Today I came to have a conversation. A conversation about the importance of gathering life experiences.
From Recruiter to Entrepreneur: The Power of Experience
Before becoming a full-time entrepreneur, I was a recruiter. I was a pretty good one too. I put a lot of people to work, hit all the company sales targets in my first year, and I was the #1 rookie recruiter in the region. The core of my day was spent qualifying and disqualifying candidates based on the experience listed on the resume. The experience section is the most important aspect of a resume. We often call this the meat and potatoes. It shows who you are, what you bring to the table, and what types of opportunities you could qualify for in the future. What I declare to you today is that the rare and valuable skills you gain from life experiences can be the deciding factor whether you live the type of life you want or not.
Key Insights from "So Good They Can't Ignore You": Career Capital and Deliberate Practice
This declaration came evident to me after I read Cal New Port’s “So Good They Can’t Ignore You” book last year. This book has two central ideas. One is career capital and the other is deliberate practice. The concept of career capital is that through experience you gain rare and valuable skills that make you so skilled at what you do you are able to have any career you want. Deliberate practice on the other hand is a highly focused and purposeful training method designed to improve your performance in a certain skill or activity. In other words, repeating the same tasks until you master it. What you should understand about these two concepts is that it is only through mastering a skill or craft where you can expect a certain level of return from life.
Mastering Communication and Video Skills Transformed My Entrepreneurial Journey
It was this understanding of these two concepts that accelerated my growth as an entrepreneur. I finished this book after a long business drought. I was really on the verge of giving up, but then I realized I hadn’t been an entrepreneur long enough to gain any experiences I could master. That’s when I started to look at my day to day as an entrepreneur and see where I could improve. My communication and my ability to be on video were skills I instantly sought to master. I was already a good communicator and had done some videos in the past, but through deliberate practice I got to where I am today. I’m a polished communicator and I present very well on video.
Building Career Capital and Practicing Deliberately: The Path to Success
I share the concepts of career capital and deliberate practice to not only encourage you to seek after experiences that give you rare and valuable skills, but to open your eyes to the world around you. If you look at the people that you admire, the social media influencer, or the social media influencer, they were once in your shoes too. You just weren’t paying attention when they weren’t good. I have a friend from college that’s literally famous. She’s like a big content creator. I remember when she first started her tik tok and had no followers. I bet she looked cringe to some people posting every day, but look how that turned out for her.
Mastery Takes Time: Building Skills for Success
The reason they say it takes 10 years to become an overnight success is because of the amount of practice it takes to get good at something. Don’t get me wrong, you could have natural talent, but mastery takes time. Today I encourage you to build your resume. Take a look at what experiences you can seek after that can give you the skills you need to change your life. Keep practicing these skills until you get so good that they can’t ignore you.
Have a great week!