There are many great resources out there on all manner of topics. If you are at this site then there’s a good chance that entrepreneurship catches your fancy, on which there’s no shortage of good knowledge coming from web sites, magazines, books, associations, interviews, and so much more. Most of the time it’s information overload that we are dealing with, not information scarcity. It all sounds good, but with so much out there how do you put it to use?

For starters you need to accept that you can’t use it all. I have read a tremendous amount of information on many key aspects of business, yet at best I have mild expertise in a couple tiny niches. The collective mind of the human race has developed a vast set of data that cannot be taken in by a single person. Perhaps if you had a wise man (or woman) studying for an entire life, but who wants to learn all this stuff and not apply it?

I’m reminded twice of friends who kept making the same mistake in learning how to write computer programs. These are very different individuals who have never met each other. Each would come to me asking for advice on a particular programming language topic or algorithm. I’d help them out and sooner or later they would know that one technique. Yet to date neither has written any software program of significant length, convinced that they need to start by picking up large books on software design and studying for years. They are on their way to becoming keepers of very specific and sometimes obscure bits of computer science knowledge, but they haven’t progressed very far on becoming programmers.

Unless becoming a knowledge keeper is your desire, accept that most of that collective knowledge will never be yours and be grateful for what you are able to learn and apply! In the above case my friends would have actually learned far more by reading a little bit then diving right into writing a software program. Sure the first few programs would be quite terrible, but they’d actually learn far more through that personal experience than by trying absorb the knowledge from a book. At that point they would be ready to once again learn something from the experts and then give it a go again.

OK so it’s impossible to learn it all, but how does one go about learning more? How do you most effectively retain the great advice that you are picking up every single day such that it brings benefits into your life? In the framework of not retaining everything, we are more interested in being able to find the information when we do need it rather than having it for havings sake.

I don’t believe in attempting to create a miniature library, mostly because I’ve tried and it’s failed each time. Thanks to the internet, static information becomes outdated too quickly. Furthermore the internet already provides an amazing index of not just web sites but traditional materials, along with easy ways of obtaining the resources when you need them. Why try to rebuild something that is already there? It may be that the great piece of information you came across doesn’t need to be stored by you at all. Is it really something so special that you won’t come across it again when and if you are specifically looking for that information? Trying to hold onto too much knowledge is a flaw in itself.

If the advice, tip, or procedure is relevant and worth keeping then it needs to be stored or acted on. Again with the internet being the vast and constantly updated library that it is, I don’t believe in trying to unnecessarily store static copies of items. In many cases it makes sense to just store the location of the resource. If you are worried about the original material disappearing then having a copy of your own may make sense. You may wish to print it to PDF instead of paper, since filing cabinet space is many magnitudes more limited and expensive than your hard drive.

When storing information to revisit you need a sensible way of organizing it. Right now I’m experimenting with mind mapping, which naturally creates a nice topic drill-down structure. The mind map structure is naturally an index, with every node either containing or pointing to the right resource. My first layer of topics is very broad: “Business”, “Productivity”, “Programming”, “Technology”, “Cooking”. Below that I get more specific, for example “Business” has “Entrepreneurship”, “Marketing”, and so on. Delving into Marketing yields “Traditional”, “Internet” and “Software”. I’m only storing topics that I really care about. Every single piece of information that makes it in there must be something that I intend to revisit, such as a book I’d like to read in the future, an amazing database reference, or a recipe that I really liked. I will not actively seek out things to put in my mind map for the sake of having more information at my finger tips. That’s Google’s job.

What about acting on all this knowledge? If it’s something specific that can be acted on right away then it’s really easy. For example if you need to build a bird house and come across a bird house building article then it’s pretty obvious what happens next. What about less simple advice? Things that take a while to implement? What about those simple points that a business article or book makes, which in a single sentence hide the vast complexity of what they actually require you do? Here it’s a matter of making the leap from reading over the advice to consciously deciding to allocate the mental and physical resources to implementing it. After that … do it! Self help books often fail to give results because people get caught up in the idea that by simply reading the advice their problems will magically get fixed. The book sells the reader on the idea of minimal effort and in turn the reader expects to apply absolutely minimal effort to solving complex and difficult problems. Don’t skip over the little points of action that are sometimes hidden away. You need to act on what you read for there to be benefit.

Don’t forget your subconscious self in all of this! I find that what I consciously remember pales in comparison to the information I have stored-up which my brain somehow manages to pull out only when I come across a situation where I need it. I don’t always read books trying to consciously squeeze out specific information. I enjoy them, and the tidbits of knowledge I glean without ever putting pen to paper. I am confident that my brain has retained some important knowledge, and when I am going to take on a project that actively involves the information in the book then I can revisit it.

One thing that I’ve noticed as I’ve progressed down my entrepreneurial path is my work becoming constantly more enjoyable. I wake-up every morning eager to make further progress, knowing that after today I will be one step closer to my goals. I wake-up thankful for what I’ve been able to accomplish and content in the path I’ve chosen. I have so many different projects and so many things to do that boredom and procrastination have virtually disappeared in most aspects of my life. That feels really great!

My regular readers already know that I’m not some highly enlightened person who has managed to find peace within modern life. I don’t have an exceptionally high discipline level and I don’t have some special hard-worker gene. I find the regular corporate environment amazingly dull and I’ve skipped or slept through a good quarter of my university lectures. Running my own business didn’t magically make everything better either. In fact it was terribly stressful in my first attempts and while I enjoyed certain aspects immensely I also found myself demotivated by the workload. My increasing happiness comes from reconciling my need to work and my desires.

Work is a necessary part of life, both in terms of supporting yourself and having a sense of purpose. As much fun as the image of retiring sitting on the beach drinking pina coladas and wearing a hideous Hawaiian t-shirt sounds people have found even that to be unfullfilling without substance behind it. Unfortunately that whole latter aspect of purpose tends to get lost among the more urgent priority of survival. It’s easy to take a job temporarily to make ends meet only to have that become a career. Or to get a degree in a field you find you hate and with massive student debt try to get a related job and make the best of it anyway.

Work is the majority of life and the work you choose to do should satisfy both your monetary and mental needs. The great people in history made their accomplishments by pursuing that which they were passionate about. They made contributions to the world that followed the higher purpose that they found in their work. This doesn’t just include entrepreneurs, there’s the inventors, the artists, the explorers, the mathematicians and those fighting to solve world issues.

I listed a whole bunch of reasons that don’t explain why I’m so eager to work everyday that I’m willing to get out of bed at 5 in the morning. I’ve come to believe that the reason I’ve become happier has been the increasing clarity with which I see what I want to do, and the constantly closing gap between what I am doing and what I see my purpose as being. Bit by bit my dreams become my goals, and as I consciously work towards my goals they become my reality.

This is the paragraph where I tell you to drop that job stocking shelves or doing corporate accounting to find what really makes you happy. Well that’s true to an extent, but it’s not quite that simple or easy. That’s the abstract preachy solution you will see in summer feel-good movies and As Seen on TV advertisements. Finding your calling and setting out to accomplish it is a process that takes time, and frankly I doubt it ever ends. If you don’t already absolutely love your work and know what you wish to do with your life then you must start taking the steps to get you there.

For starters you might not necessarily have a very good grasp of what work you wish to do. More likely you have a collection of talents and interests that you are aware of, and perhaps some combination of these can be used to create something that you are willing to dedicate your life too. Getting there is a matter of trial and error, so start trying things and make sure every single day you do something that further helps you find and then fulfill your meaningful work. Building up momentum on a task is an old trick of getting going, and it works amazingly. Rather than attempting to do it all at once feel free to let your steps be small. If you are passionate about the guitar and making music, then start playing it again each day. Look for local groups of musicians. Experiment with providing or taking guitar lessons. Surround yourself with your interest and then be on the look-out for opportunities that will further propell you in this direction. Connect your primary talents with some secondary and see what you can build.

I dare you to do one thing every day for the next 30 days to help point yourself towards a new and satisfying direction in life. Remember that there’s no obligation to start by quitting your job or turning your life into turmoil. Something as simple as picking up a magazine can count as a step for one day, and it’s completely up to you how quickly you increase the size of your steps. As long as you do one thing each and every single day you will have done a whopping 30 things in a single month to help you move from a life of hating your job to moving towards a field that becomes your greatest passion. I hope that you’ll be amazed with the results and have a lot of fun along the way, but if you’re not then you have no obligation to do anything more after the 30 days.

Please feel free to contact me and let me know how this experiment went!

You’re in your last grade of high school. You’ve just spent the past three years learning and with graduation a mere 10 months away it’s time to make some choices. The counsellors come in, the university reps come in, brochures are handed out and the sweat starts to pour as thousands of young minds decide on what job they want to do for the rest of their life… in a few brief months.

Theoritically you should have a great idea of what you want to do by now. You’ve had all of high school to figure out your future career, and technically all of grade school too. You’ve been to the career fairs and perhaps you’ve used those ridiculous “career finder” programs to discover what you were meant to be in 50 easy questions. In reality you’ve been busy with homework, sitting through insane amounts of lecture time (we had 90 minutes per course 5 times a week), working part-time, and still having time for going out and listening to rebellious music. Sure you’ve thought about it all before, but with little real experience in the career that you’re contemplating the application due date is approaching at tremendous velocity.

Hit the brakes and step back from it all. I did this when my university applications were coming up and chose to take a year off. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. It was also one of the toughest mentally, and a prime example of the binding power of the beaten path.

I’d been writing computer code since grade 8 and at the start of grade 12 (in a 13 grade system) I was absolutely convinced that I wanted to become a software developer. I loved programming and felt that it was the perfect career for me. Computer science and software engineering are the kinds of things that are easy for parents, friends, and counsellors to encourage so I had a lot of support for going in this direction. There was plenty of job opportunity, it was a white collar cushy job, and would make good money (note: these three points have huge fine print attached, but who knows that in high school?). I was also damn good at it too and got some recognition in computing contests.

By the start of grade 13 when applications were being filled out, I was no longer sure of computer science at all. This doubt had crept in as the prior summer had begun, and I entertained the idea of taking a year off. When applications came around I had done a significant amount of research on it and logically knew it to be a good idea. Nevertheless it was one of the hardest choices I’ve made in etching out my future.

I encountered a great deal of external and internal resistance. Those around me were worried that I might not go to university after the year was up. I would be a year behind everyone I knew. This simply wasn’t “the way things were done”. People that took a year off were slower, indecisive, and generally not on the fast track to success. It sounds silly, but with the strength of peer and social pressure these kinds of arguments felt far stronger than the logic I had come up with.

In the end I bit the bullet and went with my gut. While my friends were fretting about their programs and a disturbing amount were making program choices based on difficulty, I sat back and contemplated my own future. I decided to cancel the second term of grade 13, having registered for a single chemistry course in the first place and not needing it to graduate. That effectively bought me an extra half a year, and so my life changed.

I used my year and a half primarily to explore the entrepreneurial side of things. It almost felt like a simulation since I was isolated from most of the long-term effects that my decisions might have - I was still living with my parents and even if I didn’t make a red cent through the entire time I would be right back where I started when university applications came again. I learned a great deal and it was in that time when I could explore my options freely that I was finally able to say with complete confidence that a software development career was not for me. Instead I started several ventures and had a crash course in the reality of entrepreneurship and life outside of school.

My decision to take a year off reshaped my life and me drastically. Had I not done so I would have checked off “Computer Science” on my form instead of “Business” and been regretting my decision after I had spent four years on tuition. I also learned that I did have the power to take a different path and to make my own choices, despite tremendous pressure from the outside world. I would go so far as to say that by the time I entered university I was a completely different person. Then there was the knowledge and practical experience I was able to gain. With the entirety of my time focused on what I wanted to do and learn, and not on geography or derivatives or molecules, the amount that I could absorb in that time was incredible.

If you’re at the point in your life where you still have this door open to you, here are some reasons why you should consider taking it:

• You will gain invaluable experience that will make university and getting work much easier.
• A fulltime job for a year when you have no living expenses will allow you to create a five digit figure in your bank account.
• Choosing a program or school you hate is very expensive.
• It’s nice to take a break after being in a classroom for 12 years.

Best of luck.