Don’t Get Baited by Entrepreneur's “What I Would Tell My Past Self” Advice Stories

If I listened to any advice my mother gave, sorry mom, I would have a lot of limits in my life. It would be error-free, but at what cost? Less wisdom. less insightfulness. I could save some time avoiding the mistakes she noted. but I would lose the deeper meaning. It’s like reading the summary of a book and pretending I know the whole story.

I won’t lie. It’s nice to have a “parent” that will tell you what to avoid and what to do. I often seek lessons from others. After all, being in a society means sharing. Learning from other’s mistakes.

But when it comes to life, everyone has a different path to create for themselves.

And to add to that, the people that tell you what to do, made more mistakes than you think.

It’s this that made them wiser. And it’s this that made you listen to them.

The secret sauce that makes everyone successful.

What is that you may ask?

Mistakes. Mistakes, mistakes.

Rather than giving a damn F about people’s opinion, they made other’s listen to their opinion.

They built their path based on rights and wrongs. Not only rights.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ― H. Jackson Brown Jr.

The safety that entrepreneurs create for you is a fallacy. The people that charge to teach, don't care for you. But for their paycheck at the end of the month.

Are you ready to take your life into your hands?

You Got Blinded by Entrepreneur's Success

While you are busy reading pieces of advice of various entrepreneurs, they are busy living their life.

I’ve been blinded by those damn stories a million times as well. It’s so nice seeing the success of others and putting yourself there. But that’s not personal growth.

That’s daydreaming…

I slapped myself to wake up.

To be successful, you need to actively try. Not passively observe.

Entrepreneurs are like social media. They do whatever they need to secure people’s attention. They want to draw them in every possible way. That’s how they make money after all.

Real chance-takers are taking a chance. Not looking for safety from successful people. They are night-dreamers and day-achievers.

You’re Responsible for your Own Personal Growth

Other’s can help you achieve your own personal growth. Of course, we can’t rely solely on ourselves to do that.

We are the combination of all the people we meet or read about in a lifetime. We are 100% copycats but 100% original as well because everyone produces a different result. By adding up everything we drain from others, we produce new results, new characters. New us.

An entrepreneur lives out of entrepreneuring — if that’s not a word, I made it one right now.

When did philosophers become life coaches?

They are giving everyone a “formula” of success. You got to live by it to copy their path. Usually, they won’t reveal every tiny secret in the beginning, you gotta pay a subscription monthly with weekly tips, etc.

Well, you are fuelling their success.

Do you need a life coach to live your life?

The only life coach that you need is life itself.

Self Improvement Means Fixing Your Mistakes

How can you learn from your mistakes if you don't make any because you follow the tips of others? How can you improve if there’s nothing to improve?

Your wisdom will be nonexistent because others are showing you their version of wisdom.

Your 20s are the best moment to do mistakes and learn from them. You have the chance to make errors and fix them soon enough.

I wouldn't be here, writing, if it wasn't for mistakes. I would probably be busy working in my boring 9–5 and avoiding the wonderful world of content creation.

And I did so many mistakes. And every mistake that I did contribute to me being wiser. To me being more of myself.

I became sentient enough to fix my mistakes, without the help of anyone.

Or better, with the help of everyone I met in my life so far.

Especially those who didn't charge any money to teach me a lesson or two.

Learn From Entrepreneurs That Won’t Exploit You

Don’t get me wrong. Entrepreneurs are not something that I would like to go extinct from our planet. I envy them for the balls they have to start their own business.

But there are entrepreneurs that won’t exploit you.

Who are they?

The ones that don't ask money to uplift your life. The ones that live their successful life and then write a book about it, or share their thoughts on something.

These guys are everywhere. They are the real entrepreneurs. To understand what a real entrepreneur is, let’s look at the word entrepreneur first.

Entrepreneur: A person who sets up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit.

To be honest, I’m an entrepreneur as well. I took the risk of following the content creation path in order to make a living out of it. Apart from the fact that this term seems so vague, it makes everyone look like they are living their best life or something.

Totally untrue. Some people are masking themselves as entrepreneurs with the hope that others will feel jealous of their success. They are trying to find customers for their goals.

Bait, bait, bait.

Focus on people that took risks but don’t try to make you their part of the risk.

What does that mean?

You, as an individual, and every other customer they have, are the reason they make money.

Let me present a valid entrepreneur.

Bill Gates

Gates showed an interest in computer programming at a very young age. He spent all of his free time creating programs on the teletype terminal computer his school had donated.

“He spent all of his free time”.

This is where I want to focus a little bit. Instead of reading about other’s success, he strived on building his.

You — and I for a little while focused on getting amazed by people that claim they can build your career.

They are fancy with the words, so their drain your time. The time that could be spent in building yourself a valid career.

Final Thoughts

I’m only here to present to you that there is another side of the coin as well.

Instead of booking 1:1 with life coaches, find a person who will sit with you and have a 1:1 with a beer, have an actual talk. I’m up for that.

Don’t learn from people that are trying to milk every penny they can from their lives, and yours as well.

It all comes to the lessons you’ll create for yourself.

And to create lessons, you have to take chances. Mistakes will lead you to success.

To be a leader, you need to stop being a follower.

To find what’s right, you need to find what’s wrong first.

Originally posted on Medium