Start Establishing Professional Credibility Today - Just Start! DO SOMETHING!

I had a conversation with my dad the other night regarding how he started up his marketing agency and the path that lead him down his mission to help small businesses. In the conversation, we also started to go over some of my biggest strengths and weaknesses. To address the lessons I learned from this conversation, I am breaking down this post into three sections: patience, consistency, and how to start on your dreams.

Patience - One of the biggest issues in my life has been revolving around a lack of patience. I want the outcome but forget to take the steps necessary to achieve said outcome. I strongly believe that with the introduction of social media, and technology as a whole, we have become consumed by instant gratification. To further address this issue, I believe that millennials (Gen Y), Gen Z (my generation), and Gen Alpha (the generation after Z) are most at risk for falling susceptible to instant gratification. To compound this issue even more, I also believe that society romanticized being an entrepreneur and the younger minds, more influenceable and more desperate, are the ones that will fall subject to scams, lack of patience, and ultimately, entitlement. Let me explain my personal experience with this issue.

When I turned 19, I moved out of my parent's house, was in college full-time, and was fully responsible for my finances. I quickly began to understand the value of the dollar as it felt like I was bleeding money with little to no way to stop it, at least not in the way that I wanted it to be. My idea of how to stop, and even counteract it, is what seems to be everyone's solution in the realm of my generation: I'm going to make it big in content creation and social media. So, I proceeded to build my own Instagram motivational page. I did this for 6 months and invested approximately $2,000 into learning the Instagram algorithms. After 6 months of zero financial gains, I began to panic. I changed my content style to something I didn't believe in, replicated other, successful posts in my own colors, and tried to sell the "secrets to growing an Instagram following without revealing your face". I gave up after those 6 months because I didn't believe in what I was doing, I was creating content for the wrong reasons, and ultimately, I realized that the idea of "get rich quick" simply does not work, even for social media. However, this lesson did not fully sink in until 2023, when I am now 21, and realizing that 3 years later with a full-time job, a bachelor's degree, and consistent pay, I am still feeling like everything is so expensive. While I feel that I have good control over my finances, because of the programming I experienced through social media and society, I still felt like I should be further for my age than I am. This, in my opinion, is the common dilemma that the new generations face: lack of patience, trusting the process, and simply putting in the work.

Consistency - Now in this same conversation, my dad also enlightened me to a strength of mine which I had not previously classified as a strength. While I believed that I was inconsistent because I stopped my Instagram page, I wanted to quit college, and I have tried a lot of activities that I do not do anymore, he shared with me his perspective. 3 years ago, while I was still living at home, I decided I didn't like my physical shape so I committed myself to eating healthier and exercising at least 3 times a week. Fast forward three years, I have overcome a shoulder injury, I am still going to the gym with the same consistency, my nutrition has stayed a strong 80/20 good/bad ratio of calories, and junk is kept to a minimum. While my goal of having a six-pack still hasn't come true, the consistent efforts made weekly aren't nothing. Furthermore, I actually finished my degree for no other reason than to say I finished it. I tend to believe that the degree is weak and the content taught for the degree is irrelevant and significantly outdated (the whole reason I started Doctor's Handwriting) but I digress. He shared with me the importance of recognizing the small consistency that I put in on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis and not allowing the unimportant activities that I did complete but didn't stick with to impact how I view my overall consistency. This perspective changed things for me. I had stopped leveraging a strength of mine which is execution and consistency because I could not see past what I had deemed flaky, immature behaviors.

Finally, the last section you've been waiting for - How to start chasing your dreams... JUST START! I had fallen under the spell of analysis paralysis, perfectionism, and the fear of success; all of which hinders my journey towards public speaking. I justified my inconsistencies with the excuse "I just need to know about how to use social media effectively" or "I just need to know more about establishing credibility because then I can start speaking on it". Newsflash! You do not gain credibility or make efforts towards your goals and dreams if you never start! I know I am not alone in this dilemma but I am also here to tell you, while I am still early in my journey, just start. Do something regardless of where it goes or could go. Take all of the expectations out of it and simply start making strides towards your goals. Outline a rough plan and start executing. In the Lean Startup by Eric Ries, this would be known as your minimal viable product. The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is simply the version of your product that is just usable enough to begin receiving feedback from customers.

20 minutes of action is worth more than 20 hours of knowledge. To tie this to our core reference material, in Nichomachean Ethics by Aristotle, he states that the start is more than half the whole. He also states that knowledge is not profitable for it is action that is what is to be sought and rewarded. Essentially, what is being said is knowledge without action is fruitless and unimportant. 

As a final thought, I would like to reference a story I heard about a jiu-jitsu instructor to one of his students: The instructor asks, "What do you think is the hardest belt to get?" The student replied, "The black belt, of course. It takes the most time and skill to attain."

The instructor paused and corrected his student; "Actually, the hardest belt to attain is the white belt. Most people never start and it takes courage to begin down a new path".

Stay credible my friends.

Collens W.