• Actively network and build relationships with people who are successfully doing what you aspire to do
• Learn from mentors - successful entrepreneurs and practitioners in your field
• Insights from real-world experience are more valuable than academic theories

Impact requires venturing into the unknown (whose risk most people avoid) and leadership (which acts as a multiplier of impact).

Four steps:

1. Get rid of debts, and have some savings.
2. Create room for experimentation in your current job.
3. Begin experimentation: Use money from step 1 to experiment around, while working.
4. Strike out on your own by following the direction set by a successful experiment from step 3.

• Raw ideas and determined execution matter far more than degrees or credentials in the real world
• Many highly credentialed people plateau in the middle of their careers
• Don't rely on pedigree alone - develop skills and hustle

Great networking is not about the back-and-forth, it’s about giving without expectation of anything in return.

There are two basic ways to find great connections

1. Find people with great future potential and help them in reaching their goals.
2. Add some value to the life of someone who is already established or connect them to someone where a connection could create a win-win potential for both parties.

• The general perception of marketing is that it’s sleazy and manipulative.
• The reality is that good marketing means making your potential customers know about you (or your company). Out of sight is out of mind.
• A lot of businesses fail because they are not able to reach out to the right customers.

One can get better at a particular craft, but being able to sell oneself is equally important.

• Success is a skill – it consists of the skill of marketing, the skill of sales and the skill of leadership.
• Sales are about knowing what a customer needs and, if you have a good solution/product, offering it.
• Leadership is about being able to influence people, not control them.

•  Adults need a reason to learn something.
• They are involved in planning as well as evaluation, more interested in subjects having immediate relevance, more interested in problem-oriented (as opposed to content-oriented).
• They also prefer more self-directed education (as opposed to classroom instruction).

Your brand is what people think about when they hear your name.

The problem is, most people don’t realize that they can do better than work under someone else's brand. They just need to take some steps and build it.

One should have a website under his/her name to establish a brand. A social media presence can also help.

• An entrepreneurial mindset focuses on contribution, outcome, and moves toward big decisions even without authority.
• The employee mindset, on the other hand, focuses on entitlement, and output, and turns away even from small decisions.
• Entrepreneurs see current circumstances as temporary, but employees see them as permanent.

• Be wary of excessive student loan debt that constrains your options
• Find creative alternatives to gain skills without expensive formal education
• Debt impedes freedom, risk-taking, and flexibility