I graduated college at the height of the pandemic during December of 2020. I must say that COVID 19 honestly pushed me and my mentality to the wolves. All of a sudden, it dawned on me more than ever before how no one will give you a handout and you have to do things yourself. I did not have an internship the summer before, and jobs were looking very scarce. I felt left to my own devices.
Before March 2020, I thought my professional life would've been much simpler: get a job, make a living and retire. But I realized that there is a dependency that we all have on the corporate world to give us our paycheck and essentially determine how we get to live our life. Before COVID, I trusted that the powers that be and corporations would give me like many others in my generation, a good living, if we worked hard and do what we are told. However, just like us, they took nice jabs and uppercuts from the pandemic and many of them got knocked out.
Therefore, if a job right out of college will not put food on my plate, I guess I have to hunt for it myself. And I gather than many others felt this sentiment. In fact, across the world, the COVID pandemic era stokes fires of entrepreneurship. During July of 2020, small business applications reached an all time high of 551,657 in the US alone, a 95% increase compared that that same time period the year prior. In Japan, 10,000 new businesses began in September of 2020, which was a 14% increase compared to the same month in 2019. And in France, a "historical maximum" of 84,000 new business were registered in October of that year (Altun, 2021).
Now for me, I felt that I could not sit on my house and do nothing, I had to start something, do something to make a difference and a positive impact on people's lives during such a dark time. So I went back to my basics.
As a Resident Assistant at Penn State University, I came up with an idea to send the residents on my floor motivational videos in our GroupMe group chat every Monday, and I called it "Monday Motivations." I did this as a way to connect on a deeper level with my peers and motivate them to do their assignments, conquer adversity and do their best in their studies while at university. When the pandemic hit, I thought, "Why not expand it outside of Penn State?"
And so I made an Instagram account with the username, "MotivationByJon"
And here we are...
References
Altun, Y. B. (2022, November 9). Pandemic Fuels Global Growth Of Entrepreneurship And Startup Frenzy. Forbes. Retrieved March 27, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/04/09/pandemic-fuels-global-growth-of-entrepreneurship-and-startup-frenzy/?sh=364818797308
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