Format:
For the first few posts I plan to recap the past few years starting from 2010. I anticipate each post will be pretty long and I could certainly make them shorter but I think it will be more fun for me to write them longer/more thorough and potentially more helpful for current and future readers. After we get to 2019 we will see how the thread progresses, my company is growing quickly so I anticipate there will be things to talk about. I hope you will find value in the journey that I share.
2009-2010
“You going to make any calls or are you just going to sit there all day?”
I still remember this like it was yesterday.
I was finishing up my final year of college and had just started an internship making sales calls. It was my first day and I had spent what felt like 2 hours “crafting my sales script.”
In reality I was stalling terrified to make that first call…
A week or so prior I saw a flyer posted outside one of my classes, the internship was a sales job with a university selling tickets to sporting events. As a sports management major and marketing minor it was the perfect opportunity or so I thought...
Only problem was I didn’t like sales or even talking…
But this was my chance to start working in sports, a dream of mine and the reason I was getting this degree. In order to get a job in sports you have to start in an internship for free. Prove your worth and move up. This was the perfect place to start. After this short unpaid internship I would soon be living my dream to be working in sports and getting paid for it!
I was a senior at the time and this experience would be valuable for my resume. Not only that but I wasn’t very good at sales or talking on the phone so this was the perfect opportunity for self-improvement. My mom likes to tell a story of me as a kid having my younger brother (2 years younger) make phone calls for me to check on video games or movies at the store or any other reason I had to make a call.
The internship seemed great, I felt like I was ready to tackle it until I sat down in front of the phone. Holy shit fear smacked me right in the face.
I was sitting in the middle of a 400 square foot room surrounded by my boss, fellow interns, and a few hot chicks and somehow I had to get up the courage to make calls all day… It finally hit me, DAMN this internship was going to suuuck.
After “working on my script” for what seemed like 2 hours my boss pipes up:
“You going to make any calls or are you just going to sit there all day?”
Damn!
Time to pick up the damn phone!
So I picked up the phone and dialed the first number on my paper. Ring Ring Ring… no answer shewww… I leave a message and it doesn’t completely suck… Success!
I made a few more calls that day, each time just praying it would go to voicemail!
For the next few months between classes and in the afternoons I would go into the office and make calls. I would typically make calls for 4-5 hours a day.
Eventually someone did answer the phone and each time they did, day after day, call after call I got more comfortable. At some point, I stopped thinking about them answering the phone and thought more about how I could better sell the tickets.
Luckily it wasn’t the toughest sell in the world, we didn’t have to use any shady sales tactics or tricks to get people to buy. That would have made the internship unbearable. I focused on good customer service and creating an experience that they couldn’t get from anyone else.
Each week I got progressively better. Eventually I was one of the best there, not that that meant I was getting paid.
It was still an unpaid internship.
After the first semester I decided to stick around for my final semester of college. They approved, I guess the thousands of dollars I was bringing in was worth the $0 they were paying me.
As graduation neared, I started applying for various jobs in sports and in sales. I ended up with a few interviews but no jobs so I decided to stick around in the internship full time and also picked up a job at a local bar. Full-time and still unpaid, again, I am sure they had to think long and hard about whether to keep me.
Over the summer and into the fall I was able to be more involved in the advertising, marketing and promotions we were running as well as still making calls 8 hours a day. I figured at some point a position would open up at the university and I would be first in line to go for it.
Unfortunately each time I was passed over. (thankfully)
At this point I had pretty solid level of experience especially for an entry-level job.
By the end of my internship I had generated about $1.5 Million in sales from tickets. I was still getting passed up for jobs both within the University and externally. So I figured I needed to go to grad school and get my masters in sports management and an MBA.
Long story short, that never worked out. (thankfully)
It sucked at the time…
Whether it was missing out on a job or missing out on going to your favorite school for grad school, they both equally sucked and were painful.
The reasons for being passed over never really seemed fair but now I feel so lucky that it didn’t work out for me. I don’t want to think what my life would be like at this time if one of those “missed” opportunities had worked out for me.
In Steve Jobs’ famous Stanford commencement speech, he said “you can never connect the dots looking forward you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down and it’s made all the difference in my life.”
Dwelling on a decision made by someone else has never served me well.
All said and done I worked in this internship for nearly two years. What I learned and the self-improvement I gained was more valuable than any of the classes I went to.
I have found that some of my most rewarding periods of life were when I got way out of my comfort zone. Learning a new skill, self-improvement or getting out of your comfort zone are all hard tasks, it’s much easier to not do those things. It’s much easier to do nothing. But it’s not as rewarding. It’s not as fulfilling. At least it hasn’t been for me, what I have found most rewarding and fulfilling is taking something on that’s hard or uncomfortable and seeing yourself crush it.
What finally got me past this internship and propelled me to the next stage in my life was the kick in the a$$ that I got when I read The Millionaire Fastlane .
For the first few posts I plan to recap the past few years starting from 2010. I anticipate each post will be pretty long and I could certainly make them shorter but I think it will be more fun for me to write them longer/more thorough and potentially more helpful for current and future readers. After we get to 2019 we will see how the thread progresses, my company is growing quickly so I anticipate there will be things to talk about. I hope you will find value in the journey that I share.
2009-2010
“You going to make any calls or are you just going to sit there all day?”
I still remember this like it was yesterday.
I was finishing up my final year of college and had just started an internship making sales calls. It was my first day and I had spent what felt like 2 hours “crafting my sales script.”
In reality I was stalling terrified to make that first call…
A week or so prior I saw a flyer posted outside one of my classes, the internship was a sales job with a university selling tickets to sporting events. As a sports management major and marketing minor it was the perfect opportunity or so I thought...
Only problem was I didn’t like sales or even talking…
But this was my chance to start working in sports, a dream of mine and the reason I was getting this degree. In order to get a job in sports you have to start in an internship for free. Prove your worth and move up. This was the perfect place to start. After this short unpaid internship I would soon be living my dream to be working in sports and getting paid for it!
I was a senior at the time and this experience would be valuable for my resume. Not only that but I wasn’t very good at sales or talking on the phone so this was the perfect opportunity for self-improvement. My mom likes to tell a story of me as a kid having my younger brother (2 years younger) make phone calls for me to check on video games or movies at the store or any other reason I had to make a call.
The internship seemed great, I felt like I was ready to tackle it until I sat down in front of the phone. Holy shit fear smacked me right in the face.
I was sitting in the middle of a 400 square foot room surrounded by my boss, fellow interns, and a few hot chicks and somehow I had to get up the courage to make calls all day… It finally hit me, DAMN this internship was going to suuuck.
After “working on my script” for what seemed like 2 hours my boss pipes up:
“You going to make any calls or are you just going to sit there all day?”
Damn!
Time to pick up the damn phone!
So I picked up the phone and dialed the first number on my paper. Ring Ring Ring… no answer shewww… I leave a message and it doesn’t completely suck… Success!
I made a few more calls that day, each time just praying it would go to voicemail!
For the next few months between classes and in the afternoons I would go into the office and make calls. I would typically make calls for 4-5 hours a day.
Eventually someone did answer the phone and each time they did, day after day, call after call I got more comfortable. At some point, I stopped thinking about them answering the phone and thought more about how I could better sell the tickets.
Luckily it wasn’t the toughest sell in the world, we didn’t have to use any shady sales tactics or tricks to get people to buy. That would have made the internship unbearable. I focused on good customer service and creating an experience that they couldn’t get from anyone else.
Each week I got progressively better. Eventually I was one of the best there, not that that meant I was getting paid.
It was still an unpaid internship.
After the first semester I decided to stick around for my final semester of college. They approved, I guess the thousands of dollars I was bringing in was worth the $0 they were paying me.
As graduation neared, I started applying for various jobs in sports and in sales. I ended up with a few interviews but no jobs so I decided to stick around in the internship full time and also picked up a job at a local bar. Full-time and still unpaid, again, I am sure they had to think long and hard about whether to keep me.
Over the summer and into the fall I was able to be more involved in the advertising, marketing and promotions we were running as well as still making calls 8 hours a day. I figured at some point a position would open up at the university and I would be first in line to go for it.
Unfortunately each time I was passed over. (thankfully)
At this point I had pretty solid level of experience especially for an entry-level job.
By the end of my internship I had generated about $1.5 Million in sales from tickets. I was still getting passed up for jobs both within the University and externally. So I figured I needed to go to grad school and get my masters in sports management and an MBA.
Long story short, that never worked out. (thankfully)
It sucked at the time…
Whether it was missing out on a job or missing out on going to your favorite school for grad school, they both equally sucked and were painful.
The reasons for being passed over never really seemed fair but now I feel so lucky that it didn’t work out for me. I don’t want to think what my life would be like at this time if one of those “missed” opportunities had worked out for me.
In Steve Jobs’ famous Stanford commencement speech, he said “you can never connect the dots looking forward you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down and it’s made all the difference in my life.”
Dwelling on a decision made by someone else has never served me well.
All said and done I worked in this internship for nearly two years. What I learned and the self-improvement I gained was more valuable than any of the classes I went to.
I have found that some of my most rewarding periods of life were when I got way out of my comfort zone. Learning a new skill, self-improvement or getting out of your comfort zone are all hard tasks, it’s much easier to not do those things. It’s much easier to do nothing. But it’s not as rewarding. It’s not as fulfilling. At least it hasn’t been for me, what I have found most rewarding and fulfilling is taking something on that’s hard or uncomfortable and seeing yourself crush it.
What finally got me past this internship and propelled me to the next stage in my life was the kick in the a$$ that I got when I read The Millionaire Fastlane .
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