In Life, Your Job is to Move On
Koen Knaepen - I Question the (seemingly) Obvious
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Mindset Stories is all about discovering the secrets of the mindset of driven entrepreneurs. Whether they are already successful or are still building their success, it is always an honor to be able to talk with them about how their beliefs lead them to success.?
Today, we bring you the story of Arturs Kalejs of ProAppCard. It is a unique story of someone who built everything himself, but who also believes that moving forward is the most important thing.
Who is Arturs?
Arturs is from Latvia and he moved to the United States at the age of 25 to begin his professional journey. He began working in a restaurant and after working in a number of companies, he soon founded his own. He started ProCardApp, a tech company that offers digital business cards.
While working in a medical diagnostics company, Arturs collected a lot of doctors' business cards. “When you get more than 15 business cards every week, you soon need a system to manage that. After a while, you don't know which card belongs to which doctor,” he says. Because of this, Arturs went looking for another method to solve this problem and entered the data into his smartphone. He did this every day and was surprised that (in 2016) there was no app to manage this.?
Seeing this opportunity, Arturs contacted a friend who worked in IT, and together they started looking into what the market had to offer in this area. From there, his current company and venture grew.
Staying true to yourself
When asked how his friends would describe him, Arturs says they would say he is honest and true to himself. This value appears to be important to being a successful entrepreneur as we do hear this more often in the Mindset Stories.?
Arturs further clarifies this, stating that you don't need that many "real" friends in life. Perhaps ten "real" friends are enough, and he pays close attention to these friends. Being ready for your friends, and not just contacting them when you need them is an important attitude.?
Financial or other "appearance" characteristics should not count in the selection of your friends. That, according to Arturs, is the best way to always have a good circle of people around you who support you. Staying focused on who you are yourself, and using that as a criterion for deciding whom to hang out with is a healthy attitude.
Just take the next step
When you start out, you may have a vision of what you want to be, but it is very likely not what you will end up being. More important at 18 is that you start doing things and trying out as much as you can. It's more about the direction you're going in than your ultimate accomplishments.
Arturs himself at 18 was searching for ideas and had several possible directions in which he could evolve. He chose one direction that in retrospect you could label as wrong, but it led him to take the next step, which in turn led to the next one. He never could have imagined that he would end up doing what he is doing now. But he is clearly proud that he figured everything out and realized it all himself.
If you stay in one place, you’ll never going to change your life
When Arturs went to the United States, he had to start from scratch, so he went to work in a restaurant. He did that for six years and got used to the lifestyle, income, and daily habits that became predictable.?
One of the hardest decisions was to trade this comfort zone for something new, with no guarantee that it would work out. He began in real estate, and then he started in medical diagnostics.?
This process of leaving your comfort zone repeated itself several times. According to Arturs, leaving your comfort zone is the most difficult decision you’ll have to make and he also sees that many people cannot make this decision. He has old colleagues who still work in the restaurant business.?
There is nothing wrong with that per se, if you are happy with your situation. But if you want to grow further or want more in life, you have to learn to leave your comfort zone and do something new with all the uncertainty that comes with it.
It is striking that only 10% of people can really put this into practice. However, many people have come to him for advice on how to get out of their comfort zone. Most of them were not happy about their situation, but chose not to do anything about it. However, the consequences are bigger than just your work, because it very quickly reflects on your entire life. Your relationships with friends and family sometimes suffer, and it also impacts other activities you do in your life.
How can you escape from the 90%?
Telling someone to go out of one’s comfort zone is easier said than done. There are several elements that lead to making this decision.?
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In Arturs’ case, he proves that building your network gives you the support you need to go out of your comfort zone. The restaurant business he worked in was very good for building his network. This network will prove very useful. Arturs gives a few examples of people he met early in his career at the restaurant where he worked. Both financially and, for example, in obtaining the right permits for later businesses, he can rely on people in his network.?
For that, of course, you must also be open to creating opportunities as you build your network. And it also helps to radiate that you want to move forward in your life.
However, the most important attribute is that you learn very quickly from the environment you work in. Doing your job well is one thing, but Arturs indicates that he wanted to learn very quickly how a restaurant works, and even what it takes to open a restaurant himself. Where does the food come from? How to serve efficiently? What makes customers happy? He did the same later in the other places he worked.?
When Arturs finally got into medical diagnostics as a technician, he knew from day one that he would have his own business in this field.?
Another important component is the social support you can build in your network. Constantly being mindful of who can help you and in what way is important here. You might find people who want to set up the business with you, which makes it much easier financially.
And a final component is what we might call the growth mindset. If you know something through and through, you can use that again and it's best to just move on to another challenge. But often, the fear of failure strikes and the risks are estimated to be much greater than they really are.?
In many cases, you can just to go back to your old activities if you really need to. If you pursue your dreams with all the energy you have, there is little chance that you will have to return. It ultimately comes down to the belief that you can figure it out.
You have to pay for the school of life
Arturs never saw setbacks as failures. If something goes wrong, he just views it as an event from which you can learn.?
Life school is like any other school--you just have to go through the learning curve. But it's also probably the most expensive school there is. But if you do nothing, you can be sure you won't be successful. The important thing is to keep going.
This applies to all aspects of life. Perhaps you are disappointed in a friend you trust. But even that is a lesson rather than a setback for Arturs. Not everyone can be or remain your friend. The lesson is in learning what friendship means to you, and then you move on.
The same thing happens when you have many opportunities to choose from. You can't live up to dozens of opportunities at the same time, so you choose one and you try to live up to it.?
Did you choose the right one? You won't know until you try to make a success of it. If it fails, then at least you have learned that this opportunity was not for you. What is certain is that if you don't choose, you will certainly not be successful either. If you do take up opportunities, then you will especially learn a lot about yourself, and learn what suits you!
Work only with people with passion for their work and believe in your purpose
To build a team, Arturs only works with people who believe in his goal. If people come to work just for the money, it becomes very difficult to strive for excellence. An important element here is passion. If people don't have passion for what they do, the quality of the work will suffer. They will still do a pretty good job, but especially when building a business, you need more.?
So what is a concrete expression of belief in your purpose? According to Arturs, everyone must be convinced that what they do to contribute to the common goal changes the lives of the customers but also changes their own lives. Only then will a team emerge. And without that team feeling, it is simply much harder to achieve results. The team is a deal-breaker or a game-changer.
Rewards that people don't expect, financial or otherwise, are an indispensable component in this. But the angle should be that people become happy working in the company. If it comes down to buying off their commitment and loyalty, it will work much less well.
If you want to follow Arturs and his ventures, you can follow him on social media and visit his website.
If you would like to participate in mindset stories yourself and tell your authentic story, please get in touch by leaving a PM here.