I come across lots of videos, articles, tweets and discussion about how X person did Y thing to get Z result.
Usually it goes like this…
X decided to drop out of high school/college/university, to start a business, and earned his first $1,000,000 online in a year.
Stunning! No doubt, this is impressive.
I find it inspires many young people nowadays to do the same.
They’re inspired by the result, however. Not the road to get there.
We forget that the winners are easy to identify, but we never hear from the losers.
It’s real easy to say ‘he/she did it, so I can too’ - but you don’t know the full story.
You don’t know person X started with lots of money in the bank, well connected parents, or multiple years of experience in a related field.
You have no idea what sort of support system person X has, nor their work ethic, or other unique advantages.
All you see coming from person X is their best selves - the curated image they post on social media, and the edited story that is crafted to captivate audiences… like you!
I speculate that there are many, many more people who are inspired by these stories, take big leaps, and realize they did not in fact have the foundation they needed to be successful by making these big life decisions.
It is hard to see how someone could complete a 180 in their life at a moment’s notice.
So let’s address this head on.
People dropping out of school should reconsider.
I firmly believe that if you think you are destined for greater, or something different, you can set your life and yourself up for success in your 5-9, while working on your 9-5.
This means, you have work to do before making this leap.
There’s no bypassing the need for a strong work ethic, or relevant knowledge in the business space you want to enter.
There is no phonk music playing in the background of your life, motivating you when times get tough.
Radical decisions with dire consequences are easy to make, difficult to recover from, and hard to endure. There aren’t any shortcuts to success - whatever success looks like to you.
In fact, in starting most businesses, much of what you have to do are the unsexy, tedious and arduous things you don’t want to do.
If you can’t tolerate doing that while in school and in a classroom, and you aren’t willing to build that tolerance outside of the classroom in some other way, what makes you think you’ll succeed when jumping into it in the business world?
There are always exceptions, and I wish the people who make this jump nothing but the best.
Boldness often wins, and it’s those who challenge norms that do great things in this world, there is no doubt about that.
We just cannot forget all those who challenge the norm, and then are never heard from again, because they weren’t successful and didn’t ‘make it.’
There are more losers out there than you think.
You just don’t hear from them.
Consider them.