Success Manifesto

I got back home to our apartment in Brooklyn yesterday at around 3:00am after four intense, but energetic days of Extreme Entrepreneurship (literally). Surpisingly, I was not tired and I randomly decided to read Life Is Love, Enjoy It Lately, I've been more introspective and have started asking basic life questions like 'Who am I?' and 'Why am I here?' again.

Yesterday's talk went very well in terms of the delivery. The room was fairly full so I would guess that there was about 300 students in the audience. Sheena and I spent all day preparing logistically and mentally. The video-recording, which I haven't watched yet should be pretty good.

I decided to start off the talk with a twist that I've never used. I started off by asking the audience how many people had started a business. 5% of the people raised their hand. I then nodded my head in approval of the 95% and said, "I want to share with you two conclusions I've come to based on research I've been doing very recently." I then went to the flip chart and revealed the two conclusions:

1. You must have a business degree to start a business.
   
2. You must have at least four years of real world experience.

• No money
  
• No time
  
• No ideas
  
• No experience
  
• etc.

You will hear all of these reasons and more from your friends, your mentors, your parents, your advisors, and many other loved ones who only have the best intentions for you.

But before you take these reasons to heart, I ask to you to think for a second….What would have happened if somebody had told these arguments to and convinced:

1. Bill Gates who left Harvard to start Microsoft
   
2. Michael Dell who left the University of Texas to start Dell
   
3. Shawn Fanning who left Northeastern University to start Napster
   
4. Milton Hershey who opened his first candy shop when he was 18-years-old
   
5. Fred Smith who while attending Yale received “C” on the Fedex business plan and still decided to start his business.
   
6. Steve Jobs who left Reed University to start Apple.
   
7. William Hewlett and David Packard who started HP out of a garage after graduating Stanford.
   
8. Or the thousands of other youth who have started a business and been successful in some way.

Imagine the potential that would have been stifled if these visionaries had not started businesses when they were young! Imagine how our world would have been different without an HP, a Napster, a Dell, a Microsoft, a Fedex, a Hersheys, or an Apple.

The downside of the talk is that is started late and I felt rushed. I think this came across in the talk. In addition, I really didn't have enough time to talk about the Amazon offer as much as I would have liked. As a result, only about five people purchased the book, which was definitely disconcerting. I definitely have to get better at selling, especially when it is stuff that I believe in so strongly.