(Continued from Founder Focus 1 – click here to read it)
Why do you enjoy what you do?
I’m an ENFP in the Myers-Briggs scale, so being paid well to give advice, generate ideas, and basically be people’s friend and mentor is an ideal job for me. I love to help people. I’m a writer, so I love to read good writing and facilitate the storytelling process—or help so-so writing improve to a level of competently making a persuasive argument. When I was growing up, I only wanted to be a teacher, a writer, and a star on the Disney channel. With this job, I get to teach, write, and star in my YouTube videos. Once we have more cash flow, I plan to increase the production quality of my Youtube videos. For now, I’m just happy to be putting some out! Clients and potential clients love them, because they get a feel for my personality and they get some free, trustworthy advice. I love what I do because I get to be 100% myself. At times, I scream and laugh with clients. They sometimes cry in front of me on Skype calls (men and women). We celebrate together, and weather disappointments of the process together. Sometimes, clients even get frustrated with me and/or the grueling application process and we work through it together. In corporate America, I felt like my personality was a liability; working in this field, my outgoing and warm personality is a huge asset. People connect with my bubbly personality and they feel encouraged by my enthusiasm.
What’s your favorite part of your day at your job?
I usually work from home on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The entire second story of our apartment is the home office where I and my employees work (though I often just work on the couch). On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I work at an awesome coworking space in East Austin founded by Natalie Cofield and Hanna Jamal called Urban Co-Lab. For M/W/F, my favorite part of my work day is probably going through the Discovery Questionnaires of my potential clients. It’s a long online confidential form where the client provides their background info, stats, and share their personal and professional hopes and dreams. I review the Discovery Questionnaires before the client and I have the Deep Dive session, which is a hyper-productive strategy session focused on maximizing their profile and streamlining their application process. On Tuesdays, my favorite part of my day is probably the weekly meeting I have with my two employees. They are two super-smart, motivated, and positive 20-something guys who take a lot of pride in their work. We track revenue, discuss how clients are doing, talk about how to get more followers on social media, etc. It feels awesome to be like, “Hey! I created these jobs!” I love being a part of a team (while still being the boss). Entrepreneurship can be very lonely, so I treasure my team. My favorite part of the day on Thursdays is giving my team feedback on their ongoing projects over which they have ownership. A big part of my job as “the boss” is to set a vision for a project and then let my employees run with it. I give feedback along the way and sign off on it at the end. Whether it’s giving feedback on how a website header has been designed, how a video has been edited, or even the wording of a newsletter—I enjoy taking my team’s good work and advising them on how to make it great. Though I don’t get to do it as often as I like, I love public speaking and teaching in person. Doing more public speaking and teaching is one of my top professional fulfillment goals for 2016 and 2017
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