Out of the Limbo step 2, Learning your way

The importance of learning

Learning is one of the most important aspects of life as a whole; it helps you overcome great obstacles, make good decisions and surprisingly live stress free. Usually we aren't too eager to learn, in fact most people only do so to get a title, the diploma or get some kind of social standing.

Unfortunately this kind of behavior extends to all the aspects of our life and suddenly, we don't want to learn anything...

Even when learning is something simple and effortless, we usually take the long and hard way, suffering disappointments, anger, sadness, desperation and depression instead of going the easy way and learn what we must (even if we don't want to at first)

You can learn a lot from small things

I want to share a simple example of something that happened to me just moments ago:

I was checking my traffic sources 3 days ago when I noticed that I had two suspicious traffic sources on my blog. I didn't know what they were but instead of trying to learn more about them (since they were from Russia and from places I never visited) I decided to go the long hard way...I waited 3 days not knowing what to do and then I clicked on them instead of searching what they were first.

As you can imagine those were spam sites. I worried a lot because my blog would be cataloged as spam, because I should have never clicked on those pages, I panicked because I couldn't find an option to block or delete them...in short, I gained a lot of stress and desperation because I didn't take the time to learn.

Afterwards I searched in Google what happened and I found this simple but lifesaving blog: "How to Stop/Block Unwanted Referral URLs Entering Your Blogger Blog". Simple and sweet; if I had taken the time to search for it and learn what happened with my traffic sources I would have saved a lot of stress and 3 days of uncertainty and doubts.

Now, at 11:40 PM that I'm writing this instead of going to sleep, I learned about the great impact little things have in one's life and how having a will to learn can change a situation from horribly bad to good. If I had taken 10 minutes to search, I would have saved 3 days of suffering.

The 5 Entrepreneur Learning rules

This same situation happens very often in an Entrepreneur life. Since everything around us change constantly we have to keep up to date, learn every day or die trying.

There are 5 Learning rules that I noticed that if I follow them I get great rewards, more so if I'm in doing something entrepreneur related. I want to share them with you:

1. Focus your learning: Know exactly what you need and learn it.
2. Go step by step: Don't try to learn everything at once, it's bad to mental health. Learn by setting yourself small but attainable goals.
3. Go beyond: If something is interesting for you, look for more info, discover more.
4. Search beyond your first reference: Usually we don't go beyond the first search results (sometimes we don't even go beyond Wikipedia). We are losing a lot of important information by not searching more.
5. Find a practical use: Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is useless. Find a way to practice what you learned!

Remember that knowledge can even save your life if you learn what you need and how to apply it. Never stop learning (regardless if you choose to be an Entrepreneur or not) and remember:

"There is more than one way to learn, choose the one that suits you best but please, choose one before you are left behind"

Something to start

When we are thinking how to be an entrepreneur we usually think in a high profile company with a big building and a lot of employees; usually a company isn't that way, specially now that the new technologies let us be big without a lot of people (take a look at Instagram. All that money with only 20 guys working!)

This exaggerated vision of entrepreneurship make us doubt in taking the most important steps of all:

The first step.

Usually the most mentally difficult but physically easier of the steps. Starting doesn't required a lot of knowledge, techniques or preparation; it usually has to do with things like Willpower, Commitment and Creativity (which I believe we all have at least a little bit).

The 3 Pillars of the Aspiring Entrepreneur

Willpower

This is a must when taking the first step. If you don't have the necessary willpower to maintain yourself on track and tackle head on the challenges (not only mental but also physical and social) that will arrive on your front door then I strongly suggest you think again if beginning the way of the Entrepreneur is for you. 

How to know if I have the proper Willpower? If you caught yourself doing some of these things then it means you are on the right track:

• Searching for hours on the Internet about our business idea and how to make it happen.
• Fervently defending your business idea when other people talk bad about it or try to discourage you from starting.
• Wanting to prove your close people that you can make your business idea come true even if you don't have their support.
• Accumulating all the knowledge you can about your business idea without saying "Wow, I don't think I can learn this much".

These are some of the ways your Willpower can show itself but there are many ways particular to each person. Once you identify that you have the willpower you can be sure that you are on the right track.

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Commitment

This is a very easy thing to recognize and it usually have to do on how long and hard you are willing to go for your dream. When we are in the first steps we always say that we will stick to our business idea forever; unfortunately many abandon their dream in less than a month if adverse circumstances knock on their front door. Examples of adverse circumstances are the following:

• Few or no money at all..
• Lack of time.
• Lack of tools (either physical space, tools or raw materials)
• Social rejection (people telling you that your idea isn't good enough and that you will fail).

The last one is the most difficult one since it will follow you to the end of your life but don't worry, steel yourself and follow your ideas and dreams as hardly as you can and you will have the necessary commitment to be not only an Entrepreneur but also a successful one.

Creativity

By far the most subjective skill but one of the most useful. Basically it means to think freely and imagine infinite different ways to do something common. Be careful, being creative isn't equal to being innovative; being innovative is to search for new and better ways to do something. To be an entrepreneur it doesn't necessarily means that you have to do something new; just do something a little bit different and stand out from the rest. 

Think out of the box for everything (and I really mean everything) and you will get a great idea from where you least expect it.

Keep it simple to start

If you combine these skills you will surely create something amazing, just believe in yourself and you will be on your way to be an Entrepreneur (remember that only you can determine if you are successful or not). You don't have to start big or even think in big things like having a skyscraper, thousands of employees and dozens of buildings; just think in the beginning, main idea and remember that less is more.