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danceworshipper · 3 years

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Ida Sommer - HPHL MC

Info subject to change as more game information is released. All of my HPHL ocs exist in the same universe

[profile template by me]

Personal

Full Name: Ida Marie Sommer

Gender: Female (cis)

Sexuality: Pansexual (closeted)

Birthday: August 20th

Birthstone: Peridot

Zodiac Sign: Leo

Age: 14 (at beginning of game)

Blood Status: Pureblood

3 Positive Traits:

- Charming

- Spiritual (nature oriented)

- Resilient

3 Negative Traits:

- Childish

- Uncommunicative

- Vain

Usual First Impression: When first meeting Ida, people often assume she is immature, ignorant, and easy to take advantage of due to her sheltered nature and cutesy appearance. This impression is highly incorrect

Location

Birthplace: Germany (exact location TBD)

Current Home: Her father's estate in one of the richest areas (Germany)

Future Home: A beautiful cottage secluded from the world, near a mountainside (Germany)

Favorite Place: A cliff overseeing the sea in Japan, close to the little shop where she got her wand

Disliked Place: Her maternal grandparents' home, simply because she doesn't enjoy their company

Appearance

[image created using the Live Portrait Maker app]

Face Shape: Roundish jaw, soft features with a strong brow bone

Eye Color: Yellowish green

Hair Color: Light blonde

Hair Style: Ida wears her hair down or in a single braid. Her hair is mostly straight with side bangs, and is parted in the middle

Skin Tone: Light

Freckles/Spots: A few freckles on her cheeks, more visible when she's been out in the sun

Scars: None during her schooling. After graduation, Ida marks her arms with runes only she and Sebastien can make sense of to strengthen her connection to the world around her

Piercings/Tattoos: Single earlobe piercings.

Final Height: 5'9"

Final Weight: 137lbs

Physique: Thin with long legs, slightly wider than average shoulders

Clothing Style: Ida is a rich kid, so her clothing is always of high quality material and her jewelry is noticeably unflawed. She dresses modestly until she turns seventeen, when she stops caring what her parents think. Her favorite colors to wear are pastels

Carried Items:

- her wand

- a locket with a picture of her and her parents in it - not worn, but kept in her satchel

- a silver pocket watch stuck at 11:18 pm, handed to her by the same Seer who told her where to get her wand

- a handful of candy

- extra quills for her roommate who keeps forgetting hers

- a book from the Restricted Section about Elementals, written by Elementals and charmed so no one other than an Elemental can ever figure out what it says

Magic

Wand: 12 inches of firm Ebony wood with a koi-mer hair core. A pitch black, rounded wand with a pattern of scales carved into the handle. This wand was custom made in a small, almost unknown shop in Japan after a Seer she bumped into on the street told Ida that her perfect wand would be created there. It would seem foolish to go all the way from Germany to Japan on the word of an unknown Seer, but it was Ida's turn to plan the summer trip, so she picked a place in Japan close enough to the mentioned shop

Animagus: Loon

Boggart Form: A headless figure easily recognizable as herself, crumbling away into dust. A failed attempt to merge with nature resulting in her demise

Riddikulus Form: A statue of her like the one in her parents' back garden, over glorifying her features, that has been attacked and is crumbling away. She hates that statue

Amortentia (to others): Someone smelling Ida would smell lime juice, fresh water, and static electricity

Amortentia (to her): TBD

Patronus: Ida has never been able to cast a Patronus. Not for a lack of happy enough memories, but because of her powerful soul. The Patronus can never escape her magical core

Patronus Memory: N/A

Mirror of Erised: A tree so big it grows up an entire mountainside. The tree bark is covered in swirling patterns Ida recognizes as Elemental runes. She doesn't yet know what exactly this tree is, but she feels an undeniable longing for it

Family Spells: The Sommer family has no special family spells

Inherent Magic: Elemental

- Ida has all the magic of a normal witch, but on top of that has a deep connection to the earth and the magic stemming from it, even beyond the earth into the universe. If not properly trained (or if driven to a great enough temptation), an Elemental could vaporize the entire planet, or bend it to their will. They could also leave humanity behind if they so wished and become nature itself

- Elementals are theorized to have fragments of Merlin's soul fused with their own, hence why they feel strong connections to each other and can't ever fatally harm one of their own. Most Elementals also fall in love with each other as well, and the connection is thought to be stronger than a normal human's love could ever be. These connections help ensure no Elemental gives in to whichever temptation has the strongest pull on them. Only one Elemental has ever yet gone evil, and this is how it was discovered that they cannot kill one another

- This special magic is not hereditary. In fact, no one knows what causes someone to be born an Elemental, only that there have been less and less of them in the recent centuries. There are only two known Elementals left: Ida and Sebastien

Family

Mother: Lina is a warm hearted woman who wants the best for her daughter, misguided though she might be. She often has to shout at her husband to trying to hold Ida back, or discourage Ida's dreams. She noticed Ida's growing power long before her husband did, and was the one to finally contact someone for help when Ida grew so strong and uncontrolled she couldn't stop floating

Father: Elias is a business oriented man who, though he loves his daughter, up until her reveal as an Elemental wished she was a son. He's the reason Ida was homeschooled for so long, as he didn't think a girl was worth the tuition money. He refused to believe that Ida was anything other than ordinary until a man in a high position told him otherwise

Sisters: None

Brothers: None

Pets: A screech owl named Goldig, meaning 'cute'

Other Important Family: Ida's paternal aunt, Ingrid, is one of the biggest influences in her life as a child. Ingrid is an independent witch who lives fabulously by herself with her dead husband's fortune. Ida used to yearn for a future where she wasn't tied down by a man and could do as she pleased

Family Values: The Sommer family as a whole is mainly concerned with two things: remaining pureblooded, and growing richer. Most of the Sommers are decently good people, but they have period-appropriate prejudices and are willing to leave someone behind to save themselves, metaphorically and literally

Opinion on Family: Up until entering Hogwarts, Ida really only knew her family, so she loved them and thought very highly of them. As she becomes more socialized and learns more about the world, she starts to notice her parents' many flaws and though she never stopped loving them, she does resent them for homeschooling her and ignoring the signs of her being abnormal, because she used to think she was broken when in reality she's nearly a god

Friendships

Introverted or Extroverted: Extroverted

Best Friend: Sebastien Parr - another mc of mine who is also an Elemental, and an exchange student from Beauxbatons

Worst Friend: TBD

Friend She Didn't Expect: TBD

Who She Wishes Was Her Friend: TBD

List of Casual Friends:

- Sophia Burton @gcldensnitch

- Charlotte Grant @weasleysandwheezes

- canon friends TBD

Romance

Current Crush: None

Current Partner: None

Past Partners: None

Future Partners: TBD - will likely be picked from the game's characters, but could possibly be someone else's mc

Her Type: TBD

Hogwarts

House: Slytherin

Prefect Status: No

Quidditch: Never played, but loves to watch

Clubs: None

Organizations: The fake Headmaster's Apprentices organization that she and Sebastien use to hide what they're really doing

Favorite Class: Herbology

Least Favorite Class: History of Magic

Favorite Professor: TBD

Least Favorite Professor: TBD

Timeline

Young Childhood: Ida is kept at home. She knows no children her age, and spends most of her free time roaming her father's land. No matter how far she wanders, she never seems to get lost. Ida has strange dreams where she watches the world as an outsider. After being told by a Seer that her ideal wand would be created at a small shop in Japan, Ida convinces her father to spend a month there over the summer, and her mother takes her to the shop to get her wand. Ida sneaks out one night and climbs a cliff that looks out over the ocean. In later years she can't remember whether rising up over the waters and hearing the stars call to her by name was a dream or not, but she knows the moon smiled at her.

First Year: N/A

Second Year: N/A

Third Year: Ida's uncontrolled Elemental magic reaches a breaking point, and Ida explodes her little study room as she lifts up in the air, unable to come down. Her mother sends for help: two healers, a historian, and three government officials later, Ida is brought down and informed that she will be enrolled in Hogwarts the following year. She is not informed why, though her parents are

Fourth Year: Ida enters Hogwarts with no social skills. She meets Sebastien and they're both informed of their true nature. As Ida struggles to catch up on her studies as well as train her Elemental magic, she also learns just how wonderful having friends her age is

Fifth Year: TBD

Sixth Year: Ida grows suspicious of Sebastien's "friend" Dorian. Other details TBD

Seventh Year: TBD

Post Graduation: Ida marks herself with ancient Elemental runes and her father gifts her the cottage. She spends a year and a half where almost no one hears from her, before appearing back in her friends' lives as if nothing happened, looking healthier and happier than ever

Career(s): Ida doesn't live long enough to have a career

Marriage and Children: Ida marries (TBD) from school, someone who had always had a crush on her that she eventually returned the feelings for. They spend a beautiful three years together before her end. Ida manages to give her love a son, but only after she's gone

Death: Ida sacrifices herself to stop Sebastien and Dorian from destroying the world. Ida's biggest temptation as an Elemental was always to leave her humanity behind and become nature, so she does. She traps the two men inside of a ridiculously large tree that grows out of the mountainside near her cottage. This tree forms from her body, and has a notch where her favorite necklace can be inserted to be allowed entry to the chamber Sebastien and Dorian are trapped. However, she hid the necklace in Japan, where no one will find it until a century has passed and her friends have passed away. Ida can occasionally gather her spirit into a physical form to communicate with her love and child that she left behind

Notable Facts Not Previously Mentioned

- Ida is the ancestor of my main hphm mcs, Gracie and Tessa Chiva, on their father's side

- The reason Ida is sent to Hogwarts and not Durmstrang is the fear of bad influences. No one wanted to risk her being corrupted

- Ida does feel guilty about leaving her love behind, but since she couldn't kill Sebastien and she still loved him and wanted him to be happy, this was the only way she could think of to stop him

- Her love watched her leave humanity behind. As they wept, Ida's spirit gathered to say her goodbyes, and point them to their son, who had been born from Ida's final breath at exactly 11:18 pm

- Ida thinks very highly of herself. This is both from being praised so much as a child and hearing so much about the good she can do as an Elemental

- She throws a graduation party so extravagant that it's talked about for decades after her death

- No one but her love knows what truly happened to her. All anyone else knows is that she and Sebastien disappeared at the same time

#hphl oc #hogwarts legacy #ida sommer #character profile

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sparda3g · 6 years

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Attack on Titan Chapter 111 Review

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While it’s only a matter of time before everything goes straight to hell, the series can hold off the action aspect for a bit longer and yet, maintain the sheer quality with its suspense. This chapter is no exception. One of the fond elements of the series is suspense and it was well-executed here with the intensity of a man’s will for vengeance and the amount of twists and turns that had me gasping. All those info, big or small, that have been scattered for past couple of chapters are all coming together.

The beginning culminates everything that has happened involving with Eren and establish his “faction” name. It was funny for Survey Corps to call them “bastards” at first, but even for them, it was uncomfortable. Instead, they will refer them as Anti-Survey, which is the easiest name calling, so I expect their symbols to be upside down from its counterpart. But really, they are better known as Yeager Faction. Simple, but easy to call apart.

Hange elaborates the detail of the faction’s highly likely agenda. Based on the collected sources, she believes they intended to reunite Eren and Zeke. They also want to present themselves as rising power and killing Darius off was their sign. They sure made a hell of a point, I’ll give them that. The seed of the faction grew when the military began to kill time with no progress in sight. Granted, there were some, but patience is key and they had none. The final nail to the coffin is the call to replace Eren’s Founding Titan. It make sense on why Yelena treated him like God. They don’t want a replacement; what they have now is their only hope.

This has gotten messy for everyone involved. The faction is basically Survey Corps 2.0; 100 members or possibly more are part of it. I don’t know if Hange should really take the punishment for something that is more of everyone’s fault, but since she does accept it, I guess I have to go with it. She seem to hint her endgame development to be retirement, but we’ll see if she survives first. Rogue is still a douchebag for pressuring her and saying nonsensical words about turning into a titan out of nowhere. It may be panic talk, but he’s still a prick to belittling her further.

Before everything goes south there, Commander Pixis breaks the sourness and take command from there. I have to say, he’s one of the few higher-ups that I really like and this chapter serves him well. He’s the only one there with a cool head (no pun intended?) and get the corps back in order. Even after the tragic event, he remains in control and get the plan moving ahead to protect and secure every possible location for Eren to stop by, including Historia’s. Armin says that he’s next in line to take the corps control. I’m perfectly fine with that. So what’s the plan? To surrender to Eren. I take my words back.

Hilarious how Pixis says it with a straight face, yet have everyone shocked and depressed. He had them a bit hopeful earlier, but saying they have been defeated killed every piece of it. Hell, he already surrendered the military earlier, so he’s fine. This upset one person because it would mean Darius’ death would go unresolved. It’s like never getting your revenge, you will always feel defeated. Pixis does make a point though. He did begin his reign from the revolution, so to die by it is a poetic sendoff. I mean he did die from his own art as well, so the more the merrier.

The part that increased my respect towards Pixis is how he will handle this mess from this point forward. As comical it sounds of him to plan to surrender to Eren, he’s not going to submit. His agenda is to negotiate with the faction by surrendering themselves and learn their demands. Otherwise, well, Civil War, here we come. Where’s that meme? As for Darius’ death, he wants to keep it a low profile. Even if it does mean ignoring his death, it’s a small price to pay to protect thousands. That’s a difficult task for a soldier, so I applaud him for taking this approach. He got the corps motivated; a fine start for him.

Mikasa shines nicely in this chapter. I know fans tend to associate her with Eren this, Eren that, but when it comes to outside of it, she does shine nicely as a character. Case in point, her chat with Kiyomi. After Pixis warned Kiyomi that her safety may be in jeopardy once the fighting begins, she approach to Mikasa like she’s her mother. Despite having a “home” for Mikasa to return to, she was born and raised in Paradis Island, so she’s going to stay and fight. The best part is when she calls Kiyomi out on her actual reason to pray for Paradis Island and it all boils down to finance. That felt so good to expose the BS Kiyomi has been spouting.

It is funny how her characteristic resembles an anime character with the comical reaction like sweating bullets or drooling over money, yet remain in a serious nature. At the very least, she does admit that finance does rely on the “Rumbling” and if that fails, they are done. I guess you can say the clan has become a greedy one. It’s no worse than those folks who worshipped Meowth from Pokemon and seek for payday. Hell, if only Meowth does exist in Paradis Island, let alone us in the real world.

The only part that remains questionable is despite her admitting to her true reliance, she didn’t lose her pride and respect Mikasa’s mother’s wishes. Therefore, she will protect her. Perhaps it is true that she wants Mikasa to return “home.” Maybe it’s the only truthful part of her. Throughout the corps’ discussion, there’s this iffy feeling that she may know something is coming and she’s not saying. Certain panels emphasized her expression to say she’s hiding something. Maybe it’s nothing, but after the chapter was done, I’m not so sure.

Although Hange has been a mentally wreck for a while, she does keep up with the situation and has a good hunch on the faction’s motive. Even if they were to tell everyone about the true plan, Survey Corps wouldn’t keep them at peace. She and others have to expose Zeke’s scheme before it gets worse. It’s her theory, but it’s pretty damn believable. Their first stop is restaurants since it is Marleyans’ work environment that Yelena protected. The rest of the chapter focus on one restaurant, but it’s easily the best part as it is riveting, engaging, and emotional.

Mr. Braus and the family attend the restaurant where Nicolo is working at. I’m happy that the promise was being settled here, so it leaves a good feel impression. Gabi is there looking part of the family already. Almost look like Kaguya from romcom series if you ask me. Everyone is smiling and laughing, like peaceful times. Everything feels charming, even if we knew the story behind it.

Kaya recaps the story between Nicolo and The Braus Family. It all stemmed from the loss of Sasha. Gabi and Falco now knows Nicolo is a Marleyan, but what they gloss over big time is Sasha was the one Gabi killed. Instead, they were shocked that Nicolo and Sasha was a couple. If that was true, that just make me think Isayama is a bit of an asshole. Joking aside, oddly enough, it’s funny how Gabi is stunned to believe Eldian and Marleyan can mate as it shouldn’t happen because….reason!

Isayama and his humor strikes again when Falco was on to something, suggesting something bad is happening, but in reality, it’s the food that compels him. It’s time for Shokugeki no Kyojin as everyone is having a foodgasm. Hm, Kyojin sounds odd, but then again, so does Eren. Anyway, it’s amusing to say the least. Then it gets awkward when the Survey Corps arrive.

Everything seems fine in the beginning. Nicolo cooperates with them without resistance, have a room for them to sit, how kind of him, and things are looking pleasant. That is until Jean wants to sip on the wine that only Higher-ups can drink. Nicolo snatch it rapidly like it was his prize possession. He even resorts to racism to push Jean away from the wine. Damn, he really loves that wine, doesn’t he? A while ago, I was theorizing about the possibility of the wine to be poison or something. It faded out, but this moment brought it back and the possibility has gone through the roof. Falco and Gabi fake their reason to go to the bathroom and follow Nicolo. This is where it gets seriously intense.

I always thought someday, Gabi as Sasha’s killer would play a role somewhere and this is the time. To be honest, I didn’t expect it to play it here, but Isayama is clever at setting up the stage. Gabi feels assured to speak to another Marleyan and explain her story of how she got into the island. Long story short, she was imprisoned after killing a few Survey Corps. This sparks a huge curiosity from Nicolo. Once he asks her about a female soldier, I begin to shake with fear. When she gleefully responded yes, shit is about to hit the fan really bad.

All the good feelings died the moment Nicolo learns who killed her beloved Sasha. All it was missing was a suspenseful soundtrack to absorb your attention even deeper for what’s about to happen. I like to use The Dark Knight track, “Why So Serious,” mainly the beginning. Nicolo lost his cool and aim to kill Gabi with the same wine he was protecting. Falco comes to save her, but damn, that was a bad blow to the head. Nicolo didn’t mind too much, because he is filled with rage. It doesn’t stop there. He brings them to the family’s table to perform an act. The title: Revenge.

The intensity keeps on growing with the entire family now knows who killed Sasha. I thought Gabi was only tossed away, but she got punched hard in the face. Her nose is broken and she looked dazed like she’s about to collapse. I don’t know if the fans still hate her, so take it as a reward or sympathy. Honestly, I find it difficult to take a side. I know killing another is morally incorrect, but after Nicolo’s testimony, it’s hard to object it.

This whole settlement should have been easy, but the conflict is difficult. Nicolo may want revenge, but he was kind (I guess?) to hand over the opportunity to Mr. Braus. Not even a son-in-law, yet he acts like one. Survey Corps invades, but he has Falco as his hostage. All he wants is to pay back Sasha; put a closure to her death. Isayama is great at timing the chapter’s theme. First, we have Darius’ death left unresolved for the sake of peace; now, we have Sasha’s death to be decided.

What stung me bad is how Nicolo truly did love Sasha and how much she meant to him. She gave him life to live through hell. I don’t know if this is true, but supposedly, Sasha wasn’t trying to say meat as her final word, rather it’s Nicolo. Niku is meat. She was one syllable away before her final breath gave out. That’s downright sad. It’s harder to hold back when seeing her one more time through Nicolo’s words. Dammit! They were a pair and for a small panel time, I’m actually torn. How can I argue against that?

I really like what Isayama is doing with Gabi’s development. The lessons she has to learn are hard but necessary. In this moment, it’s fear of what “devils” are about to do. The irony twist is her so called people of righteousness is the one out for vengeance. To be honest, I did feel bad for her. Yes, she has said and done idiotic things, including here, but she has been living in fear and lies, so I can’t fault her too much. Being a child does help as well, considering the limitation of a mindset. The expression of things coming to an end does strike me. It’s Mr. Braus’ call now, wielding the knife to decide her fate.

If there’s anyone that you can say the best man of the chapter, it’s undoubtedly Mr. Braus. That speech about him and his daughter in the forest is teary. Looking at young Sasha is sad enough, the two bonding together like a family is even sadder. The speech is about a child being let go to roam around the forest; protecting, fighting, and eventually, die. They lived in the forest for a long time. It was then he let her go out of the forest, only the world was a giant forest. The striking point is how it ties in to the whole theme of the chapter.

Mr. Braus hands over the knife to his wife to say, “He will not kill Gabi for revenge.” It’s his responsible for letting Sasha die out in the forest. Adult is responsible for their children’s fate. If they are let go out of the forest, there is hope for a greater future. Otherwise, history will repeat itself. This is a deep metaphor for act of cycle. If one gets revenge, another will arrive. Then another. And another. Where does it end? If one leaves, a change will be made. It’s unbelievable how Mr. Braus now appears with more panel time and already he’s the man of the hour. Next time I watch Season 2, I will cheer like hell when he’s on screen.

I’m glad for Nicolo decided to let go of his darkest desire and give in the chance to move away. Otherwise, it could have ended awfully. Still, I feel bad for him. As powerful that scene was, I find the next scene powerful in its own way. Seeing Mikasa treating Gabi is a sight for sour eyes. After what just happened, Gabi is overwhelmed, finally questioning the devils do they not hate her. That simple question holds tons of weight. It’s the wake-up call she truly needed.

To add more to it, a sudden attack emerge from behind, but Mikasa quickly stops it. To Gabi’s surprise, it’s Kaya, the same child who protected her identity and helped her to fit into the family. Moment like this always gets me. One moment a friend, another moment an enemy. It reminds me of Avatar: The Last Airbender, whereas Zuko fits in well with the villagers, but once his identity is revealed, everyone hates him in a single flip of a switch. That one panel shot with Mikasa stopping Kaya from stabbing while holding Gabi tightly is a great shot. A former friend trying to kill a newfound enemy that is protected by thought-to-be enemy. Poetic.

This scene was needed to show how life can be unpredictable at times. Nothing is set in stone. Gabi has to see it for herself and rightfully so. She basically got a taste of broken friendship. What’s more is she actually feels remorse. Seeing Kaya in tears and anger open her eyes to see the damage she has caused. To recite Mr. Braus’ words, she must leave that forest. Otherwise, she’s doomed to be part of endless cycle. Isayama is really doing a hell of a job. I’m really intrigued by this development. But, he has one more to throw in.

The secret of the wine is revealed. It’s not poison as some, including me, predicted. It’s worse. It’s Zeke’s spinal fluid. Holy crap. This really stunned me. This is why build-up, even if it halts the action, can raise the shock factor really high. This means the Higher-ups are screwed. All it takes is Zeke’s roar and they’re done. I guess Rogue and others are going to explode after all. This would mean Zeke really is planning behind their back, unless the faction knows about it as well, which it is likely. This is crazy. The cruel twist they’re going to get. However and sadly, Falco is now part of the factor as well.

When he got smashed by the wine bottle, some part went into his mouth, which essentially means he drank some. Because of it, he will be victimized with the rest. Gabi wasn’t there to hear it, but this will break her if she knows his fate. Even worse, Reiner may lose his cool if he loses his sole purpose to live. My God, the setup is so good right now, I don’t know what to think.

Bottom line, this chapter was great. The build-up continues to be compelling and intriguing with pieces here and there to consider over. All key moments/segments in the restaurant were exhilarating and emotional. Plenty of strong moments left me awed and inspired. Mr. Braus is practically MVP by a large margin, but others did well in their role. The ending revelation was shocking; leaving the future chapters even more anticipating. The setup has been stellar and it’s growing more and more. Whatever it leads to, it’s going to be a hell that everyone will remember.

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #chapter 111 #review #spoilers

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andrewmrudd79 · 6 years

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Five Truths About the Mindset of a Successful Entrepreneur

Wow, 2018. It’s safe to say that this year is a big year for me. October marks the ten-year anniversary of starting my business, and on June 17th it’ll be ten years since I was laid off (not that I’m keeping track or anything!). In fact, there’s something special that’s going to be happening on June 17th, 2018—but I’ll save that for later.

But . . . ten years. What a journey it’s been! Over that time, I’ve moved from focusing mainly on my own business to becoming a coach and teacher for others getting started in online entrepreneurship. I’ve had the opportunity to guide so many smart, committed people starting their own businesses from scratch. I’ve also seen several of my friends go on to become very successful entrepreneurs—as well as a few who were once very successful but had to start over for some reason and rebuild their success.

Through all of these examples, I’ve learned just how important mindset is for the success of an entrepreneur. In fact, I’d say it’s probably the most important thing. You can have the best products, you can have all the right marketing strategies, you can have the right customers . . . but if you don’t have the right mindset, none of that stuff matters.

In this post I want to share five essential truths that I’ve learned about mindset over the course of the last almost-decade of being an entrepreneur. Three of them even come with brand-new videos I recorded. Check them out as you’re reading, and subscribe to my YouTube channel to be updated whenever I release new videos.

So, here are the five biggest things I’ve learned over the past ten years about entrepreneurship and mindset. I’m excited to share them with you now. Let’s do this!

#1: You Were Meant for This

The number one thing is this: If you’re reading this right now, it means you were meant for this entrepreneurial journey. There’s a reason you’re here, why you’re doing what you’re doing. There’s a reason you’re working so hard, experimenting, doing the research, and building a business. You have a deep and powerful drive for it—and if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here. Maybe that drive stems from being unhappy with your current job and wanting something more, whether it’s on the side or full-time. You know there’s something more out there for you.

A lot of people question themselves. They say, “Well, I don’t know if I’m cut out for this, or, “I don’t know if I was meant to do this.” But when you adopt that mindset, it keeps you from committing fully. Full commitment is what’s required. You need to have that mental commitment to going all in—not necessarily with your time, but with your attitude. If you ever question yourself, always remember why you started on this journey in the first place. What is it deep down about making this change that excites you? What are the opportunities that lie in front of you? Always remember: This is something you were meant to do.

#2: Failure Is a Part of the Process

I grew up in a household where I was trained to try and be as perfect as possible. I was near perfect through high school and even college, getting a 4.2 GPA, graduating at the top of my class, magna cum laude from UC Berkeley in architecture. I grew up in a household where I came home from school with a 94% on my math test, and I was asked, “What happened to the other 6%?” I wasn’t necessarily congratulated, although I was, but I felt like the stress was on what I had missed and not the rest of that I had gotten right. And so, I experienced one of the biggest failures in my life when I got let go.

This is sadly common. We live in a day and age where we are expected to be perfect. I recently watched a video of Neil deGrasse Tyson speaking at a college graduation, talking about how we prize knowledge over the process of learning, and memorization over ingenuity. Neil gave the example of a spelling bee. A person who spells “cat” correctly, “C-A-T,” goes on to the next round. If the next person goes up and tries to spell it “K-A-T,” it’s incorrect. It’s really close! But it’s still incorrect, and they’re out of the competition. Then, if someone else comes up and spells it “Q-Z-V,” they are equally as out as the person who spelled it “K-A-T.” Even though the “K-A-T” person was really close, much closer than the “Q-Z-V” person—and they had arguably spelled it just as correctly, if not more so (if you look at the pronunciation guide in a dictionary for the word “cat,” you’ll see “/kat/”!).

As Neil says, our society is too focused on “the right answer.” We’re too focused on the what, and not the how, the process of learning. We’re too focused on perfection rather than good enough, even though good enough is often good enough! The person who spells it “K-A-T” is going to feel like they’ve failed, and they are viewed as being on the same level of failure as somebody who got it completely wrong.

And when you’re trying to become an entrepreneur, this is something that can be really dangerous. The need to be perfect, to avoid failure, comes into conflict with what it actually takes to be successful. Because if you’re worried about perfection all the time, you’re never going to get anything done. The quest for perfection is going to delay you from doing what you need to do to actually run a business. As Seth Godin says, “Just ship.”

In entrepreneurship and in life, we’re sometimes afraid of failing and making mistakes because we feel like those mistakes will ruin us. The thought of that big fat red “F” marker on the paper scares a lot of people. So we study harder, and try to avoid failure as much as possible. But when you’re an entrepreneur, failing is good! The faster you fail, the better you can learn. This is why in my book Will It Fly? failing is a crucial part of validating your business idea: Seeking out conversations in which people can poke holes in your business model is the part of the process. Pre-selling your items so that when you don’t sell anything, you can go back to the people who said they were interested but didn’t buy to learn what you need to do differently.

So remember, there are no overnight successes, and you might have to fail a lot before you succeed. When you realize that even some of the most successful people out there didn’t do it overnight, and often faced tons of rejection, you learn to appreciate the hard work, patience, and persistence needed to make it as an entrepreneur. If you let failures stop you, you’re going to let a lot of people down, including yourself and the people you could be serving.

In case you’re still scared of failure, I wanted to share this next video, “9 Successful People Who Were REJECTED 138 Times.” It features several people you might recognize who failed a lot but forged ahead and found success over time. I won’t give them away right away, so try to play along and guess each person before I reveal them. There are some big names on this list, and I think you’ll be pretty surprised when you learn what they had to go through before they became successful.

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#3: It’s Never Too Late to Begin

With my courses now, especially Smart From Scratch, I get a lot of messages from new entrepreneurs who are feeling disillusioned. They’ve done their research, and they’ve seen how much competition is out there for their business idea—and they think this is a bad thing. They feel like they’re too late to the game. But there’s actually a big advantage in being late! When you do your research, you can find the holes in the market, see what your potential competitors are not doing well, and start to carve out your own unique positioning. You also know that because of the simple fact that there is competition out there, there’s a market out there for the kind of business you want to start. This gives you a chance to listen to the market and create something different and better.

Also, when you start out small, you have the ability to more easily connect with people, to have close and meaningful interactions that help you cultivate raving fans much more quickly. You can create a more personal connection with your customers, something that’s harder for larger companies to do.

Finally, some people consider themselves too old to start a business—but that’s simply not true!

I address this fear, that it’s too late to get started, in the next video, “I’m TOO OLD to Start a Business…” If you ever think it’s too late to begin starting a business, whether because of your age or because of competition, what I share in this video will show you the real truth behind this faulty assumption. I talk about Richard, who at the age of 52 told me he felt like he was too old to start a business. I helped Richard break down that myth and realize why you’re truly never too old to get started at anything.

So stop making age or timing an excuse. Maybe you wish you’d started earlier, but that’s just fear of missing out, and it’s something we all deal with from to time.

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#4: It’s All in Your Head

When you start off on an entrepreneurial path, you encounter things that you just haven’t experienced before. And you start to do what I call “weird entrepreneur math.” We start to put more importance on some numbers and not others, even when it doesn’t make sense to. What am I talking about? I’ll explain everything in the next video, where I talk about some of the numbers that trip up entrepreneurs who are starting out. I’ll tell you which numbers you should ignore, and which ones you should pay attention to if you want to be successful.

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By the way, if you’re enjoying these videos—and I hope you are—simply go to smartpassiveincome.com/youtube to subscribe!

#5 You Can’t Do This Alone

Entrepreneurship can be very lonely. That’s why it’s really important to connect with the right people, build the right relationships that will sustain you.

I love to meet people, and I love to help other entrepreneurs meet each other. For all of my courses, I hold meetups for my students, and I encourage them to set up their own private meetups, too. I also love meeting people at conferences. I think conferences are one of the best ways to connect with awesome people who are on a similar path to you. Even if you’ve never been to a conference, I encourage you to go out there and find one this year that fits you and your business. The connections you make at these events can be a game-changer.

As a matter of fact, I’ll be speaking at a number of events this year, and I’d love to meet you if you can make it to any of them! Here are some of the highlights on my schedule:

Feb 26: Traffic and Conversion Summit, San Diego

Feb 28–Mar 2: Social Media Marketing World, San Diego

June 29–July 2: Craft In Commerce, Boise

July 23–26: Podcast Movement, Philadelphia

[Full disclosure: I am an affiliate for Social Media Marketing World and Podcast Movement.]

You can find the full list of my speaking engagements on my Speaking page.

To recap, these are my five truths about the entrepreneurial mindset:

You Were Meant For This

Failure Is a Part of the Process

It’s Never Too Late to Begin

It’s All in Your Head

You Can’t Do This Alone

Finally, I’m running a little contest! When you enter the contest at SmartPassiveIncome.com/coffee, you could be one of three (3) winners to receive:

A 1-on-1 virtual chat over coffee to discuss whatever you’d like: your business, personal life, if you are stuck on something and need help, or want to run an idea by me.

To promote anything you want (business name, social media handles, “hi, mom!”, etc.) and be featured in an upcoming YouTube video that I’ll post on the Smart Passive Income YouTube channel.

PLUS, you can earn additional entries by subscribing to my YouTube channel (10 additional entries) and referring friends to sign up (3 entries for each friend), or following me on Instagram (1 entry)!

So be sure to enter the contest today!

Five Truths About the Mindset of a Successful Entrepreneur originally posted at Homer’s Blog

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judithghernandez87 · 6 years

Text

Five Truths About the Mindset of a Successful Entrepreneur

So, here are the five biggest things I’ve learned over the past ten years about entrepreneurship and mindset. I’m excited to share them with you now. Let’s do this!

#1: You Were Meant for This

#2: Failure Is a Part of the Process

youtube

#3: It’s Never Too Late to Begin

Finally, some people consider themselves too old to start a business—but that’s simply not true!

So stop making age or timing an excuse. Maybe you wish you’d started earlier, but that’s just fear of missing out, and it’s something we all deal with from to time.

youtube

#4: It’s All in Your Head

youtube

By the way, if you’re enjoying these videos—and I hope you are—simply go to smartpassiveincome.com/youtube to subscribe!

#5 You Can’t Do This Alone

Entrepreneurship can be very lonely. That’s why it’s really important to connect with the right people, build the right relationships that will sustain you.

As a matter of fact, I’ll be speaking at a number of events this year, and I’d love to meet you if you can make it to any of them! Here are some of the highlights on my schedule:

Feb 26: Traffic and Conversion Summit, San Diego

Feb 28–Mar 2: Social Media Marketing World, San Diego

June 29–July 2: Craft In Commerce, Boise

July 23–26: Podcast Movement, Philadelphia

[Full disclosure: I am an affiliate for Social Media Marketing World and Podcast Movement.]

You can find the full list of my speaking engagements on my Speaking page.

To recap, these are my five truths about the entrepreneurial mindset:

You Were Meant For This

Failure Is a Part of the Process

It’s Never Too Late to Begin

It’s All in Your Head

You Can’t Do This Alone

Finally, I’m running a little contest! When you enter the contest at SmartPassiveIncome.com/coffee, you could be one of three (3) winners to receive:

A 1-on-1 virtual chat over coffee to discuss whatever you’d like: your business, personal life, if you are stuck on something and need help, or want to run an idea by me.

To promote anything you want (business name, social media handles, “hi, mom!”, etc.) and be featured in an upcoming YouTube video that I’ll post on the Smart Passive Income YouTube channel.

So be sure to enter the contest today!

Five Truths About the Mindset of a Successful Entrepreneur originally posted at Dave’s Blog

0 notes

hearound-blog · 6 years

Text

Week10: App Update and Reflection

Saturday, December 9th, 2017

This week we published an update to our app based on the feedback we received. During the week people were testing, the server was experiencing some issues, whiched caused errors when trying to log in or sign up. In the previous version of the app, these errors were caught, but no message was given to the user, which caused confusion when it failed and nothing happened in the app. After the update, if login fails, there is an alert that tells the user if the server is having issues or if their username/password combination is incorrect.

Maxwell's Reflection:

What did you learn technically?

This semster I learned quite a bit about mobile development. In terms of technical skills, the biggest was probably learning to use android studio. I'd used it a bit in the past, but hadn't really gotten to know it well. In particular, I'd never really understood layouts and how to create them that well, but after playing around with them a lot I feel more comfortable with setting them up. Another new thing was creating a signed APK and uploading it to the Google Play store. I had never tried doing that before, so it was all new to me.

What did you learn professionally?

I also learned many things professionally. I think the biggest of these is the importance of thorough testing before release. It's easy to create a product that works most of the time, but it's really annoying those times that it doesn't work. If you have a product that doesn't always work, customers will get frustrated and not use it. Going along this vein, if you discover an issue it's important to fix it and push an update as soon as possible. It makes the problem much worse to have a bug that sticks around for a long time.

What do you wish I could have done differently?

One thing Ming could do to improve the course is have everyone follow at least one other team's blog. I think it would have helped to see what the other teams were working on and struggling with. There are probably many teams who encountered similar issues along the way, so by following another blog, we could see how the other team solved their problems and learn from that.

If you were to do this all over again, what would you do differently? If I were to take this class again, I would make sure to put in more work coding the app earlier in the semester. I think we didn't do enough earlier, so when we got to making the MVP we had to rush to put something together. I think we also had higher expectations for our MVP than was reasonable, so doing this class again I would try to have a more realistic idea for what we could accomplish.

If you could make one change to this Mobile Development course, what would it be and why?

If I were to change one thing about the course, I would like to have some collaboration with another department, as we discussed a bit in class. I know people who don't do CS have ideas for apps that would be useful to them, so working with them would be a good experience. We did struggle a bit when coming up with an idea for our app, so I feel that working with people who would actually have a use for what we are making would be really helpful. It would also help us better understand what works and what doesn't by having someone who wasn't developing the app test it out.

Jianjie's Reflection:

What did you learn technically?

I learned a lot about the structure of an Android app, the Android Studio IDE, virtual device and publication flow. I was mainly responsible for developing the backend for our app, so I gained a deep understanding of API design, securing API endpoints, building web server using Python Flask and creating relational databases.

What did you learn professionally?

The most fruitful part about taking this class is to experience the entire development flow of starting a project from the scratch. The experience of going through the different stages in the development cycle is very valuable. From a stem idea to building the MVD for such idea, each step along the way we had to consistently make trade-off decisions. Within a strict time window, what can we implement and what we cannot. These decisions are valuable later in our professional career.

What do you wish I could have done differently?

I wish we can discuss more about the structure of existing mobile app. I wish we can discuss more about the frameworks and libraries they use, and perhaps go over the good and bad design decisions the companies made on their product.

If you were to do this all over again, what would you do differently?

I think our team has too much expectation for what we want to implement in our app. We thought of too many features to add to our MVD, as result, we did not have enough time to build each component. If I were to start over again, I will set up more realistic, doable and simplistic features to implement.

If you could make one change to this Mobile Development course, what would it be and why?

I wish we can accelerate into the development of the project because I do feel that there was not enough time for developing the MVD.

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