Julian Espinosa: Marketer, Growth Hacker & Founder, Papi Digital & Leaving the Nest: Be Honest with Yourself About Your Calling

Julian Espinosa is a growth-hacking marketer and the founder of Papi Digital and Leaving the Nest, a workshop that aims to teach high school students the skills they need to start their careers.

Leaving the Nest was founded when Julian’s team began working out of a co-working space called Hub101, which hosts people from across the spectrum, from students to faculty, entrepreneurs to retired executives. While there, Julian’s company was approached to mentor students, which led to internships.

As they worked with dozens of interns over the years, Julian and his team noticed a trend: schools just weren’t preparing students for the world of job-seeking. Leaving the Nest was created to help address this learning gap by teaching key skills in resume writing, interviewing, job searching, and more through workshops, coaching, and speaking engagements.

Julian’s Original Story: Be Honest with Yourself About Your Calling

Since I was little, my dad called me a businessman. I would trade Pokemon cards and I always ended up with the most sought-after cards.

Despite my natural ability, I was a distracted student who didn’t really care about my future. This really helped me understand where students are coming from and how to build things to bring in those uninterested kids.

Last year, when a school approached us to teach LinkedIn at high schools, I realized that teaching kids how to access career tools was a passion. When I found out no one else was teaching these topics, I couldn’t put my head on the pillow unless I was doing something about it.

Identifying priorities has been my biggest challenge. I can easily convince myself of priorities, but I’ve been learning to ask myself if they really are priorities or just things that are fun. Because, what ends up happening is, I chose to do what I like and not what I need to do. It’s important to be honest with yourself and ask yourself, “Should I be doing what I’m doing in this moment?” If you don’t know, get a mentor or ask for the opinion of others.

Instead of coming up with a solution to a problem you think needs solving, try and convince yourself you don’t need to do anything about it. When you wake up realizing no one else is going to do it unless you do, that’s when you have found your thing!

Find more from Julian on LinkedIn and Leaving the Nest.