If you’re a regular listener of this podcast, you know by now that hanging with like-minded people is one action that will accelerate your transition to self-employment unlike almost anything else you can do!
Declan Wilson is the founder of MyShrpa, also discovered this personal development hack. His progress accelerated on another project soon after joining a mastermind group.
The vision behind MyShrpa is to provide guidance in the context of a group as you climb your own personal mountain toward your goal in your own way.
We’ll talk a lot about how masterminds accelerate your growth in out conversation, but a few other lessons include:
- Looking down the path of others to help you decide the future direction of your life. As an employee, Declan looked at the lives of his managers and decided their path was not the one for him.
- Being aware of good ideas and the importance of capturing them.
- How Declan is attracting potential members through the creation of blog posts.
Declan’s story also shows that the transition to self-employment can happen over an extended period of time and by degrees, until you realize a collection of experiences has been guiding you down a unique path all along.
Life Skills That Matter In This Episode
- Building community.
How Declan Works and Thinks
- Wake up time: 5:30 am or when his 18-month old gets up.
- Ideal work environment: Working with ambient noise and also likes switching up where he works.
- Wants to meet: Lin Manuel Miranda to understand how he stay motivated for 6 years to make Hamilton a reality.
- Book recommendation: The Dip by Seth Godin
- Favorite productivity tool: Evernote
- Unproductive habit: Spending less time watching Netflix.
Inspirational Quotes
“There are no overnight successes. You have to put in a ton of work.”
“I only made progress on my business once I had people in my inner circle helping me along.”
“Going from zero to one is the hardest.”
Coaching Advice
Declan offers this advice on how to meet people on the web as you build your community.
1) Build social capital first. Do something for others first to build trusted relationships.
2) Follow people on Twitter with the same interests as you.
3) As you share articles on Twitter be sure to include the author in your tweet.