Travel is great for opening our minds.

I see the human body as software. It constantly working on the background. Sometimes you need to kill the apps to make sure your software up and running efficiently. Best way to update your version leave your computer and phone alone during the night and make sure connected wifi.

That’s pretty much travel is to me. Connecting your soul and body via traveling. You should always on the go. If you can’t leave your town just try a day trip. Go outside for a short walk or drive some places for a couple of hours.

Bad ideas are good, good ideas are terrific, no ideas are terrible. The man who solved the market

Do you have business ideas? I think everyone has it. If you don’t have it, this post is not for you:)

Start something ugly. It doesn’t matter how bad it looks. Even bad ideas are going to teach you if you execute them well. So many great executers started very bad ideas, later on, they figured out their ideal customer profile and turned them as an amazing business.

It doesn’t matter how bad or good ideas. As long as you are running something. I wish everyone has their own company some period of their time to feel this. If you don’t have a business to apply your bad and good ideas, try to do it in your working places. But, don’t go to your manager and say “ I have an idea” just think a little bit and share a basic version of execution. Or, execute some level and share with them what you learned and what worked and or not.

Ideas are nothing. Execution is KING!

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My entrepreneurship journey began at the age of thirteen while in boarding school.  While my peers were studying for our University entrance exam that was four years away, I was making money through the instant coffee business I started.

Before I went to boarding school, I had a couple of jobs fixing bicycles and helping our local plumber in the city. Aykut’s Instant Coffee was nothing like my other jobs. This was something I started from scratch on my own. After a few weeks of selling my instant coffee at school, I felt like I hit the jackpot.

Our campus was about thirty miles outside of Anakara with only about 4-5 bus rides to the city during the day. As a boarding school student staying on campus, we were only allowed to leave on the weekends. Since I grew up in Ankara, every weekend I would travel home to stock up on my supplies for Aykut’s Instant Coffee. My mom was my first angel investor. She was nice enough to fund me for my first round of supplies to get my business going. I had already made a cafeteria expansion plan in my head. I was mentally in the entrepreneur mindset.

When I would return to the dorms on Sunday night with all of my coffee supplies and snacks, I would immediately begin selling to my floor only. If any of the upper grades knew I had cake, they would never pay and would take without hesitation. While I was selling coffee, I didn’t think about selling coffee-mate and sugar. I was giving sugar for free. I quickly realized I needed to include sugar and milk in the packaging as a part of the purchase. That’s when I created my own instant coffee where I put coffee, sugar, and coffee-mate in a small plastic bag that only required you to add hot water. I was inspired by Nescafe TV Ads. At the time, Nescafe was super expensive and none of my customers (peers) could afford it.

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My coffee operation was going well; however, I was only in business with the boy’s dormitory. Boys could not go to the girl’s dorms and I needed to figure out a way to sell coffee to the girls as well. I recruited a couple of girls and offered them sales commissions of what they sold. While running this illegal coffee business on campus, teachers became intrigued. It got to a point where teachers were asking to borrow money from me. I was a thirteen-year-old who slowly lost interest in school because of how great my business was going. I was making more than the average teacher on campus and created my own distribution channel with a  “girls” selling team!”

One day, our principal approached me and said he wanted thirty percent of my business in exchange to operate legally within the campus. I countered offered him ten percent. After a small negotiation phase where teachers were involved, they came to the conclusion that it was inappropriate for a young student to be running a coffee business in the dorm. They eventually created their own coffeeshop project without me and that ended my coffee venture. I learned a HUGE lesson that day. Never negotiate with the STATE. Just give them what they want.

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How many times you said yourself:

“ I’ll be happy when I make enough money”

“ I’ll be happy when I buy my dream car or home”

“ I’ll be happy when I find my soulmate”

Why our happiness based on conditions? What’s going to happen when the condition occurred. Then another condition is going to start. Then another one ….

Conditions are sucks! You can’t keep it up. If our happiness based on conditions which are mostly materials or people, that’s hard to control. The best practice is:

Ask yourself: Is this something I can control or not? If it’s not, just focus what you can control. That’s it!

I was super surprised my yesterday’s day trip. Why? Because I went to the same spot I have been known there for almost the last 7 years. But, I saw something crazy view I didn’t see before. How I discovered?

All I did drive a little bit more than before. I was curious than I said to myself “what’s next town look like?” I drove 5 more minutes then here’s the view:

The next town definitely looks beautiful. We should always open-minded and curious about new opportunities.

Open Your Eyes, Ears, Mind, And Consciousness For The Truth Is Right In Your Face. You Can See It But Only If You Would Pay Attention!!! – Kenneth G. Ortiz

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Following up is a great skillset. It’s something to differentiate yourself from others. If you follow up whatever you want to accomplish, eventually is going to happen. Unless if you don’t give up.

If you don’t have this skill set, here are the top best practices for you:

• Add everything on your calendar

• Take notes during the meetings then share those as follow-up notes

• Remind yourself that person with their happy moments such as birthdays, new job changes or even liking their post on social media. ( I always check who’s liking my post on Linkedin)

• Create a system not to follow up manually. So many tools out there. It can remind you what you need to do

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It sounds like a business-post however following up a life or death character for me. If you have it, your life is going to change dramatically. You will end meet up so many cool people and find great life changer opportunities. Everyone loves people send them great messages without selling anything just sharing their joyful times.

On your followups, your message should be short, sweet and sexy. I’ll write about this topic of future posts. If I don’t next 30 posts, follow me up:)

You are not perfect. You won’t be perfect. There is no definition of perfect. They are all lying to you and me. Stop trying to live other’s life.

Your life is already perfect for millions of people who can do anything to live yours

Just focus on progress. All you need to improve every day little by little. Sit down and feel the energy in your body. Your body is perfect. Let’s focus today on our brain and understand how lucky we are. “Your brain churns through more information in thirty seconds than the Hubble Space Telescope has processed in thirty years. It could hold two thousand terabytes of information, enough to store all the movies ever made, trailers included, or about 1.2 billion copies of this book” The Body by Bill Bryson

Change your perfect definition today. Don’t look outside what’s perfect for me? Just look inside yourself for the answers!

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We are not the only ones facing the problem we are dealing with every day. Most likely someone else already figured our problem’s answer on the other side of the table. That means you are not alone.

Everyone is the same when they started. However, some of them know the right methodology which accelerates their growth faster than others. Sometimes one word from the right person who had an experience similar issues can change dramatically.

Believe in yourself. If it’s already solved by multiple people that means that is doable. Let’s say you want to fix your sleeping or losing weight problem. What’s the best way to start? Most likely you can check your network who had some difficulties losing weight and ask how he did lose weight. His formula might not work out for you but at least you got motivated. My friend from the same school or neighboorhood made it why not I could not?

Pretty much this role modeling and motivation cycle works for every single thing. When I first came to the Bay Area, It was only 1-2 Turkish Entpereneur from Turkey started (2013)a company. This number now about 20-30x more. Pretty much everyone got their role model then it turns to be number game. More role models more results.

I was chatting recently one of my good friends. He said to me “ why are you trusting everyone”? I said, “why not:)?”

I explained to him how my trust cycle works.

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I trust everyone 100 percent, in the beginning. Then based on our relationship either we can be a casual friend or we can take it to the next level. At the next level, we might do work together, we can help each other to grow our business or we can keep chatting randomly about anything.

I asked him how’s your trust cycle works. He said, “I gave everyone 0 out of 100 in the beginning, not like you 100 out 100.

I said that’s an option too. But, you do eliminate a lot of opportunities that are going to happen in the beginning. I think trust is an important currency in the relationship. Start sharing, in the beginning, is going to open a lot of doors to you.

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I was driving today from my house to San Francisco Downtown. It was pretty early to start a day. I was in the city around 7:30 am. I thought already early for me.

While I was passing through a big tech company’s office, their team members already started their day. Then I think about “ whats get them up in the morning”?

It can be many reasons. Sometimes no reason. They might have no chance to think about why they are doing.

I believe you need to have a mission or goal which should be way bigger than yourself. It’s so hard to find that one. We watch daily hundreds of people’s TV show on Instagram. Then constantly checking our notifications. There is no time left for ourselves. We don’t get bored to ask “what’s my motivation”. We do stuff because we do it.

I don’t have a recipe for you guys. But, think about it again. Whats get you up in the morning?