Young (in the 20’s) and zealous entrepreneurs will naturally search online for advice from successful people. I want to caution about terrible advice for young entrepreneurs; learn to recognize bad advice! In this episode I’ll give my insight on the most important skill to acquire for yourself or to share if you’re mentoring someone.
Sometimes advice from older, more seasoned people can be misunderstood. One such example is what I’ve heard frequently lately, “Try a lot of different things. Try this, then try something else.” There are many reasons I believe that is terrible advice for young entrepreneurs. If you study the life of these successful people, you’ll find most of them at 18 years old and into the early 20’s got a job and worked hard at it for a long time.
If you are trying to become another Zuckerberg, please realize he is literally one of perhaps four billion people who are going to get to that level. But even Zuckerberg started Facebook when he was about nineteen years old and is still running it. He didn’t “taste” a lot of things. The first big project for Larry and Sergey was Google. They’ve stuck with it. Gary Vaynerchuk worked in his dad’s liquor store for years until he started his media company which is still his “job.” All these successful people focused on one thing.
Success in life is almost entirely determined – aside from talent – on your ability to focus on one thing for a long period of time. Therefore, the logic behind advice to taste many things is to find the right thing and then focus on it. Focusing is a skill which must be learned. Compare it to working out. You must condition yourself to lift more weight. Suppose your goal is to lift 500 pounds. To do that you decide to lift different ten-pound dumbbells each day. Then one day you expect to lift 500 pounds. Your body hasn’t developed the skill or muscle to do that. You won’t succeed! To advise a twenty-year-old to enjoy the 20’s by trying many different things is like lifting a different ten-pound dumbbell every day. That person will not suddenly be prepared to build and maintain a successful business when he/she is thirty.
I suggest young entrepreneurs should learn how to focus. Get a job and work at it for three, four, five years. Show up early and leave late. Make that company so much money that they keep promoting you. Then you’ll become a very valuable worker and know how to focus and get things done. That would be the time to decide what you want to do independently.
My advice for young entrepreneurs is first get the skill of being able to focus on one thing long enough to make it work. Then you’ll have a good foundation on which to build your success!
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