6 Entrepreneurial Inspiration Alternatives

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The end of the year is a time for reflection, and a time to figure out how you’re going to switch up to have a better next 12 months (no matter how well the last year went). As I discussed a little while ago, I did a bit of content purging, so I could focus just a little bit more on what I’m trying to do: get to the money. As much as all of the many YouTube channels, email lists and so on I was subscribed to gave me more ideas, a lot of them were causing the onset of Shiny Object Syndrome. I thought I was looking for business inspiration, but it ended up just being side-tracking procrastination material.

Rather than looking for business inspiration from specific people, I’m searching for solutions to hurdles I find along my way now. It’s all well and good learning more and preparing for the future, if I’m doing more studying than doing, there will be problems.

This is the kind of business content I’m taking in now, rather than just anything that sounds interesting:

1. Tutorials

I find it very difficult to follow written instructions, but it’s a different story if it’s made into video format. Do this, then that, then that, and that happens. These are perfect once I get to a certain stage and I just need a little guidance of how it’s done. From there, it’s on me to get creative with it and find new ways to play with a particular piece of software, or whatever else to get what I need out of it.

2. Case Studies

Give me a case study over a “journey” any day. Everyone’s got a journey and as much as people like to follow a character’s story, it’s a lot more practical to have a step by step case study of how something is done. Whether it went to plan or not, it’s a convenient way to understand how a particular thing can be done, what I’m likely to encounter, and the considerations before I attempt it myself.

3. Courses

I am fiend for Udemy right now. I’ve found so much quality stuff on there that has basically replaced YouTube for many different business models. Don’t get me wrong, there is so bad content floating around on there too, but I find it much more practical to go through something from start to end than to go about it in the scattergun approach, when it comes to business. I can always fill in gaps with YouTube and blogs and all of that afterwards anyway.

4. Reports

I’ve started making a more active effort to read more trade magazines and industry insights to find reports on trends and whatnot. It’s something I’ve done for years, but making it part of a routine means that I’m less likely to miss out on something, and I can act on whatever I’ve seen. It takes me far away from the world of personal brands and into a bigger picture view of what I’m trying to accomplish and my place within it.

5. Competitors

In the past where I might have spent an hour learning something new from a video, I can use that time to study someone I’m either competing against (eg another Amazon seller or an ecommerce store) so I can figure out their game. I used to just keep spreadsheets with a few key facts about competitors, but now I sit down and write notes about how they’re doing things and how I’m going to leapfrog them.

6. Actually Working

“This looks like a cool video. Dude’s selling strange private label products on Amazon. Let me find out how he did the product research. And how he did the packaging. And how he does his sponsored ads. And how he does affiliate marketing on the side. And his cryptocurrency portfolio. Oh – he’s gone on a trip to Austria. Let’s see how that went”.

It’s so easy to get sucked into the lives of these personal brands, most of which are carbon copies of one another. This sort of things is exactly what dragged me into procrastination territory, and the only way to combat it is to take in the essential content, unsubscribe and actually get the work done.