Day Nine: Being Stubborn 101, Rerouting

Day Nine: Today's blog is sponsored by Adrian McIntyre. Dr. Adrian McIntyre delivers speeches and workshops on high-performance communication and culture. He also trains entrepreneurs, executives and corporate teams to harness the power of personal storytelling to boost their visibility, increase their leadership effectiveness, and accelerate the growth of their business. Find out more at www.adrianmcintyre.com

"Be stubborn about your goals, but flexible about your methods."- Unknown

Saying you want to be a venture capitalist is a BOLD statement and often comes with lots of feedback from other people. I got this crazy idea to pursue a career as a VC during a venture capital experience class at Arizona State my sophomore year. After talking with the VC mentors from the class I decided this was the career path for me.

Most people when asked what they want to do after college get the simple pleasure of answering with a career everyone understands. When you're earning a degrees in entrepreneurship, finance and international management and you pursuing a career as a venture capitalist, it's not so simple. It's simply not a career path most people choose to follow. When I say I want to be a VC or talk about my degree in entrepreneurship, the most common response I get is, is a puzzled face or “so what is your billion dollar idea?”.

Pursuing a career in venture capitalism is a very messy and rocky road, were there are no signs for the onramps and Google maps just keeps saying rerouting, rerouting, rerouting. Unlike conventional career paths, like a doctor or lawyer there is no defined path. Unfortunately, there is no Pre- VC undergrad followed up with a Masters degree in VC to specialize in particular industry.

Venture Capitalism is a fairly new career path that most people get into because they started a successfully company of their own which had a nice exit, leaving them with capital to invest. The other half of VC got into the industry because random events like the setting next to the right guy on an airplane or working really hard to be in the right place at the right time.

What I have gathered from pursuing a career as venture capitalist, is you have to be extremely stubborn. Everyone is going to tell you how it is or that they don't think it's a career path but you have to be able to say thank you for you feedback and keep chugging along.

People, friends and mentors are always going to challenge your goals, which is good because it really helps you to think about what you are trying to accomplish. However, don't let their objections stop your goals, inturn take there feedback and let it help you be flexible about your methods but don't ever stop being stubborn about what you want.

So how does someone become a venture capitalist?

By working extremely hard to align themselves with the right opportunities to be ready when they find themselves in the right place at the right time. That path is going to look different for each venture capitalist but the common thread is they were very stubborn about the end goal.

Cheers,

Courteney