This week I’m reflecting on creativity, entrepreneurship, and communication. Three things that I have been focusing on (to many different extents) over the last five years.

You see, I got invited to speak to the university students about the lessons of my entrepreneurial journey. It has already been over five years since I started.

Today, I think of what would be the things I wish I had known when I started. Here is a very freestyle summary:

Creativity and creative skills (surprise, surprise): they saved me many times, and were often guide signs, the actual instance I come back to when I don’t know what to do. And I am so happy that I rediscovered them in myself, and just recently, I realized their impact on my life.

I wish we would teach these skills at schools.

Entrepreneurial skills – I was lucky to figure out at the very early stage that we all make things up, often based on the thin air. So this is how I started – having nothing and figuring things out, taking to people wiser and more experienced than myself, getting (very often) critical comments and feedback, “eating” books for lunch and dinner, and continuing working on what I believed was great work for me.

Communication – this is the tricky part. I failed a lot at communication; I didn’t always know how to express what I was doing. Someone said, “Job is easy; people are difficult.” This has been true in some cases. And I have been working on this for the last year and have clearly improved it drastically. Just remember the first and most recent pitch about Creative Switzerland. Things have definitely improved.

And now I think that the most important lessons are the one about the speed of change (and growth) & constant experimentation – thankfully, I got to use this one.

And the one about focus and setting the proper boundaries.

You see, you will p… people o… in your personal and professional life when you start to be picky about how you spend your time, what are your priorities and focus and start drawing a line when they cross your boundaries. And this is ok. You’re not vanilla ice cream to be liked by everyone (I prefer caramel ice cream, though).

All of them: creativity, entrepreneurial skills, and communication will be equally important to me in the years to come. All can be developed.

Nothing is carved in stone in life & the entrepreneurial journey. 

What are your entrepreneurial/life lessons from the last years? Would you add anything to my list?