Rags to Retail Riches: Zara Founder's Inspiring Tale, AI Updates & Your Side Hustle Scoop

It’s Sunday, 4th February 2024, and in this week’s roundup, we are covering the career story of the Founder of Zara, Amancio Ortega Gaona, and career advice centered around knowing when to persist or pivot and change course.

In this week’s email, learn in 5 minutes or less:

• Career Story: Zara founder rags to riches story of, Amancio Gaona

• Side Hustle Idea: Selling digital products to make a six-figure business and how this Etsy seller scaled to $160,000…

• Productivity: The Pomodoro technique and why you need to incorporate it for better productivity

• Weekly round-up: What else happened this week, from the Grammys to Nigeria’s fighting spirit key to AFCON dreams.

Forwarded this email? Sign up here.

Sponsored Ad

Interested in starting a new tech career or making a career switch? You can enroll in a course for FREE with Course Careers; they are the modern way to break into Tech and earn a £100,000+ / year salary without needing to spend thousands on college or university.

This is the modern way to make more money & land your dream job!

Additional Resource

Job Hunting? Get prepared for a new job with the Career Growth Bundle Pack & Personalised Resume Review we have launched.

Want to improve your finances, make more money in 2024 for an extra vacation, a new car, or to have more time to do the things you love? Click here

Need to Know

How many jobs will AI replace by 2030 😩 - Is your job safe?

Artificial intelligence (AI) could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs, a report by investment bank Goldman Sachs says. It could replace a quarter of work tasks in the US and Europe but may also mean new jobs and a productivity boom. And it could eventually increase the total annual value of goods and services produced globally by 7%. The report also predicts two-thirds of jobs in the U.S. and Europe “are exposed to some degree of AI automation,” and around a quarter of all jobs could be performed by AI entirely.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and OpenAI found some educated white-collar workers earning up to $80,000 a year are the most likely to be affected by workforce automation.

Career Story of the Week

From humble beginnings in Spain, Amancio Ortega Gaona spun a thread of tenacity and innovation to weave the global fashion empire known as Zara. His story is a testament to understanding desires, defying convention, and mastering the art of fast fashion.

Early Stitches: Born in 1936, Ortega's youth was steeped in the textile trade. At 14, he left school to work in local clothing shops, apprenticing in the art of garment-making. He observed not just the craft but the disconnect between high-end fashion and the aspirations of everyday people.

First Threads of Zara: In 1963, Ortega took his first entrepreneurial leap, stitching together "Confecciones Goa," a bathrobe maker. This early venture honed his skills in production and logistics, lessons that would prove invaluable later.

Birth of a Fashion Revolution: 1975 birthed the legendary Zara, a small store in La Coruña offering trendy clothes at accessible prices. Ortega's secret sauce? Responding to real-time fashion trends, cutting out middlemen, and producing clothes in small batches, all within weeks of seeing what was hot on the runway. This "fast fashion" model was unheard of, catering to the fickle desires of modern women.

Inditex: Weaving an Empire: Zara's success blossomed into Inditex, a fashion behemoth encompassing brands like Massimo Dutti, Pull and Bear, and Bershka. Ortega's meticulous attention to detail, from production to store design, ensured a unique shopping experience. He remained fiercely private, letting his clothes speak for themselves.

A Legacy of Threads: In 2011, Ortega stepped down as chairman, leaving behind a colossal fashion empire and a $73 billion fortune. His legacy is not just in wealth, but in democratizing fashion, making trends accessible to the masses. Amancio Ortega, the boy who once mended clothes, had become the tailor of a generation's desires.

This is just a glimpse into the remarkable story of Amancio Ortega. Feel free to ask me for more details about specific aspects of his career or the impact of Zara on the fashion industry.

Once again, this story highlights how, with just 1 skill, so much can be created. Learning to thread is a high-income skill if utilized correctly, and this is why I preach about having one skill all the time on TikTok.

Careers Advice Corner

Knowing when to pivot or persist is key. In our professional journeys, the ability to discern when to pivot or persist is a skill within itself...Finding the right balance can shape your success story, whether you're on a corporate climb or carving your own path.

Persistence is your ally in mastering your craft, building expertise, and overcoming hurdles. It's the backbone of growth and achievement.

However, there comes a time when strategic pivots open new doors to opportunities. Pivoting isn't a sign of indecision; it's a calculated move toward a fulfilling and purposeful career. It demands self-awareness, continuous learning, and the courage to embrace change.

Knowing when to pivot, change direction or leave a toxic situation is for winners. Ps. If you are going through a change right now, a great book I would recommend is "Who Moved My Cheese" by Dr. Spencer Johnson.

Productivity Corner

Try the Pomodoro Technique to get more done. What is the Pomodoro Technique?

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method based on 25-minute stretches of focused work broken by five-minute breaks. Longer breaks are typically 15 to 30 minutes after four consecutive work intervals. Each work interval is called a Pomodoro, the Italian word for tomato (plural: Pomodoro).

Developer and entrepreneur Francesco Cirillo created the Pomodoro Technique in the late 1980s, when he was a university student and used a tomato-shaped kitchen timer to organize his study schedule. At first, he experimented with different work intervals, starting with two minutes and extending them up to one hour; he quickly realized that these were getting too long to stay focused on a task. He settled on 25-minute Pomodoro as the optimal time for his needs.

From this experience, Cirillo recognized that time could be turned into an ally, rather than a source of anxiety. The Pomodoro Technique trains people to focus on tasks better by limiting the time they attempt to maintain that focus and ensuring restorative breaks from the effort. The method also helps them overcome their tendencies to procrastinate or multitask, both of which are known to impair productivity.

Personal Finance Corner

Got money saved but not sure what to do with it? 👀

Well…If you want your money to work for you and are ready to make money while you sleep, investing in an index fund is one of the simplest options. Even Warren Buffet recommends it.

If you already are investing in an Index Fund and you have a Stocks and Shares ISA, remember you only have up to April 5th to invest up to £20,000 in the tax wrapper, where you pay no tax on capital gains or dividend payments.

For those who haven’t set up a Stocks & Shares ISA yet, get started with our investment broker of choice, Interactive Investor.

Bonus Tip: If you open an ISA or trading account, you can get £100-1,500 cashback up to 31st January as a new customer. So the time is now to get started with Interactive Investor.

Side Hustle Corner

Have you considered selling on Etsy? Rachel Jiminez opened her Etsy store in 2019 and sells hundreds of printables ranging from Christmas scavenger hunts to digital planners. In 2021, she brought in nearly $160,000 in passive income from it.

To figure out what to sell, Jiminez recommends using tactics like best SEO practices. She herself will come up with an idea and then will use sites like trends.google.com and trends.pinterest.com to see how many people are searching for it or what they’re looking for around it. In the case of her Christmas products, she looked up Elf on a Shelf to see if people are looking for Elf on a Shelf ideas, a letter from the elf, etc.

Other options include hype beast reselling, creating a newsletter, or managing a faceless TikTok or YouTube account.

@soambitiousdomm

Replying to @ZeeCee these are some side hustle options to consider to make an extra £500-1000 a month #sidehustle #resellingsneakers #new... See more

Share The Career Guard With A Friend

Weekly Round-Up

Celebrity News: From buying her jewels to posing as Cleopatra, Kim Kardashian’s fandom for Elizabeth Taylor runs deep. The reality star is executive producing and appearing in a new docuseries about the screen legend.

Music: The Grammys are about to be a female affair. Leading the pack this year is SZA, with 9 nominations followed by Vitoria Monet and Phoebe Bridgers with 7, Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Miley Cyrus, Billie Eilish, and Brandy Clark, are close behind with 6 nominations each.

Sports: Nigeria’s fighting spirit key to AFCON dreams. The Super Eagles booked a place in the semi-finals in Ivory Coast by beating Angola 1-0 on Friday. Do you think they have what it takes to go all the way?⚽️

Business: Job creation in the US surged in January, as the economy continued to defy predictions of a slowdown. Employers added 353,000 jobs and average hourly pay jumped, while the unemployment rate held steady at 3.7%, the Labor Department said.

Tech: Audio deep fakes are easy to make, hard to detect, and are getting more convincing by the day. A recent incident involving a recorded message, of what sounded a lot like President Joe Biden’s voice, encouraging prospective voters to save their votes has turned fears about AI-powered audio deep fakes up a notch. As technology is getting more powerful by the minute, we have to be more vigilant than ever these days.

Travel: 2024 is the year to visit the two most precious rhinos in the world. Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya is the home to the last two northern white rhinos on Earth, Najin and Fatu, who were brought over from the Czech Republic along with two males Sudan and SUni.

Health Tip: Aim for 7-9 hours of quality sleep per night. Proper sleep aids in the healing and repair of your heart and blood vessels and supports your mental health.

How to Spend it:   Apple Vision Pro Headsets costs closer to $4,600 with necessary Add-ons. The new headset teaches a valuable lesson about the cost of tech products. The upsells and add-ons will get you.

Joke of the Week: Why don’t skeletons fight for each other? They don’t have the guts.🤣🤣

Quote & Motivation

Recommendations

• 1-2-1 Consultation Careers Advice: Most people take this time to ask me for guidance for their career, turning their high-income skills into a consultancy business, improving their CV/Resume or Proposals to secure 6-figure+ jobs and high ticket day rates/retainer contracts.

• Career Growth Bundle Pack & Personalised Resume Review: Download the bundle to get everything you need to achieve your career goals, from CV & Cover Letter templates, interview questions and answers pdf, videos on salary negotiation and how to calm your nerves before the interview, and more.

• Personal Finance & Wealth Builders Bundle Package: Supercharge your finances with a suite of tools. Download the Bundle and get the Income and Expense Tracker, Net Worth Tracker, Guide on Investing in Stocks & Shares ISA, and more.

• Personal Brand Coaching: Most people take this time to ask me for guidance on how to develop a personal brand and monetize using social media platforms like TikTok/YouTube and Instagram.

Why The Career Guard? The schooling system doesn’t adequately equip new adults for ‘adulting.’ With our weekly nuggets of information, we spread career knowledge fundamental for all Gen-z & Millennial professionals to spark creativity, help someone consider a new career opportunity, and improve their financial well-being with also a little recap of the week.

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.

Are you interested in reaching ambitious readers like you? To become a partner and advertise with us, apply here.