Ever had someone say something to you that caught you up short? I had that happen when I was having a drink with a successful entrepreneur I admire in the car business last night (hell yeah job free schedule). This guy really clawed his way up from the bottom, started out working as a cashier, now drives an Aventador Roadster (when he wants to be conspicuous). I told him how things were going, how I'm excited about the future, then, four beers deep, I said something he didn't like... "Man, I would give anything to have found out about this path back in high school."
He looked at me and delivered a damn moving monologue. I don't have a great memory, but paraphrased:
"Maybe you think you would, but you shouldn't. I have employees, guys still low on the totem pole, who found out about entrepreneurship when they were fourteen. They went straight from their first lemonade stands and cutting laws to reading Kiyosaki and Hill and Carnegie and making business plans in the back of their subject notebooks. Now they're 50 and farther away from the goal than you are now. The best time to find out about entrepreneurship isn't when you're 16, or 18, or 21. There is only one good time-the time you'll act on what you've found out. When you want to go back to 16, you don't want to re-live the ups and downs of childhood, you want to go back with the knowledge you have now, and begin acting on it."
I told him I guessed he was right. Then he continued:
"Well, before you try to find billions of dollars in VC to build a working time machine, are you sure now is the time you'd want to go back?"
What?
"Today, did you live up to the expectations you'd want your 16 year old self to conform to? Did you take action in a way that made the best use of your time? Because if you didn't, if you just knew what to do but didn't take action, there's no point in going back, and you're going to be 50 some day, and look back and say "God, I would do anything to be 29 again. You're not sorry you didn't know about how to start a business when you were 16, you're sorry you didn't act on it."
It's 9AM on the East Coast. I'm not going to look back on today in 30 years and wish I'd done more. Are you?
He looked at me and delivered a damn moving monologue. I don't have a great memory, but paraphrased:
"Maybe you think you would, but you shouldn't. I have employees, guys still low on the totem pole, who found out about entrepreneurship when they were fourteen. They went straight from their first lemonade stands and cutting laws to reading Kiyosaki and Hill and Carnegie and making business plans in the back of their subject notebooks. Now they're 50 and farther away from the goal than you are now. The best time to find out about entrepreneurship isn't when you're 16, or 18, or 21. There is only one good time-the time you'll act on what you've found out. When you want to go back to 16, you don't want to re-live the ups and downs of childhood, you want to go back with the knowledge you have now, and begin acting on it."
I told him I guessed he was right. Then he continued:
"Well, before you try to find billions of dollars in VC to build a working time machine, are you sure now is the time you'd want to go back?"
What?
"Today, did you live up to the expectations you'd want your 16 year old self to conform to? Did you take action in a way that made the best use of your time? Because if you didn't, if you just knew what to do but didn't take action, there's no point in going back, and you're going to be 50 some day, and look back and say "God, I would do anything to be 29 again. You're not sorry you didn't know about how to start a business when you were 16, you're sorry you didn't act on it."
It's 9AM on the East Coast. I'm not going to look back on today in 30 years and wish I'd done more. Are you?
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