Dmitriy Kozlov

Accelerating The Evolution of Love Through Inspiring & Empowering Influencers

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5 Simple Options for Student Entrepreneurship

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Are you a college (or high school) student looking to get into entrepreneurship and take control of your future? Good. Great.

 

I have some bad news for you. But fortunately, I also have some great news for you.

The bad news is this:

  • As a college graduate (especially with a liberal arts degree) you will have some trouble finding meaningful and gainful employment in your area of study.
  • If you do find a job, there is a good chance you will be overworked, underpaid, and find it difficult to move up.
  • Most high schools and colleges do not teach entrepreneurship. The ones that do often teach it on a level that is impractical for students or recent graduates to immediately apply… they teach about venture capital, high tech industries, high level partnerships, etc. This is all great knowledge, but is often difficult for students broke in contacts, experience, and finances to apply.
The great news is this: you CAN start profitable business as a student. Even if you have few contacts. Even if you have very little experience. Even if you lack any significant finances or investors. More great news: many of your peers, including myself, are out there doing it.
Here are some options for student entrepreneurs to start a business as soon as TODAY:
  1. Build a service business. This generally has a very low capital requirement and no risk. Either find something you’re good at already, or find something simple to learn that has a proven demand in the marketplace. You can start locally. For example, I have a web design and marketing company. My friend Sumner has a lawn mowing company. Last Winter my friends and I built a small snow removal company. You can provide rug cleaning services, graphic design, computer repair, painting, landscaping, and dozens of other services, all of which require a minimal investment in equipment and education and have a proven demand.
  2. Build a blog. You can start with a personal blog, like this one, but you will find it more profitable if you write about something that you are passionate about that you know others will find interesting (e.g. tea, skateboarding, technology, fitness, etc). You can write product reviews and link to Amazon affiliate links and other product links where you make a commission when people buy from clicking, or you can put general advertisements on your blog that pay you through an affiliate relationship or through pay-per-click. The more traffic you drive to your blog, the more money you will end up making. Also, as the founder and author of that blog, you will build a personal brand which will help with your career down the road. I know people that make anywhere from $50 per month to a six figure income blogging. If you start this business, make sure you get a self-hosted WordPress blog, NOT a free hosted blog.
  3. Start a network marketing business. Network marketing is like direct sales, only with multiple levels through which commissions are paid. You generally pay a fee to start or buy some product for your new business, and you work to distribute that product through sharing the products and business opportunity with others. The best thing about network marketing is that you will generally have a number of experienced upline mentors that have a direct financial interest in your success. Additionally, you will be exposed to personal development educational material that will force you to grow as a person and an entrepreneur in skills like leadership, sales, money management, and goal-setting. Network marketing was what got me on the path to freedom as a student entrepreneur.
  4. Sell on eBay, Amazon, or Craigslist. You can find items all over your house that you may not need anymore, that others will gladly pay for. Once you run out of items, do some market research and see what’s in demand. Learn to buy and sell. Marketplaces like these allow you to start making a profit online without setting up a website at all, and with having minimal technical know-how. In addition to making money, you will learn inventory and money management, negotiation, sales, and more. I have money some money this way through college, but I have friends who have made thousands of dollars per semester selling their own items and books (also video games and other stuff) for friends on Amazon in exchange for a small commission.
  5. Start your own e-commerce website. If you have a product idea, even as simple as a funny T-shirt, you can start a successful e-commerce business. Aside from the marketplaces described above, you can start a simple WordPress website and add an e-commerce element to it, process payments through PayPal, and ship via your local Post Office! You can market yourself on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and blogging, and build your brand through word of mouth.
I recognize than starting a business through any of these options is a lot more complex that I described in the few sentences I wrote on each, but I promise you that it’s not only possible, it’s practical and achievable for anyone who choose to commit to it! And even if you are still looking for employment after graduation, having this business experience under your belt will go a long way in helping you find the job you’re looking for where you can have more control over your income, your time, and your environment.

 

If you have any questions, are or getting started in any of these entrepreneurial options, just comment below or message me privately – I’d love to help!

 

I hope this post inspired you to take a step towards entrepreneurship and take control over your personal and financial future.

Can A Business Coach Change Your Life?

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NO!

Let me explain – only you can change your own life for the better with the decision that you make. BUT having a business coach can have a dramatic impact on the direction that you take your life in, and the results that you get from your business and your life.

I was inspired to write this post because I have been working with a business coach, Garry Carlson, since late March, and the past three months for me have been transformational, to say the least.

What you can gain from a business coach:

  • Accountability. It is a literally coach’s job to care about your business and ensure that you keep the promises you make to yourself. Having weekly coaching calls helps you stay on top of your goal list. You will report back every week with an overview of what you have and haven’t accomplished based on your long term goals and your action items for the previous week. This alone change dramatically improve your personal productivity.
  • Experience and wisdom. A business coach works and has worked with many other business owners, and understands the financial, psychological, and emotional struggles that entrepreneurs face. He or she has dealt with them many times, and has helped many of his or her clients get over them. A coach’s wisdom can also stop you from wasting months or years (or thousands of dollars) working in the wrong direction, and can provide incredible guidance when setting your goals and developing your strategy.
  • Bigger and clearer goals. Having a coach by your side will empower you to set bigger and more defined goals for yourself and your business, because you know you will have someone to help guide you towards those goals. Additionally, a coach may often believe in you more than you believe in yourself in the early stages, and will encourage you to set greater goals for yourself.
  • A process to the madness. Entrepreneurship can be tough, crazy, and disorganized, especially when you are primarily working solo. Having a coach helps you add a structured, guided process to ensure success in your venture, not to mention overall better organization in your life and business, especially when it comes to time management.
  • Balance. I don’t know about other coaches, but my coach Garry has helped me find greater balance in my life, helping me not only grow my business financially, but also develop it in such a way that it helps me attain the lifestyle that I want to create for myself. He encourages the business FUNdamentals, teaching that it is difficult to succeed at something that you can’t have fun at!
  • Encouragement. If you struggle with self-doubt, as many entrepreneurs do especially in the early stages (I know I did), a good great will help you replace that self-doubt with a rock solid self-confidence. This confidence will be the result of not only a changed emotional state, but also assurance in the fact that you have a plan, are achieving improved results, and have greater clarity in everything you do.

For me personally, working with Garry has been a significant factor in my ability to start my business on a full-time basis after graduation. Not only is my business profitable now and has incredible prospects for the near future, I have also been able to significantly improve my lifestyle and general happiness. I take more time for what I love, like playing tennis with my friends, spending quality time with my girlfriend Ally, learning new things (currently teaching myself Spanish), and traveling to new places (just came back from Aruba two weeks ago, currently writing this post in Vermont, and have a lot of travel plans in the coming months).

If you are a business owner looking to grow your current business, or an entrepreneur looking to start a business, I strongly encourage you to get in touch with a coach. Some offer a 15 minute free coaching session… I know Garry does so, you can fill out his form here to get your free session.

If you are a business owner (including network marketing or any other home business!), I hope this post gave you insight into growing your business. If you have had any experience with a coach, please comment below!

What am I doing after graduation?

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I just graduated yesterday! (B.A. in Business and Sociology). Naturally, I’ve had a lot of people ask me what I’m doing after graduation, so I figured it would be the perfect topic for a blog post. While most of my graduating peers are either attending graduate school, professional school, getting their first real jobs, or on a mission to get hired, I am taking a quite different path. I’ve made it my goal over the last three and a half years of being an undergraduate to not have to get a job after graduation. I stumbled a lot along the way, almost lost faith many times, and made over zealous income predictions about many business opportunities. I’ve had people tell me I was crazy – and rightly so much of the time. While my path after graduation is something I could have never predicted given my plans one year ago, I am achieving my larger goal in not having to go get a job, and in the process I am achieving much more in really starting to build a life of freedom, passion, and purpose.

So after a long intro, here’s what I’m doing after graduation, starting now:

  1. I am building my primary business, Purpose Inspired Marketing, on a virtually full-time basis. It will take the majority of my time starting out, and it is my primary source of income. It is the platform on which I am building my financial and entrepreneurial future.
  2. I am a partner in a hosting company, The Better Hosting, with Jonathan Yarbor. I’ve learned a lot about web technology and business so far in this partnership, and look forward to growing a successful hosting company over the years.
  3. I am taking an equity position in a lucrative and exciting start-up and serving as its Chief Operational Office (COO). I can’t disclose details now, but will dedicate a post to it as soon as I can 🙂 ***Update: I am no longer pursuing this opportunity, but I have added a significant new project.

This is a lot to start out, and I’m certainly going to have a busy schedule. I am putting some new productivity tools in place to get it all done well without overwhelming myself too much. I am learning to be an early riser, which I plan to transition in a polyphasic sleep pattern in a month or so. I have a business coach, which is probably the best business and life decision I’ve made yet (another post for another day). I am improving my diet and exercising more to have a lot more energy, as well as occasionally taking BodyQuick, which has been an incredible productivity booster so far (Tim Ferriss created this product, author of the 4 Hour Work Week and 4 Hour Body).

Obviously, I also plan on enjoying my Summer and enjoying life, especially in the company of my great group of friends and my girlfriend Ally. I expect to travel a lot and work from the road, and explore all that life has to offer in the coming years. I’ll post updates more often, both here and on my company blog (as soon as I launch it!).

I would love to network with other young entrepreneurs as I embark on this rather unique life path. If we don’t know each other yet, or haven’t caught up in a while, shoot me an email, get in touch on Facebook, or give me a call!

What is a Life of Freedom, Passion, and Purpose?

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(I reposted this from my new site at www.FreedomPassionPurpose.com … enjoy!)

This blog is entirely dedicated to help you create a life of Freedom, Passion, and Purpose… but what the hell does that mean?

The truth is … those words, those values, those principles … can mean something entirely different to each and every person. I encourage you to create your own definition of a life of Freedom, Passion, and Purpose and pursue it vigorously.

To get you started, I will give you my definitions…

Freedom

What is personal freedom? It’s living life on your own terms. Breaking away from the financial, religious, political, and cultural restrictions and limitations that hold us back from living our lives the way we truly desire. This includes financial freedom to walk away from the chains of bills and liabilities… but also from materialistic desires. This includes breaking out of the prisons of organized religious to pursue an individual and unique spiritual path. It can mean going against the grain culturally, rather than giving into society’s ever-changing values.

More importantly, it means tearing ourselves apart from the greatest prison of all: our ego. Let go of self-doubt and self-pity… let go of prejudice and judgment… let go of the need for recognition. Release the negative emotions which poison our lives. The thirst for competition. The hunger for revenge.

No force will imprison you so much as your own ego. The moment you let go of what other people think of you, you will feel immeasurably lighter… more free.

Living a life of Freedom means living life on your own terms.

Passion

While this is seemingly the most obvious, I find it the hardest to describe in words. Living a life of Passion means living your passion… doing what you love. Everyone has their own unique passion, their own gift to themselves and world. Some people are passionate about dogs. Others are passionate about marketing. I am extremely passionate about personal development, especially in youth. Others are passionate about wine!

Take advice from the section on Freedom here and let go of your ego and of what others may think. Look deep within yourself. Think of what you love. Discovering your passion is the greatest gift that you can give yourself and the world.

It will allow you to climb to heights that you cannot imagine without it. Most importantly, discovering and living your passion will allow you to live a life of happiness.

To me, living a life of Passion means to only pursue projects and goals which bring that special fire to my belly. Which drive me and excite me. Which energize me to dream and act upon that dream.

Living a life of passion means doing what you love and loving what you do. It means living with a fire in your belly. Always.

After being boxed in for a lifetime, it can be difficult to find your true passion… fortunately there are many exercises out there which you can do to help you discover your passion. I will have many of them available on this blog soon for you.

Purpose

In a society driven by largely by egotistical and materialistic ambitions, this is unfortunately one of the most overlooked principles in designing our lives.

Living a life of Purpose is to live beyond ourselves. Find a purpose – a cause, a mission. Something that we can contribute in our time on Earth. The key here is that our mission must be a cause… something outside ourselves, greater than ourselves, whether it be the environment, humanity, God, animals…

To some, a Life of Purpose may mean to save the environment by creating oil independent countries. To others it can be as simple as raising a good family and bringing up children with unique gifts and goals.

After some deep introspection, meditation, and some exercises out of Robert Staub’s book 7 Acts of Courage, I have discovered and decided that my purpose is to empower others to improve their own lives and the world. And this is what I hope to do here with this blog, while simultaneously living my passion and working towards financial freedom.

Decide For Yourself

Take some time with yourself in deep introspection. Think of what each of these principles means to you…

What does living a life of Freedom mean to you?

What does living a life of Passion mean to you?

What does living a life of Purpose mean to you?

Once you come up with your definitions. Think deeper: What is my passion? What is my purpose? How can I create the life I envision?

I look forward to hearing your story… please feel free to share your meanings and your vision in the comments below. You never know, you just might inspire someone to change their life.

Happiness is By Design

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Today I decided to talk about what I believe to be the most important, and often times the most overlooked, element of human life: happiness.

Let’s start the blog off with this powerful yet simple quote:
“Happiness is not by accident, happiness is by design.” – Jim Rohn

For a number of strange reasons, 90% of the populations seems to disregard this simple truth. Ask around and you will find that most people are waiting for happiness. Waiting for the right person to come into their lives to make them happy. Waiting for the right job opportunity to pop up. Waiting to graduate, waiting to get a promotion, waiting to be married, waiting to have the kids out of the house, waiting for their business to become successful … always waiting for some circumstance to be happy. In reality, the right circumstances never come, and thus these people can never achieve long term happiness. They are only happy when they have a good day or a good week, but they don’t really live happy lives because they are always waiting for something to happen.

The truth is, if you want happiness, you have to create it in your own life. Happiness doesn’t just happen; happiness is intentionally designed. And if you are not happy, it is probably because you haven’t designed a life of happiness for yourself yet. How you design that happiness depends entirely on you, but the first step is always to take personal responsibility for your own happiness. The moment you do so, your life will change dramatically.

EVEN THOSE WHO DECIDE TO DESIGN THEIR OWN HAPPINESS often times fall into another trap. They design happiness in the future, but not in the present.

They say things like…

When I am making over $10,000 a month with my business I will be happy.

When I build a team of 5,000 people I will be happy.

When I have this car, this home, this much free time … I will be happy.

When I graduate college I will be happy.

When I have mastered this new skill, I will be happy.

… My question to these people is: Why not now?

Why not be happy now? Of course, use your drive and ambition to create a happier future; but simultaneously learn to be completely content and happy with the life you have. You will find that once you learn to do this, you will actually achieve all of those goals faster. You will attract more of the right people into your life and your business. You will attract more income. You will have more energy. Your life will improve immeasurably the minute that you decide to live a happy life, even if your lofty goals haven’t been accomplished yet. Decide to be happy with the person you are today, and you will automatically push yourself on a path to becoming the person you want to be.

If you are building a network marketing business … remember this: your prospects see more than just your business opportunity, products, and compensation plan; they see you and your lifestyle. If you are happy, they will be attracted to you, even if you’re NOT making a lot of money yet! If you are stressed out and upset, you automatically push good people away, even if your income is exemplary. Furthermore, everything you do duplicates, so duplicate a happy team with a core value of personal fulfillment, and you will automatically develop loyal distributors, customers, and leaders.

I hope that you choose happiness, starting today. I wish you all the success that you deserve!

Yours in Mastery,
Dmitriy Kozlov

P.S. – One of the most vital keys to creating long term happiness in your life is committing to life long personal growth and development. Pick up a new book or audio program today, or register yourself for a seminar. I have seen this simple habit and commitment absolutely revolutionize countless lives. Start today.

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