Entrepreneur Connor Miller Shares Insight On How To Overcome Business Challenges

Connor Miller is an entrepreneur who has overcome many adversities in life. From becoming addicted to heroin at 17 to living on the streets homeless, and being incarcerated 5 separate times.

Connor Miller understands what it takes to overcome challenges, and in this article, Connor shares how to overcome business challenges.

Tell me about yourself

First off, there’s nothing special about me. 

I have spent the last four years helping my dad build a transportation company that he started from scratch. In February 2019 I picked up a camera for the first time. At first, it was just a hobby, a creative outlet from all the operational stuff I was dealing with on a daily basis. However, over the last 12 months, it has turned into so much more than a hobby. It’s become my passion. 

I have overcome a tremendous amount of adversity in my life. From becoming addicted to heroin at age 17, living on the streets homeless, & being incarcerated 5 separate times. This time of my life basically turned me into a person who could get punched in the mouth spit out a tooth and ask what’s next. I developed a lot of resilience during this time of my life.

When I finally got sober my main focus was personal development. During those first few years of sobriety, I developed a few traits that I believe have helped me drastically both in my personal life and in business. 

Self-awareness, Willingness to change and see things from other people’s perspectives, and an insane work ethic.

You may be smarter than me, you may be more talented, or more connected than me, but I can promise you this:

If you challenge me to a marathon, the only way it ends is 

1. You quit
2. I die 

Giving up is not in my vocabulary. That’s one of the main reasons why I am where I am today. 

What exceptional talent is a key factor to your success in business?

The ability to communicate. Everything you want to achieve in life is completely predicated on your ability to communicate. And the willingness to learn how you can communicate better. 

Other than that, there’s one thing I would say is essential when a person wants to achieve tremendous success. Work ethic. You may be better than me, you may be smarter than me, you may have more experience than me, but one thing you will never do is outwork me. 

What challenges have you faced in business, and how did you overcome them?

For the logistics business, finding the right employees has been a huge challenge. 

This is one of the most difficult things I have faced in business, it’s very hard to find good people. The only way to overcome this challenge is to hire and fire quickly. If someone isn’t working out just fire and hire another until something sticks. 

There have been far more challenges in my content creation business, but I’ll give you 2 main ones:

Imposter syndrome

Imposter syndrome is a challenge that can strike at any time. The main symptoms revolve around feeling like you shouldn’t be there, or that you don’t have the skills for the job, presentation, etc. The irony is that if you are feeling this way, you are likely to be moving forward. It is in the moments of growth that our greatest fears rise to the surface and we believe that someone will uncover us as a fake.

My solution to this is to come up with something that you can do immediately to help that feeling go away. It might be as simple as reassuring yourself that there isn’t any truth in your statement and that it’s actually coming from a place of fear.

Another one has been having no previous knowledge of anything about photography or videography. 

Most would consider this a huge challenge but I actually have started looking at it as an advantage. The reason why it’s advantageous for me is that I am way more hungry to learn than the guy with years of experience. It also means I’m going to over-deliver to my clients because I already have an underdog mentality and I know over-delivering can set me apart from the people with years of experience.

How long have you been into videography, and what are your most significant achievements?

I actually picked up a camera for the first time in February 2019. My most significant accomplishment with videography professionally has been working with the Jamaican tourism board. My most significant accomplishment personally with videography has been the video I created for my 2019 year recap. 

There are a lot of young people out there who are trying hard to be as successful as you are, what words of advice can you give to them?

Patience. It took me 4 years of working 80-100 hour weeks, working every weekend, and taking no vacation to become an overnight success. Overnight success is a facade, it doesn’t exist. I feel like there’s so much of this new age meditation and zen stuff with this younger generation, and yes it’s great, but you can’t just speak things or manifest things into existence with no action to back those ambitions. 

Any upcoming events or expansion to your business you would like to share? 

Well, we are expanding the trucking business significantly in 2020. We are purchasing more equipment, and we just bought a warehouse. We are also opening our 4th location. 

As far as the content creation goes, I just finished up a partnership with Fear Not, (www.fearnot.shop) and will be the first sponsored content creator with the brand. Also, I have a few big projects in development but can’t share too much about those yet. I will be traveling to Iceland and Hawaii this year working on content creation as well. 

You can follow Connor Miller on Instagram: @connormillermedia