by going on the trip. As I tried to explain my reasons to others, I kept getting my byproducts mixed in with my main goal or reason, and so it was never very clear. The problem is that I’m excited about the trip for lots of different reasons, but, I’m going on the trip for one main reason.

Now, when I look back at why I’ve had a hard time committing to different things, post-graduation. I think that most of it stems from one main problem: my location. I never really planned on staying in Provo too long after graduation. I had only been there for two years, and I liked it because there are lots of new startups and I’m somewhat acquainted with people in the entrepreneurial community in the Utah Valley. So, I thought it would be a good place to stay. However, I never really saw it as a long term location, so every job that I got I also saw as a short-term gig. That translated into my inability to really love what I was doing.

I might be able to enjoy doing b2b sales, but when I saw that some deals would take 6-8 months to close, I wasn’t even sure if I’d be around long enough to close them. How could I patiently work and put everything into a job when I never really intended to stay there too long? So, as I went from one project to another, I didn’t really analyze and weigh my options, because I never considered any of them to be long-term. That’s not the best phrase of mind when going into a job. Most of the time I went in with the idea that I didn’t know how long I planned on staying, but that I would just wait and see. But, I think deep down I really was never planning on staying in Provo too long.

Part of the reason I didn’t want to stay in Provo is because I’ve had an itching to get out and explore the world while I’m young and single and still capable of having no commitments. I think I was trying to fight that urge some because I felt that I needed to “get on” with my life. So, I was continually having this inner struggle where I was trying to get jobs in a place I didn’t want to stay, and fighting that urge to just go out and see the country.

So, that’s really why I want to go on this trip. I’ve never been anywhere and I feel like I’m really sheltered and have a limited perspective on the world because of my lack of traveling and seeing things. So, I really just want to go on an adventure so that when I do decide to settle somewhere, I’ll be able to do it without this gnawing and restlessness in the back of my mind.

However, there are lots of other things that make me excited about the trip as well. I wanted to hitchhike because it will maximize the amount of different people I interact with. I think there’s a lot to learn from others who have been there, done that, so, I’d like to interact with different people daily. I’d like to learn about careers and what people do so that I might have a better view of where I would excel in a company. I want to have a blog and learn about social media. I want the experience of facing all of my most basic fears and overcoming them. I want to learn entrepreneurial skills. I want the ability to get up and go wherever the wind is blowing.

I think the byproducts that I view as potential for the trip come with my experience with door-to-door sales. While I was out and about, talking to people every day, I gained opportunities and met people that I otherwise would have never met. I got random job offers and learned about the things that people did. However, my purpose was to sell these people so I wasn’t really focused on learning about what they did or learning from them. So, I thought that if I was out and about and had more of a focus to learn about careers and jobs from others, that I’d probably learn a lot. Also, I’ll probably get some opportunities for work or learning that I would never have gained if I wasn’t out and about, talking to people every day.

So, there really are lots of different things I hope to get out of this trip, but they aren’t the reasons I’m going on it. If the only thing I accomplish is having a fun adventure and going places I’ve never been, I will feel fulfilled. So, I’m not going to worry about marketing my blog. I think that has contributed a lot to my confusion. I was trying to create a story that I thought would be more interesting for media and people to follow. In reality, I don’t care. I’m doing this trip for me, not for anybody else. So, sorry if that’s disappointing to anybody, but I’m sure glad that now I know EXACTLY why I’m going this trip.

Parallels Between My Trip and Entrepreneurship

This is a topic that I’ve been thinking about for a while now, and I have finally gotten around to writing about it. One of the main reasons I’m going on this trip is because I want to be an entrepreneur, and I think this trip will help me develop entrepreneurial skills. So, in this post I’m going to talk about how this trip is similar to entrepreneurship.

1. Thinking vs Doing – This is one of the big challenges for wanna-be entrepreneurs. A lot of people talk about ideas they have for businesses they want to start, but they just talk about them. In order to be an entrepreneur, you have to get into the habit of DOING stuff, rather than just talking about it. Well, with this trip, it could be the kind of thing that I just talk about and never do. Lots of people think up cool ideas for trips or other things, but they never follow through. That’s why it’s important that I actually get out and do it.

2. Don’t Have to Have Everything Planned – This is similar to the last post, but there’s an important distinction. The reason lots of people struggle with doing things, is because they want to have every possible problem solved before they face it. When people ask me about my trip, they often ask what I’m going to do in certain situations when they come up. Now, I’ve thought about lots of different things, but there is no way I can plan for everything. There will be experiences that I couldn’t anticipate or plan for. As an entrepreneur, that’s something I’ll have to get used to. You have an initial idea, and you make plans on how to execute that idea. Then, you just start doing stuff and learn as you go along.

3. Adapt – These parallels are kind of making a progression because they build on one another. When an entrepreneur has an idea and starts doing things to make that idea a reality, he needs to be open to adaptation. Many successful businesses came about after an entrepreneur saw an opportunity, and adapted his existing business idea to go after that opportunity. I have a specific plan and purpose in mind. I’m going on my trip to explore cities, jobs, and companies. However, maybe once I get out there, I’ll realize that my survival is taking up a lot more time than I thought. Well, then I’ll have to adapt my purpose and goals for the trip based upon that experience.

4. Risk – We all know that entrepreneurs take risks, and they have to get comfortable with that. Their taking financial, emotional, and personal risks when they try to start businesses. Well, on this trip I’ll also be facing a lot of different risks. I’ll be facing the risk of not having a place to stay, not having enough to eat, not having any friends, and not being able to get to where I need. These are risks that scare a lot of people, and I’ll be honest, I’m scared of them too. However, I also think that where there is a great risk, there is also a great reward. As I get comfortable with risks on this trip, I think it will help me be able to face risks later as an entrepreneur.

5. Creativity – As entrepreneurs face different challenges the have to continually adapt and think of new solutions to problems. Lots of times, this requires a great amount of creativity on their part. An entrepreneur can face funding constraints, talent constraints, and time constraints. They have to learn how to be creative in order to accomplish their goals. I will face very similar challenges on my trip, and I’ll have to be creative and think of ways to overcome them. How will I make money? How will I find places to stay? How will I get to where I need to go? I may find that my initial ideas on how to accomplish these things may not work. Well, then I’ll have to be creative and think of quick solutions to my problems. Especially since I don’t have a home to go to at the end of the day.

6. Leverage – Entrepreneurs learn to leverage others time, money, and talents. An entrepreneur really is a master at finding the right talents, people, and abilities to make a business happen. It’s not uncommon for entrepreneurs to get people to work for free for a long time. Now that’s some impressive leveraging ability. I’ll also need to learn how to use leverage on my trip. I’ll try to leverage the power of my own network, of the people I meet, and my followers online. Almost every day I’ll be relying on my ability to leverage others and their assistance on my behalf.

7. Sell Yourself – If there’s one thing I hear a lot, it’s that as an entrepreneur, you have to sell yourself. Leverage has a lot to do with your ability to sell. You need to convince people of your idea, your ability, and your vision. Only by successfully selling yourself will you get the help you need. I’ll be doing the same thing. My survival is completely dependent on my ability to sell myself. Every amount of assistance I get will come from my ability to sell me. I’ll try to convince businesses to come let me shadow, people to give me rides or couches to crash on, and somehow convince somebody to give me money, for whatever I decide to do to get that.

8. Have a vision – Entrepreneurs have to have a vision of what they accomplish and be optimistic through their challenges in order to succeed. They will face many setbacks and challenges, and only if they have a vision and the optimism that they can be successful will they be able to make it through. I will definitely face some hardships and struggles on my trip, and it is only through my optimism and my vision that I’ll be able to keep going in spite of them. I can give up anytime I want, so it will really be my vision of what I want to accomplish that will keep me going.

9. Overtake Your Life – I’ve heard that starting a business can be extremely overwhelming and often takes over your life. You eat, sleep, and drink your business in order to make it a success. Well, my trip will be the same way. I’m basically eliminating all options to ever get a break from my trip. I won’t have a car, a house, or a regular job. I will always have to be thinking and trying to come up with ways to make my trip work. So, I guess you could say I’m jumping in with both feet.

Ok, well, I’m sure there are other parallels, but I think that is sufficient. These are just some of the main parallels that I’ve thought of, and it can give some insight into why I want to do this trip.

Now or Later?

The other day at work, I was talking with a guy who had signed up for coaching. Now, when people sign up with a coaching company, they usually make goals for why they want to make extra income. This guy had a goal to go golfing in all 50 states. I thought it was a cool goal, so I talked to him about it. The interesting part is how he thinks his goal is contingent upon making extra money so that he can afford to do it.

See, there is a saying that comes from Robert Kiyosaki that I really like. He says that you should never say that you can’t afford something. Rather, you should ask the question, how can you afford it? By telling ourselves we can’t afford something, it requires no further work or thinking on our part. Whereas if we ask HOW can we afford something, it inspires creativity and forces our brain to work and think of solutions.

So many times in life, we find reasons as to why we can’t do the things we want to do. We often look forward to when we can “afford” the life we want to have. It’s easy for us to always look forward to the future when times or situations will (we hope) be better for us. Unfortunately, postponing actions usually leads to never accomplishing those tasks. We continue postponing them till the time is right, but the time is never going to be perfect. But, if we force our brains to try and think of how we can do what we want right now, we can often accomplish our goals without waiting for something that may never come.

That’s part of the reason for my trip. If I had a million dollars, there are two things I would do with my time. I would want to travel and experience different places, and I would want to build businesses. Before, I always thought I wanted to work hard to make enough money so that I could have the freedom to travel and do what I wanted. But, then I realized that this is the best time of my life do something like that, and that I should try to figure out a way that I can explore without having the financial means I thought were necessary.

Now, I know the path that I have chosen isn’t necessarily feasible for everybody, but the point is that if we use our brains, we can think of ways to do what we want to do now, rather than in the unforeseeable future. So, I guess the question that remains for all of us to answer is what things in our life do we keep postponing because of financial or other limitations, and how can we overcome those limitations to do what we’d like to do with our lives?

Making the Plans

Well, while I was at my sales job today I just wasn’t feeling it. I already want to quit and just get ready for my trip. So, I think I’ve decided that I’m going to quit in two weeks so that I don’t have to pay for rent for the month of December. Then, I think I’ll live in Provo for another week and just couchsurf for that week. That will help me learn better how to use the couchsurfing website, as well as get some positive reviews for my couchsurfing profile. I’m excited, but I better work hard these next two weeks so I don’t have to worry about money.

The more I think about it, the more I’d like to try and get sponsors. I mean, even if I don’t get them, I’ll learn from the experience of trying to get them. I was wondering who the people are that I’m going to want to talk to and what not, when I realized that I could probably just talk to Brogg and ask him about it. Brogg started BBSC Endurance sports and I know that he’ll have experience contacting companies for sponsorships. The sponsorship amounts that I’ll be asking for will be so small that I’m sure companies will go for it. Either that, or they’ll wonder if I’m for real. That’s the bigger concern, that they don’t take me seriously. Oh well, somebody will I’m sure. If not, I’ll forge ahead anyway.

I’ve made some more definite plans about what I’d like to do on the trip. I’d like to make my trip a combination of two successful projects I’ve seen: LetMeStayForADay.com and OneWeekJob.com. I want to stay with a different person every night and go to work with a different person every day. I’m not going to set any restrictions on when I’d like to finish or not, because I’m genuinely going on a journey looking for occupations that I could enjoy or cities I might like to live in. Once I find what I’m looking for, I can stop my journey at anytime. However, I don’t want to make any decision until I’ve seen a majority of the U.S. and most of the major cities. Well, tomorrow I’m going to start calling companies for sponsorships. I guess we’ll see how it goes.

If I had a million dollars?

On Thursday I ran into a friend of mine at 24 hour fitness. He also majored in Entrepreneurship, so we started talking about what both of us are doing. He is still living in Provo, even though he has graduated, and so I thought our situations were pretty similar. The part that kind of bewildered me was how he feels content with what he’s doing in his life and I feel so restless. We talked about a bunch of different things, but there was a question he asked me that kind of stuck with me. He asked me what I would do if I received a million dollars a day? Essentially, if money wasn’t an issue at all, what would I do with my life? It’s a very valid question, and I’ve been thinking about it.

I’ve been doing research on careers and post-graduation life, and I found out that there is quite a bit of literature aimed at recent graduates. I guess what I’m going through right now is referred to as the Quarter Life Crisis. There are quite a few books that talk about how twenty-somethings can get through that period in their life that follows graduation. A lot of the things I feel are characteristic of what many recent graduates feel. It was interesting to find this out, because it opens my mind to some possibilities I might have with my blog. Also, some of the literature also mentioned that asking yourself the question about what you would do if you won the lottery is helpful in deciding a course of action.

See, on Friday I made friends with a guy over the phone, who I ended up selling. He is a president of some company out in PA, and I told him how I’ve been having a hard time deciding what I should do with my life. He posed the same question to me that my friend posed, what would I do if money wasn’t an issue? Well, at this point, I had thought about the question, and these are the two things I think I would do if money wasn’t an issue. I would travel, and I would start businesses. Starting businesses is just a big interest of mine, as well as traveling and seeing the world. So, what I told this guy is that I would probably travel. He started questioning me about what information I could gain from my travel that somebody would want. He said I might be able to get hired by a company for that information.

Well, that got me thinking, which led me to do research and find out about the Quarter life Crisis literature. I think if I have my blog focused on career exploration from the eyes of a recent grad, I might have something that could attract the eyes of recent grads and college students. There are plenty of websites out there that give tips and strategies for helping recent grads know how to get through their transition. If I have them as my target market, I might be able to set up some sort of job or sponsorship before I even leave.

So, I really think that if I’m going to get anything rolling with this trip, the earlier I decide to go the better. I’ve pretty much made up my mind that I’d like to go on the trip. I’m probably about 90% sure of it. The job with Launch Sales and Marketing isn’t going to work out because he said I don’t have enough experience. Also, I haven’t heard back from Ragnar Relays, and I just don’t anticipate hearing back from them at this point. So, I think I’m just going to start making plans and getting ready for the trip. Even if Ragnar does contact me and wants to hire me, I really think going on this trip will be the best thing for me. It will help me explore and see some of the world, so that I will be better able to commit in the future.

Also, as I was talking to a friend at a party tonight, I realized I’m kind of going about this thing all wrong. I mean, in terms of my career exploration. I’ve been looking for a job that I can enjoy. Well, I think the reality of it is that I don’t really enjoy working for other people. I’m too entrepreneurial. So, I need to find a business I can get into that will pay well enough that I can have the time to work on businesses. I think that’s where real estate comes in. I always had an interest in real estate, but mostly because of the money. Well, if I’m able to live at my parents house(they might be leaving on a mission and they want me to live in their house by myself), and I don’t have rent payments to worry about, then I should be able to find enough stuff to keep busy until I get some real estate deals worked out. I’ve already talked to some guys that will mentor me. It benefits them because we’ll split the profits, and they’ll be able to do more deals than they could on their own.

I could use that as my revenue source, and then with any other extra time I have, I can work on businesses I would like to start. I still want to go on this trip first, so, that will be my focus for now.

Have Interest

Well, today I was getting sick of trying to sell and I hadn’t made any sales. Two days in a row without making sales? Yeah, that would hurt. So, I started thinking about quitting and how I just don’t know if I can sell a product that I don’t feel good about. Not even that I don’t feel good about selling the product, more that I just don’t feel good about selling it to the people I talk to. Anyway, I started talking to this one lady, and we just got a talking. We ended up having a great conversation, and I could tell she really liked me. She told me to never be a teacher because she hates her job, and I was telling her about the hard time I was having deciding what I want to do with my life.

To make a long story short, I ended up selling this lady, even though she wanted to wait. I remembered how this morning I had read a chapter in How to Win Friends that talked about how we should show a genuine interest in people. That’s what I did with her, and I ended up selling her. Although I don’t think selling her was the most important part, my spirits lifted considerably after that call. I remembered how sometimes when I got sick of knocking doors and selling pest control, I would just try to find somebody nice to talk to. I would just make a friend, and I would a lot of times sell that person. But, I liked that because it rejuvenated me. Rather than feeling like a selling machine that didn’t really care about people, I felt like I was making friends and still giving my friends something they could benefit from. Well, after my first phone sale, the next lady I called I used a similar approach. I just started joking with her and she thought I was “a riot”. Her words, not mine. Well, I ended up selling her as well. What started as a horrible selling day and where I thought I was going to just quit and hate my job, turned into a very rewarding and fun day. I need to use that approach more often when I sell. I need to have a more genuine interest in the people I sell and just make friends with them on the phone.

During the time that I was having a hard time selling, I was talking to my coworker David. He’s the one who went on the trip from California to Rome. We talked about how I’m planning on getting a job, but that I still have my nomadic trip as a backup option. Well, he invited me to read some of the journal entries from his trip that he has posted on facebook. He has the first 19 days of his trip posted, so I went and read them tonight after work. They were so fun and interesting to watch, and they got me laughing really hard on multiple occasions. The trip just sounds so much fun.

I think one of the biggest fears I have about going on a trip is that I’ll regret going on it. Although one side of me does want to go out and explore and experience more of what is around me, the other side of me wants to start learning a profession and to get good at something. I just don’t want to go on my trip and regret not getting a job and getting started on life. However, reading his journal entries has fueled some of my desire to go on a trip. I’m just not sure. I’m just realizing more and more that there are tons of different occupational options that sound like lots of fun to me.

I think consulting, Venture Capital, Private Equity, and sales all sound like careers I would join. However, that’s only based on my personal experience and my personal experience is very limited. Also, as I search for jobs, I just feel like it’s useless. I’d much rather get a job because I know somebody, not because I apply on some website or something. So, if I go out every day, meet and talk to people and see new places, I’ll gain more experiences that I can then utilize to make a more educated decision. If I make a decision based up on my limited experience, will I continue to wonder if it’s the best thing for me? Will I ever be content with what I do until I’ve explored other options? These are the questions I face.

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.

Commitment Issues

I talked to my little brother Matt today on the phone and he asked me to be his best man. I’m pretty excited about that. I’m not sure why, but I hadn’t even thought about the fact that I would probably be his best man. Anyway, we started talking, and I told him about my plans to be a nomad. It was kind of funny because he sounded SO nervous for me. He didn’t say a whole lot, and I knew that meant he was thinking this in his mind: “Whoa, what’s wrong with Aaron? He’s going A-wall. He’s never going to get married with the path he’s taking. I don’t feel so good about his plans.”

His silence basically came off like the same response that I got from my Mom. Worried that I’m throwing my life away and running away from something. Well, I’d probably think that if I was somebody else. I mean, usually when I hear somebody is doing something kind of different, I am jealous of them. But, I think most of my siblings are just wondering what my long-term plans are. I don’t blame them for worrying, but I just think it’s a waste of their worry muscles. Worrying never does anybody any good.

While I was talking to him though, he brought up kind of a good point about what I’m doing. I was telling him how I just lose interest in things pretty quickly, and it seems like I have an interest in something, but then I lose interest, and I move on to something else. He mentioned how that was kind of like my Dad. That was something that bothered me about my Dad growing up. He would get interested in something, spend a bunch of money on that hobbie, but then it just wouldn’t last. I always thought the use of money on the Hobbie was a waste if you weren’t going to stick with it. Well, I see the same kind of patterns happening in my own life. It’s not even the fact that I lose interest completely, I guess I just get bored and I’m ready to move onto something new.

For example, I remember when I wanted to learn the guitar. So, I got a guitar, I learned a few songs, and then I lost interest. I mean, I still like to play the guitar once in a while, but now that I basically learned it good enough so that I can learn a song whenever I want to, I just don’t enjoy it enough to pull it out every day. See, the question is how that tendency will translate to my professional life. Am I just going to need to switch jobs every year to keep things interesting?

Well, after thinking about it a while, I’ve realized it’s not all that bad. I mean, I have an eye for opportunity. I really think I do. I have a few entrepreneurial friends who just feel like once they get a good enough idea, they’ll be able to start their own company. For me, I feel like I have pretty good ideas fairly regularly. So, for me it’s not about having the idea, it’s about execution of the idea. I love having a new idea and trying to go after it. I could see myself being a serial entrepreneur, but I need to pursue my ideas further, until they are successful. So, this kind of goes back to what I wrote about before: I should never drop something before I am successful at it.

After thinking about all this, I’m wondering if my travel idea is just one more of those ideas that I need to get out of my system so that I can move onto the next one. I wonder if once I get out and I’m on the road traveling around, I lose interest, and I only travel for like 2 weeks before feeling like I’m done doing that. I could see that happening, and I wouldn’t put it past me. That’s why I need to make the decision right now, that whatever I decide to do, I need to stick with it.

If I decide to travel around and have a blog and what-not, I shouldn’t be done with my trip until I have created a successful blog and I’ve seen some of the things that I want to see.

I also wonder if my desire to move has affected my ability to finish some of the ideas I’ve had. If I know that my location isn’t permanent, and that I don’t want to stay in a place for much longer, then it doesn’t make sense for me to start any sort of sustainable business. Like RateMySummerSalesJob.com, I would probably want to stay around in Utah somewhere to make that a success. If when I’m working on that project, I have a feeling that I don’t really want to stay in Utah for much longer, it might be hard to actually push through on the project, because I know it’s something that just won’t last. I think that’s also true about the other jobs that I had. When I worked at Qualtrics, I knew that I would need to be there for at least a year if I wanted to be a successful B2B salesman. Well, I didn’t really want to stick around in Provo long enough to be successful there, so that’s probably what led to me quitting my job.

It seems that my desire to live in a certain place is strongly connected with my ability to see things through to the end. The more I can plan on living someplace long-term, the more I will be able to start businesses that will endure. So, it seems that for me to be able to find a place that I can see myself living long-term for, one of three things needs to happen. First, I get married. Then, I make a decision with somebody else involving where we want to settle down. Second, I just make a conscious decision about where I would like to live for a year or two. Third, I make some sort of long-term commitment in a location where I feel obligated to fulfill my commitment. I guess this would be like a job or something.

Basically, this analysis has helped me to see that I do think it would be beneficial for me to travel, because I think it can help me to make a decision about where I want to live next. Once I have made that decision, I think it will help me buckle down and follow through on the ideas that I have. Besides, if I don’t follow through on this travel idea, it will be perpetuating my bad habit of having a great idea but never following through with it.