Why be inspired?

“You did then what you knew how to do.  When you knew better, you did better!” – Maya Angelou

This week I had the pleasure of interviewing many entrepreneurs. I hope you were as inspired as I was with their dedication, ambition and commitment to seeing their passion come to life. Team Design Vetica juggles both school work and professional work to make their company work. Carlos from Bloom Marketing works hard to see his company grow despite the recession, forget the norm – he is defying the norm and surpassing it. Leon at age 27 commands the largest Real Estate Channel in Canada. Brian and his team, fresh out of university has garnered worldwide attention for Followformation, a twitter solution his company created after being inspired by Jason Calanis‘ cash bid to be one of the suggested user in the sign up process on twitter. Victor and Josh from Make It Business are there to provide all the support and resources for these entrepreneurs to grow their start-ups.

The point of these interviews is to show you a glimpse into the minds of these entrepreneurs and to inspire you to think of what is possible. What is possible is the ability to achieve what you think of with some hard work. And even though, they have tripped, fell and lost countless hours of sleep (in Brian’s case and I am sure with others as well), they remain excited despite the challenges they faced and will face because they believe so strongly in their dreams. I am sure if you sit down with each of them for one-on-one time, they will share their battle stories and show you their scars. I was recently visited by my old university club, Simon Fraser chapter of Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE SFU) and many had technical questions of how to get started but I couldn’t clearly convey as to how I got started and what I needed to get started. I can only describe it as a strong need to support entrepreneurs and a strong desire to have my own freedom. That has manifested in Urban Bella, The Network Hub and Atomic Media. The challenges and the scars are part of the journey. I believe I am better for it, as any entrepreneur can attest.

I hope you come away from each interview with a renewed sense of optimism, a clearer sense of purpose and the desire to just do it, because that is all there is to get started.

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Following your bliss

“Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.” – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

You have probably heard a million times, follow your bliss or follow your heart which really means do what you are passionate about. What it means for me means casting aside my degree, defying my parents, and leaving a possible career in criminal law – everything that is seemingly concrete and predicable to do something that my heart tells me. Try explaining that to your parents and your peers – my heart is telling me something else and oh yeah by the way, forget what happened in the last 7 years of education and yes that 2 years in law, let’s pretend none of that happened. What I really want to do was with two partners; build a place where entrepreneurs can call their second home.

We struggled and struggled hard. We were MISERABLE as we were all young all still in university with pressure of exams, satisfying demands of current clients for our current business and dealing with family pressure. One of my partners was in Computer Science and another in Chemistry, and I was in Applied Science with a clear path going to Law. None of us knew what constructions look like but we all came to the office after work and school to carry hardwood and drywall to help out the construction workers. We accelerate the construction process from the estimated timeline of 6 months to 3 months.

  

That was 2 and half years ago and we never looked back. The result is The Network Hub. The space is now more than 4 walls and some doors, it vibrates with enthusiasm, energy and passion from the people who occupy it. If I ever doubt my path or have a moment of weakness, all I need is to open the door to soak in the buzz and the vibrations from the people in the space determined to change the world in their own way, completely absorbed in their passion and loving every minute of it.

  

One person in our space who is so passionate about his cause, he is staying up 24 hours to blog to raise funds for the BC Cancer Foundation. Dr. Raul Pacheco has lost 3 family members to cancer, including two of his Mom’s sisters (lung cancer and stomach cancer, respectively) and his grandmother (pancreatic cancer). If this isn’t pure passion, I don’t know what is… please donate generously to Raul. I sure will be as a person who recently lost my uncle to pancreatic cancer.

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