During my late teenage, I was quite inspired by a young entrepreneur in Bengaluru. So one day I decided to give a call at his office.
A man on the other side picked up the phone. I told him that I was 19 years old, and wanted to intern at the startup.
“You can share your resume on our mail ID,” he said impatiently and – before I could utter another word – disconnected the call.
This was akin to the mails and LinkedIn DMs that startups get from college students, who want to “explore mutual synergies.”
Not surprisingly, most of them get ignored, like I was.
A few years later, however, when I was in MBA – something changed. I got LinkedIn DMs from two founders, who asked if I was available to intern at their startup during that summer.
And this was because they had been reading my Marketing Newsletter on LinkedIn.
Maybe that gave them the confidence that synergies with me would indeed be “mutual,” and not just a scenario where they will teach me all the work, pay stipend in this process, and then I’ll walk away after summer with a good bullet point on my resume.
I’m not saying that I didn’t have anything to contribute at 19. Also, it’s not like I had a magic wand during MBA because of which they offered me internships.
But it was a transition from seeking permission to being permission-less.
If you can build some leverage – with code, with writing, with videos, with a personal brand – then you don’t need to chase permission from external brands to make your CV look good.
A lot of people think that Brands come first – and career growth happens because of that. Try the other approach, man, you grow first, build some leverage – and the brands will come.
The direction of any network that you build in life will always be from internal to external. It starts with you.
So master your craft. Become known for what you do. Become the go-to person for what you do.
That will give you leverage. Even if just a little more than yesterday – it will make your life permission-less.