For as long as I can remember I had the entrepreneurial spirit – risk-taking.
I was an artist all throughout my life and the creation mindset that came with it helped me start my journey as an entrepreneur. This creation mindset and risk-taking was reflected in the art I created during high school; I challenged myself in creating pieces that would draw out (pun intended) visible emotional reactions from people.
Art was my escape from thirteen years of dull, monotonous public school routine. It got me further in life than all the classes I took in high school. I entered contests and art shows like the Congressional Art Competition, Central Florida Fair Exhibit, Maitland Rotary Arts Festival, and the Wall of Fame and won prize money and recognition.
After graduating from high school I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do for a career but I knew I wanted to use my creative talents. I applied to the Savannah College of Art and Design and earned scholarships that would cover a fourth of tuition and the contests I won helped me get them. But I turned down the offer because I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to be in debt for a degree that probably won’t land me a job after graduation. In other words, I didn’t want to become a starving artist.
So I enrolled at Valencia College while I figured out what I wanted to do. I started out in a completely unrelated field as an IT major because I thought if I trudged through this and made a crap load of money then I’ll be able to afford art school. I couldn’t be more wrong; coding was not for me and I ended up failing most of my core IT classes. So I switched majors to Business Management and Marketing.
I chose business because it was a versatile degree and I didn’t want to be trapped in a career that I might hate twenty years later. But the more time I spent in college the more dissatisfied I felt – the teaching methods and the expenses incurred wasn’t what I signed up for. I thought the lectures would be different than high school but it was only more of the same boring professors droning on for two hours, and everything I was learning could be found on Google or Youtube for free.
On top of that, I was struggling to keep up with the pace of my classes; I’m a slow learner when it comes to new things and testing wasn’t the best way to showcase my abilities – it was the only time I could prove myself and if I failed there wasn’t a second chance. Granted there are areas like medicine that shouldn’t accommodate failure, but for business it’s essential to make mistakes and learn from trial and error.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling you to abandon your hopes and dreams of earning a degree but just be aware that if you’ve ever felt disillusioned like me there are choices out there which are just as good. College isn’t for everyone because we learn differently and education should not be one size fits all.
Another misconception I had about college was thinking that a degree would prepare me for my career. I was just learning theory without knowing how to apply it to the real-world, and I wanted something more practical.
I soon discovered that internships, work experience, and networking got people further than degrees alone, and I would put these into practice while attending economic and liberty seminars.
After two years of college I opted out and focused on self-led learning and gaining work experience. During this time I read books about economics, listened to podcasts, and continued going to seminars where I found out about Praxis through networking.
So I decided to take a risk and apply to Praxis, a business apprenticeship. Unfortunately I didn’t get in the first time so I waited a year to build up personal development projects and applied again. This time I got in and it’s where I’m at now.
An important lesson to learn is don’t be afraid to take calculated risks because it might get you further in life, and seize every opportunity even if it pays less.