3 Lessons I Learned From 3 Different Jobs

I have been self-employed for the last eleven years but before that I worked at many different large companies. Going through these different jobs I was miserable, not necessarily because of that specific job but because it wasn't the right fit for me.

You may be in a similar situation right now, learn these lessons from that job and use them to help you find the job or business you have always dream about. It all starts with what is the right fit for you. The business I'm in now is still not the right fit for me but it pays the bills, I just couldn't see myself doing this for very long (10 years later). However, there are guys that are in this business that absolutely love it and I tip my hat to them, the point is everybody is different and you have to figure out what's right for YOU. 

I didn't realize it at the time but I really did learn some valuable lessons from these jobs that I still use today:

Always work hard and do a good job even when no one else is looking. The very first "real" job I had was working at Burger King (I also met my wife at this job). I was 16 years old and when I got this job I felt like an adult. Here is an excerpt from my first book about this job: "When I turned sixteen, I got my first "major" job at a large fast food company. At that time, this was the greatest thing that ever happened in my life. It was so good I could look past all those things that would bother you about a job now. For example, the attitudes of older workers—they hated their job and should be reading this book. Our bosses constantly yelled at us, treating us like we were one of his or her children. I also remember the free meals, clowning around with friends, the fact that I was in an "official" uniform. Do you remember your first real job? I think it's important to try to recapture that unadulterated joy. As a side note, I'm grateful for this job because I met my wife while working there." As a child I learned to work hard and do a good job from my parents, this job adding the element of when no one is looking. There were workers there old enough to be my parents but when management was away, all they did was play. They were rude to customers, they didn't clean up, they spent time in the break room gossiping. As a 16 year I didn't fit in anyways but if I did, I still wouldn't have joined them. I continued to work hard when management was gone, and even though we all thought no one was watching, management would review the security tapes (we didn't even know they had cameras). One day a few weeks later there was a big shake up where some people were fired and I (at 16 years old) was actually promoted to shift leader! I was 16 but these older workers had to do what I said, can you guess how much they liked that? Even if you're the only working hard, even if everybody else at your job is slacking off and seems to be getting away with it, do a good job and work hard. Trust me, you will be rewarded in the end!
Be a leader even when your leader isn't a leader. When I turned 18 years old I went to work for a printing copy called Quad graphics. Quad was unique because you would work 3 days on week and 4 days the next week, all 12 hour shifts. The days you worked were painful but it sure was nice to have off 3 or 4 days in a row! This job required a lot of independence because of how big the factory was. A manager couldn't hover around and check on everybody because there we too many people, so you had to have "little" leaders at each station. The problem was when something would go wrong with the machine people would kind of look around at each other and not really know what to do. Eventually somebody would be called in but in that time of confusion valuable printing time was wasted, ultimately hurting the bottom line. Now I'm not going to sit here and tell you I wasn't ever confused or that I was always on top of things, I was after all 18 years old. However, most of the time the machine would break, I would either fix any small problems ( learned a lot about these machines from workers that had been there for 30 years) or go to a machine where I know someone who could fix the problem. Even though I was just doing my job I was eventually promoted to running my own machine. Also, when there was a problem on another machine, people would come to me to see if I knew a quick fix. I'm not telling you that at your job you have to be the one with all the knowledge about everything but you do have to be the one to step up when there's a lack of leadership. I don't know about you but more and more there is a lack of strong leadership these days. Will you step up?
If you make a mistake, pick you head up and work harder (even if you get yelled at). Right now I deliver bread for a large bread company. It's my job to get a bulk amount of bread and distribute it into each store as needed based upon the sales the night before. Every week I would do a different route so it was hard to know where to put bread into stores I would just do for a week at a time, sometimes I would put the wrong bread into the wrong stores. When the route owner would come back he would call and tell me how the route was and sometimes I would get yelled at for putting the wrong bread in the wrong stores. After some of those calls I would be furious, telling myself they don't understand how hard it is to figure out what stores to put the bread in. But then one day I woke up. After some reading I was inspired to build the best business I could, so I looked at those calls as my first challenge. Instead of getting mad, I would challenge myself to make the next call from that driver the best call I've ever had with them. It started with setting myself up ahead of time, before I would get a few details on the phone and run their route cold turkey, now I leave them a packet to fill out that asks all the vital information I need to know to do the best possible job. By having that information I was able to convert all those angry calls into calls of gratitude and calls where they ask to book me for more time. For those drivers that refused to fill out the packet, I let them know up front that without that information I would do the best that I could but the responsiblity would fall on them for not giving me enough information. Have you made a mistake at a job or in your business? Use this as your fuel to next time do the best job that company has even seen. Use that bad experience in your business to turn things around and do such a great job that the customer tells everybody they know about your business.

Are there lessons you could use from your past or current jobs? Use them to take you to the next level. Work hard, be a leader and get up from a fall, you will become so valuable you'll have people fighting to get you to work for them!

What's one experience you could use to help you in the future? What's one lesson you would add? You chance to contribute is with a comment:

P.S. Here is the winner of the Kindle Fire give away with his prize:

Joseph Lalonde