Today’s three wishes are from a Mentoring Salon I ran with 7 up and coming founders and 7 more seasoned advisors. The lessons shared when both ways…and have value for any rising professional.
Be the bomb. One piece of advice I got early on in my career is that if you want to be an entrepreneur, whether you like it or not, you are going to have to pretend like you’re the bomb all the time. You have to exaggerate like nobody’s business. So, be confident. I know it’s hard. You’re young, but you’ve got it. Go in there with that attitude. It’s not fake it until you make it. Think of it as exuding belief in yourself and your potential and your idea. That goes for anyone, not just entrepreneurs.
Get quiet to hear your voice… and drown out all the noise. There’s something called the “paradox of choice”. When we have a lot of choices, it’s paralyzing. To make it worse, when you make a choice, you’re less satisfied with it. For example, if you make the same decision between 16 choices as you do between 5 choices, you will be more satisfied with that decision when there’s 5 choices. The only way to remedy this is to get super quiet and spend some time alone asking yourself, “What do I really, really, really want?”
For a career pivot, think about the values that are important to you. What does your normal day look like? How much time do you need for your life? What type of work that you want to be doing? What type of people do you want to work with? You get to choose all of it. It’s kind of doing the hard work which is the soul searching work to assess the opportunity and get really quiet with your voice versus all the other voices that are out there.
Itemize your fears. Often it’s the unknown that people fear when making decisions. Break it down. Break down what the potential outcomes are and itemize them. Then you can identify exactly what you are afraid of. Then ask yourself, what is the worst thing that could happen if that actually happens? And remember, with few exceptions, whatever you do, you can undo. Hopefully you live in a world where you are surrounded by contacts and friends to support your choices.
Three Gifts for a 20-Something: What three “gifts” would you give a 20-something if you were a “Forty-Godmother”? Here 40-somethings share three wishes to help a 20-something get a head start on the confidence to make decisions that are right for them (not their parents, friends, teachers or society). No more woulda, coulda, shoulda.
If you would like to submit your three gifts, use the share/ ask / submit link!