Tag: Robert Kiyosaki

How to start a business by looking in the garbage.

If you have always wanted to start your own business but didn’t know where to begin, check the trash. I know several entrepreneurs who got their start turning trash into treasure. There is no cheaper way to get your raw materials than in the garbage can. Which makes me wonder why Oscar is so grouchy.

My friend Mark Thompson of Logan, Utah worked in a warehouse in his younger years. He noticed that truckers would discard broken pallets. So he got the idea to fix or replace the broken wood on the pallets and sell them back to truckers. The cost of goods was very low. The market was there. It just took some elbow grease. Or was it elbow sawdust? Today, Pallets of Utah creates custom pallets for companies around the world.

I recently worked with William Starkey who owns Flat Out Motorsports in Indianapolis. He got his start by fixing up wrecked motorcycles and reselling them. Kinda like Fixer Upper for bikes. Only with less shiplap. Again, the input costs were low. The market was there. He just needed to put in the time and effort to bring the busted bikes back to life.

In the classic book Rich Dad. Poor Dad., author Robert Kiyosaki’s first business was created when he fished discarded comic books out of the garbage and created a comic book library. He then charged other kids an hourly access fee, and soon discovered comics could be serious business.

Check The Trash

Look for things that others have discarded that still have latent value? Are there old books you can bundle by color and resell as design elements? Can you turn old album covers into framed pieces of art? Can you take jeans that are discarded because they are too holey, and re-market them to people who think they are just holey enough?

Far too much value is thrown in the wastebasket. So look for your entrepreneurial starter kit in the discard pile. And don’t let your opportunity go to waste.

Key Takeaway

The start of your entrepreneurial journey may be as close as the garbage can. Keep your eyes open for straw that you can spin into gold. Up-cycle, recycle, re-position or transform. Make the discarded into art. Make the old new again. There is opportunity all around you. Just open your mind to see it.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

Why feeling comfortable should make you feel uncomfortable.

I am always looking for nuggets of wisdom. And because I am always looking, unlike Bono, I often find what I am looking for. The latest gem arrived yesterday from Robert Kiyosaki, the famed investor and author of Rich Dad. Poor Dad. Kiyosaki is an active tweeter, dropping 140-character bread crumbs of wisdom throughout each day.

Here is the tweet that has me all atwitter right now:

The biggest trap, the biggest dungeon in life isn’t laziness or bad luck, it’s comfort.  -Robert Kiyosaki 

The Human Trap

I know exactly what Kiyosaki is talking about. And he nailed the big ole human trap. If I was trying to catch me a feast of humans, I would not set out an oversized mousetrap baited with oversized cheese, or a giant ant trap baited with a giant picnic basket.

Instead, I would set up a steady 9-to-5 job in middle management, with competitive benefits, no night or weekend work, no travel, a swell group of co-workers, an easy commute and decent pay. And my trap would suck in humans like a new and improved black hole designed by James Dyson.

Dissecting The Trap

Comfort is a trap. It slowly and silently pacifies you. It lulls you into a false sense of security. Comfort takes your ambition, hands you back mediocrity, and makes you feel like you got fair value in the exchange. Comfort smothers dreams, dismantles goals and leads to the motherlode of regret that so many people unearth in their last chapters.

Staying Uncomfortable

Most people are looking  to make a comfortable living. But that is my greatest career fear. Because it would mean that my career would be good, but never great. It wouldn’t be memorable or laudable or history making. It wouldn’t create a legacy or generational wealth. But most importantly it wouldn’t allow me to accomplish my personal mission and live into my personal legend. #TheAlchemist

A Quick Recap

I spent the first 19 years of my career working as an employee. I earned fancy titles that included words like Executive, Chief and President. Those roles generated internal clout and an enviable salary that most would be thrilled to have. And most people would never give it up.

The Grand Illusion

My past jobs offered a great deal of perceived comfort. But that type of comfort is an illusion. It tricks more people than David Copperfield (Vegas not Dickens). Jobs are not steady or guaranteed. They only appear steady because people want to believe they are.

Entrepreneurship felt like the path to the endgame comfort I was looking for. Because the comfort I want comes from having control over my time, which is our only un-renewable resource. So in 2016 I launched my own advertising and idea agency, The Weaponry.

Even More Dangerous

However, entrepreneurship does not make you deaf to the siren song of comfort. Worse, a sense of comfort is far more dangerous to entrepreneurs than it is to employees. Entrepreneurship requires you to always feel unsatisfied, incomplete and scrambling to generate the next phase of growth that keeps your machine humming.

I stay uncomfortable by committing to goals that are very hard to achieve. Those unattained goals provide a constant feeling of discomfort. Of failure. And of motivation that drives me forward. I try to keep that discomfort front and center. Because it prevents me from falling into the big trap that Robert Kiyosaki warned the Twitterverse about yesterday.

Key Takeaway

Comfort is the enemy of high achievement. It makes you feel as if good enough is good enough. Comfort forces you to pawn your hopes and dreams. It makes you lay down your ambition and stop fighting. But don’t. Don’t give into comfort. Keep your eyes fixed on your original dream. And make it come true. Because that is the only way to guarantee you will feel comfortable with the way your story ends.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.