How to Learn the Basics of Business!

How do you learn the basics of business? I got a question today from Jonathan who wrote exactly that. He's a YouTube follower and he's struggling right now. He doesn't know if he should keep getting his education. Everybody tells him to go get a degree, but he wants to start a business and he's not sure about anything in business. He doesn't know what business he wants to start. He has no business background. He's just excited by it. And doesn't want to lose the opportunity. So great question, Jonathan, and, and I feel for you. I remember being in university. So I went to university, I got my degree, but at the same time I wanted to start my own business, and I actually started it when I was in university. I met up with two people who are also at the same university, and we built this software company together. And I remember when I graduated, most of my friends went off to get jobs at these big companies, and I had opportunities to do it too. And I thought, I'm going to regret this for the rest of my life if I don't take the time now to try it. Because when you're young, you don't have the attachments, right? You don't have the commitments, you don't have as many responsibilities. I didn't have a wife, I didn't have kids, I didn't have anything or anyone to look after except myself. And so I thought, this is the time to try and do it because I do not want to live the rest of my life regretting. And so I told myself, I'm gonna take one year off. I graduated, I'm gonna take one year off and try to do this business thing. And if it doesn't work out, those same job opportunities will still be there for me. I never went back to get a job. That may not be your story, but that's mine. What I would encourage you to do to learn the basics is start now. And if you're not sure what you want to do, Start on both paths. Start getting a degree and try to incorporate your business into it as much as possible. When I was in university, I tried to use my business that I was starting as a case study for every course that I was doing. If I had a marketing project, I always applied it to my business. I used it as an example. If I had an advertising exercise I needed to do, I applied it to my business. In my last year, I managed to convince one of my professors to do a self-guided course, and instead of actually going on doing a course, he worked with me on my business, and it counted as a credit. So I always used my business in conjunction with my education. I think it's really hard to, to teach entrepreneurship in universities. I think it's possible. I don't think a lot of universities do a good job. Mine certainly did not. Because so much of it is hands-on. You've got to get into it. And so what I encourage you to do is start looking at opportunities to do your business and do your education until you get confident, comfortable enough to go out and branch on your own, till you get with certainty that decision that this is what I need to do right now. Another great way to learn the basics is start working for a company who you respect, admire, look up to, want to be a part of. So say you're interested in graphic design and you one day want to start your own graphic design business. Go find a job at a small graphic design shop. Don't go work for the biggest guy in the industry because that's not what your short-term plan is going to be. If you're going to start a business Go learn from somebody who's a few steps ahead of you. Work for somebody who has maybe 10 employees and learn as much about the business as possible. Don't just do what they hire you to do. Do as much as you can to get close to the founder, the entrepreneur founder. Learn from them, learn the projects, get involved in as many areas of the business as possible because they will teach you how to do their job, how they started their business. You learn the ins and outs of running that kind of company, and you'll learn, one, is this something you want to do? You know, it may sound great on paper, but once you get into it, you may think, "Oh, but this is crazy. This isn't what I thought it was at all. I'm so glad I didn't just spend my life savings starting this company because it's not for me." So it gives you certainty, but it also teaches you the skills, gives you connections, and trains you on how to be a successful entrepreneur in that field. And that can be a part-time job too. You could pursue your education and do this thing part-time to learn the ropes. So you're getting paid to learn. You know, university, you're paying to learn. Here you're getting paid to learn and make mistakes. You're getting paid to make mistakes. And then when you're ready to go do your own thing, you have the experience. You're not going to make as many mistakes. You have contacts to lean on, and you'll know if if starting a business is for you or not. So that's my best advice for you. At the end of the day, you have to do what's right in your heart. You may be fine with going out and becoming a corporate worker, right? That's fine, that's for some people. But if you have this burning desire here in your heart that you need to do this, you want to be an entrepreneur, then you owe it to yourself to at least try. You don't want to look back on your life and regret that you didn't do this. And a quick story from Jeff Bezos, one of my favorite entrepreneurs from Amazon.com. He was 40 years old. He was a vice president at a successful company, the youngest ever VP at this company, making huge dollars, and he left it all to start a company called Amazon.com. And everybody thought he was crazy. You're going to sell books over the internet? What? Who's going to buy that? That's ridiculous. And this is the early, early, early days of the internet. Now it seems like a no-brainer, but for that time it was a huge risk. He left everything he knew, all the security, the high-paying job, to start this business. And the reason why he did it is he didn't want to live with the regret of not trying. He knew that would haunt him for the rest of his life. So at the end of the day, you have to do what's best for you, what's in your heart. And if you want to learn the basics, start by doing it part-time. Start by either running your own company part-time or going to work for another company who's doing exactly what you want to do and model their success. Believe. For those watching, thumbs up below. Thank you guys so much. It makes me want to do more videos for you. And leave a comment. Let me know what you think. You have a problem with your business? You have a question? Leave it below and I'll make a video response just like this. Thank you so much. I'll see you soon.