15+ Years Of Entrepreneurial / Work-From-Home Lifestyle

@mahnoor_abdullah thank you for asking. I’ll answer your questions in separate responses since the first one is long! 1. This is a long answer; but you can scroll down to ‘#1 Synopsis’ for the conclusion and valuable information. I have gained a wide variety of experiences that have turned into skills over time from the various industries. In my case, each thing built on another. I got my college degree in accounting and before my first online job, I spent almost 10 years in hospitality (restaurants, hotels, and clubs), where I learned valuable customer service skills. Those customer service and accounting skills got me hired to a small online financial firm first as a bookkeeper part time. They saw how motivated and dedicated I was to tasks and hired me full time as an office assistant and customer service. The job required me to update their website weekly with their investment information and that required me to learn html, a little php, wordpress, and basic javascript. A little while I left that job, I was hired by another financial firm to do those same tasks and more as Membership Manager and eventually Managing Editor of the newsletter. I redesigned their website and membership site completely, learning on the job. And, my previous experience played a huge role. 5 years later, I was requested to work for a luxury concierge service for those same skills (and many more that I had gained along the way) and for the fact that I was a full time traveler for 2 years at that point. #1 Synopsis It’s been my experience that skills grow over time and stack onto each other. What may sometimes seem like a failure may actually be a great learning experience where you picked up new skills and knowledge to use for your next project!

@lapwork in terms of not allowing life to be a distraction, I would say it’s incredibly important to have an end goal (or goals) in mind, a vision, a hope, a dream. For me, for a long time it was the idea of building and maintaining a solid income that I could work from anywhere so that I could see more of my favorite places. The idea of being able to visit family and friends around the world, see new places, eat new foods, meet new people was a huge motivator. And, when I reminded myself, it kept me focused and driven. As for advice, I would tell myself to dream even bigger. Sure, not even goal or vision is achieved, but the higher you aim, the higher you can reach.

@cen_xu the most important habit would most likely be not giving up. Sometimes, things are not very easy at all. Sometimes, it can seem like the world is against you. Sometimes, it seemed just about impossible and that I had failed. But, I’ve maintained my dedication, diligence, loyalty to my values, and resilience which has helped me continue to drive forward even in the most difficult times.

@cen_xu I would say the 2nd more important habit is to continually practice and improve resourcefulness. Being resourceful can help you solve challenges and overcome obstacles, even if actual resources (money / time) aren’t fully available.

@henry_habib thank you! For new entrepreneurs, I would say there are three main causes for downs and ‘failures’: 1. Self-sabotage — While it’s difficult to exactly define in a few words, it’s essentially where actions are taken (or, not taken) that may seem suitable in the short-term, but hurt long-term success. An example might include unnecessary expenditures on extra tools, equipment, or software that may or may not be used. It also could include spending money on inexpensive, low-quality assets which may break or become useless after a while rather than spending a bit more on high-quality assets that will last much longer or have less issues. In coding, it might be patching together tons of free out-of-box libraries rather than custom coding to suit a business idea’s specific needs. 2. Not properly planning and setting goals. Many people think the solution is a to-do list to hit their goals. Many people also get caught up in the little details rather than focusing on the big picture goals. Losing sight of the big goals can be a disaster waiting to happen and lead you to a point months or years down the road where you’re wondering how you even got there 3. Not enough resilience and adaptability. It can be easy to become discouraged or even give up when things don’t go the way we want — for example, a Product Launch that doesn’t bring the sales or attention we were hoping for. But, life and success move forward, and pretty much never in a straight line. The key is when you get knocked down to get back up, dust off your shoulders, reevaluate, and move forward, many times with a small change in direction. I hope that all helps!

@ambiencelife Thanks for the insightful breakdown.  I agree that having the resilience to recalibrate goals when things veer off course is so vital. 

@kasun_jayarathna1, good questions! I believe the most important thing is to focus on two very important ideas: 1. What do I really want in all of this? What do I really want to accomplish, do, achieve, or be? And 2. Why do I want this? Why is this important to me? When things aren’t going well, it can be easy to forget our dreams, and we can become discouraged. That’s why it’s important to have your vision written down; and why this vision is important to you. That way, during challenging times, you can look at it and remind yourself what it is you’re aiming for. It’s also important to adopt a mindset of “what have I learned in this” or “how am I growing / improving” in this or “how can I make the most of this situation”. These can all help during the most difficult times. I hope that helps!

@cristina_espanol work-home-life-balance is one of the biggest challenges just about every work-from-home person has! It's very understandable. The most important thing is to be able to find a location in your home where you can work undisturbed — even if it's only for 30 minutes or an hour at a time. If you can designate a certain time each work day for that, it's even better. Then, telling the people in your home something like, "from 9am-10am, on these days, I need to be able to work undistracted." And, just as important, when it's not that working time, be as present and focused as possible on the people in your home. I had two ex-girlfriends in my early years of working from home who used to also talk to me and ask me for things while I was trying to work. I used to get frustrated. Then, I learned that if I spoil them with all of my love, affection, and attention and give them my complete focus at certain times each day, they came and distracted me far less and let me work in peace far more during designated times. I also found it useful to work outside of the home (even though I was working from home, I was not at home haha!). Sometimes it's nice to go to a cafe or even a park if there is an internet connection where I can work. It's less personal because even though there are others around, they are not people who will generally just come up and talk to you while you're trying to focus. Hope some of these ideas help!

@ambiencelife That's helpful! Thank you!