Use Your Job Like College

This is an excerpt from my new book “Mind Your Own Damn business” a guide for Minority Entrepreneurs. I will be released in ebook form in the next two weeks. 

“When I worked for a music industry magazine called Urban Network, there was a LOT of infighting, power struggles, dirty politics and negativity going on. Mostly caused by outsiders who didn’t even work there but were allowed to hang around the offices. I was in my mid twenties and while everyone else was in the midst of all the dumb shit, I sat back and learned from it. I stayed longer hours and asked different people in different departments how they did their jobs. People could not believe how I went the extra mile and even came in during the weekends, but what they didn’t know was I was going to school. I knew that my time was limited at Urban Network before I got caught up in the infighting but I was not going to leave there without knowing how to do my OWN industry magazine and that’s exactly what happened. 

No matter how much we hate our current jobs if you have one ounce of passion for what you do, there is something that you can learn from it and here’s the best way to look at the situation, I’ve learned, is to start using my jobs as “college.” Even today, if there is something I don’t know a lot about but I’m interested in it, I have no problem getting a low paying part time job doing it for a few months. What better way to learn? Why take a 2 year course wasting my time when I can get direct knowledge by being in the mix of it? The way I look at it, I’m taking a course and I’m getting a stipend for learning. I give the job a certain amount of time to complete the required courses and when I’m done. I’m ready to graduate to earn my next degree in business. While everybody else is rushing to get out of there and go home, I stick around to learn more.

 This may sound strange but this really helped me learn a lot FAST. The many jobs that I had were the “courses” and the paychecks were certainly “stipends.” There are times when we reach the pinnacle of our careers early on and we don’t even know it. Even if you don’t want to have your own business shut up and listen and you can at least aim for a better position on your next gig….”

Kevin Ross