GM: If you’ve ever thought you cannot become your own boss, Letters by Elgwaro, is all about turning those thoughts upside down and shoving them down the drain. You’ve got boss blood within you.
Here’s what we got for you this week
- ????1 Nugget
- ????1 Opportunity
- ????1 Personality
I Bet on My Dreams, Literally
There’s one thing you should know about me. No one struggles as much as I do with consistency. My life story is a series of countless ideas that never saw the light of day.
I suffer from (SOS) shiny object syndrome which means I’m always ready it jump onto the next big opportunity I come across, which leaves a trail of good but worthless projects behind.
But there’s one silver lining in this story. A phase in my life that rocked my identity as a serial procrastinator and 1st-degree SOS victim.
Early last year, I was searching for ways to improve my writing when I stumbled upon the idea of writing every day in the morning. So I embarked on a project to write every morning and post on my Facebook account: These were the terms
- Write whatever comes to my mind (brain dump)
- Write at least 300 words
- Not edit while writing
- Publish the brain dump
- Share the link to the post with my accountability partner
…all before 7:00 AM
To keep myself accountable, I promised to pay my accountability partner Ksh 1,000 for any day I failed to share the link before 7 am.
So what happened?
For the first time in my entire life, I maintained a habit for 30 consecutive days. Every morning I wrote a brain dump, published it, and shared the link with my accountability partner.
Of course, I wasn’t perfect. Some days I couldn’t reach my 300-word quota. On other days I posted late and sometimes I even forgot to share the link after publishing. But one thing was consistent;
I WROTE EVERY DAY.
I stopped writing brain dumps when my full-time job became too tasking, but this experience has been dear to me and I think it can be valuable to your too.
If you can find a way to replicate it in your life, it’ll knock out the loser in you. Simply…
- break down a goal into daily activities,
- determine the deliverables,
- choose a painful punishment for failure
- get an accountability partner you respect
Then get to work.
If you need help with this, just reply to this email and I’ll guide you.
Don’t Start A Company, Do This Instead.
Everyone wants to start a company, get funding, hire a bunch of people, get more funding, expand into new territories, hire more people, get more funding, and hopefully become Forbes listed. Damn, that’s what I want too.
But we rarely have the time or propensity to understand how mind-boggling, hair-pulling, body-numbing, and blood-boiling building a successful startup is. We only focus on the destination; a photo of you in a suit smiling on the front cover of a magazine for entrepreneurs.
There’s one opportunity that’s easier yet equally fulfilling that we tend to overlook.
It requires so little, just your mind and a device connected to the internet.
You can do it alone and set your prize.
It’s fun; you do what you’re good at.
Literally, anyone can do it.
It’s CONSULTING
If you want to tremendously increase your chances of success, start a consultancy rather than a start-up.
- It guarantees you’re solving a real problem in the market. A startup is often designed using the product-first-customer-later mindset. Consultancy, on the other hand, requires you to solve your customer’s problem before you get paid.
- It’s easier and faster to build. In consultancy, you are the product. You market yourself every day. Your survival depends on everyday income, so you’ll need to figure out your business model early; not design a product for 6 months only to realize it doesn’t work.
- You can use it to build a product or business later. Through the prolonged interactions with your customers, and the research done to offer them value, you’ll figure out know what to build for your future customers.
Here’s the deal, you don’t have to be an expert. Whatever field you’re in, all you need is the guts to learn and share your knowledge online consistently.
- Use learnings from your work experience or past engagements as content for social media.
- You’ll start attracting clients. And when they come, solve their problems.
- Then build a portfolio of your work and collect testimonials
- Create more
Do this consistently for months and you’re set.
Nathan Barry – Consultant Turned Founder.
Nathan Barry started his career as a web designer and blogger and later transitioned into the world of consulting, where he offered design and marketing services to clients. He quickly realized that his true passion was creating digital products that could help people achieve their goals.
In 2013, he launched ConvertKit, a software platform that helps creators and entrepreneurs to grow their email lists, automate their marketing campaigns, and build successful businesses.
The product was a result of his experience as a consultant, where he saw many clients struggling with email marketing and automation. ConvertKit quickly gained traction among creators and entrepreneurs and has since grown into a multi-million dollar business.
Embrace what you love doing. If you’re creative, eat briefs for breakfast, if you’re a trader, study charts as long as you breathe. If your write, type until your fingers hurt.
Learn, learn, and learn some more. Share what you learn. Become a master and start to pull in clients. Solve their problems, and soon enough, you’ll know the exact solution they need. And that’s how you’ll hit the jackpot.
That’s all for today see you next Thursday.