Let’s say you have a business idea.
You see that the internet is growing rapidly.
There’s opportunity.
You think “I should sell stuff on this neat internet thing”.
What’s easy to sell?
Books!
You start selling books. You get them organized and orders come in. You’re doing great. You grow some more and you’re making good money.
You hire someone to handle the day to day things and you write a course on how to start an online book sales company.
The courses do well, you’re making a few million. Life is great.
And that’s all you do.
This is what happens with businesses everywhere.
It seems like everything thinks like this.
The people who build big things are different because they get something to work and then they think bigger.
“If this worked for books, it could work for other things. Let’s scale this up and take over the market for this one vertical and then move into other verticals until everyone uses us for everything”.
Don’t project your own insecurities and say “this Johnny boy a**hole thinks he’s Jeff bezos” or “it’s not that simple”. I refuse to openly talk about what I think of myself because it’s pointless, I haven’t done enough. ‘Keep things to yourself and work’ is always a good answer. Maybe it doesn’t work and you should’ve been laughed at anyways. The only thing that matters is results. I’ve learned to spend less and less time openly talking about the hypothetical. Try to just work.
With that said
Few people are thinking big and combining it with work ethic. Everyone is either pretending to think big and just talking a big game with their other loser friends, or they do have the work ethic and take action, but they think small. Nobody combines them because the traits are usually found in people in one extreme or another. The cautious CPA or the reckless hoodrat at one extreme or the other. Prudence vs initiative. Patience vs hustle. Safe thinking vs wild goals. Usually one or another but I believe it takes both. You need to have patience, due diligence, and still be a hustler at heart. I want to be great but I want to actually get there. I try to have an equal amount of people in my life on both sides. Some shoot from the hip, some are very thoughtful and cautious. Both have strength, be both of them in the right way. Both have weaknesses and pitfalls, be neither of them in the wrong ways.
You have great capabilities. When you work and build something that succeeds, you don’t have to stop. You can, but you don’t have to.
It seems like even the ‘unscripted ’ are scripted in what they do with their newfound wealth and freedom. If you build something that works, why can’t it work everywhere? Why can’t it work in a more vertically integrated way? Why can’t that business just be a starting point for another bigger thing that truly shakes things up?
All of the big things in the world were just made by people. I’m a person. So are you.
Wouldn’t you like to take on goals that scare you? Wouldn’t you like to look back and even if you had setbacks, still know that you went big and gave it everything?
Start small, get your traction and confidence, and keep growing. Another goal. Another idea. Another level to work towards.
The higher goals will call more of you and force you to become someone new again. The same way you were forced to change when you first started a business.
Look at what you do and try to see past the obvious. Set up a path that assumes you cannot fail and make it bigger than what you think is possible for a human to do.
Break it down into steps that would be entire life accomplishments by themselves.
Map it out and realize many things will need to go right for it to work.
Break it down further, all the way into a to-do list.
And then get to work, analyzing, changing, and working on your plans constantly with the new information you gain from experience.
Get some wins, get some success,
And then think bigger.
You see that the internet is growing rapidly.
There’s opportunity.
You think “I should sell stuff on this neat internet thing”.
What’s easy to sell?
Books!
You start selling books. You get them organized and orders come in. You’re doing great. You grow some more and you’re making good money.
You hire someone to handle the day to day things and you write a course on how to start an online book sales company.
The courses do well, you’re making a few million. Life is great.
And that’s all you do.
This is what happens with businesses everywhere.
It seems like everything thinks like this.
The people who build big things are different because they get something to work and then they think bigger.
“If this worked for books, it could work for other things. Let’s scale this up and take over the market for this one vertical and then move into other verticals until everyone uses us for everything”.
Don’t project your own insecurities and say “this Johnny boy a**hole thinks he’s Jeff bezos” or “it’s not that simple”. I refuse to openly talk about what I think of myself because it’s pointless, I haven’t done enough. ‘Keep things to yourself and work’ is always a good answer. Maybe it doesn’t work and you should’ve been laughed at anyways. The only thing that matters is results. I’ve learned to spend less and less time openly talking about the hypothetical. Try to just work.
With that said
Few people are thinking big and combining it with work ethic. Everyone is either pretending to think big and just talking a big game with their other loser friends, or they do have the work ethic and take action, but they think small. Nobody combines them because the traits are usually found in people in one extreme or another. The cautious CPA or the reckless hoodrat at one extreme or the other. Prudence vs initiative. Patience vs hustle. Safe thinking vs wild goals. Usually one or another but I believe it takes both. You need to have patience, due diligence, and still be a hustler at heart. I want to be great but I want to actually get there. I try to have an equal amount of people in my life on both sides. Some shoot from the hip, some are very thoughtful and cautious. Both have strength, be both of them in the right way. Both have weaknesses and pitfalls, be neither of them in the wrong ways.
You have great capabilities. When you work and build something that succeeds, you don’t have to stop. You can, but you don’t have to.
It seems like even the ‘unscripted ’ are scripted in what they do with their newfound wealth and freedom. If you build something that works, why can’t it work everywhere? Why can’t it work in a more vertically integrated way? Why can’t that business just be a starting point for another bigger thing that truly shakes things up?
All of the big things in the world were just made by people. I’m a person. So are you.
Wouldn’t you like to take on goals that scare you? Wouldn’t you like to look back and even if you had setbacks, still know that you went big and gave it everything?
Start small, get your traction and confidence, and keep growing. Another goal. Another idea. Another level to work towards.
The higher goals will call more of you and force you to become someone new again. The same way you were forced to change when you first started a business.
Look at what you do and try to see past the obvious. Set up a path that assumes you cannot fail and make it bigger than what you think is possible for a human to do.
Break it down into steps that would be entire life accomplishments by themselves.
Map it out and realize many things will need to go right for it to work.
Break it down further, all the way into a to-do list.
And then get to work, analyzing, changing, and working on your plans constantly with the new information you gain from experience.
Get some wins, get some success,
And then think bigger.
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