Most conventional school systems are terrible at preparing you for life. And by “life” I mean the actual day-to-day process of surviving and thriving. We spent a large piece of life taking classes, learning, writing, doing projects, working on a thesis or interning at a company that’s loosely tied to the major we’ve chosen. School doesn’t teach us basic practicalities like how to balance a bank account or how to master a job interview. We won’t even go into the bigger things—like choosing a life partner or navigating a profitable career path—you just have to muddle through those like everyone else. It’s amazing to me how little of this life experience actually serves our success.
The same could be said for most of the educational tools out there for entrepreneurs—there’s much to be heard about the “proper” way to use Twitter or how to use SEO for better website visibility. Some dude over there can double your sales in three months, while that chick’s got THE formula for getting people interested in your product. And we all listen and buy because, hey, we all want what they seem to have.
Which is, in a word, success.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. What bothers me about this type of web relationship/transaction (which seems to run rampant online these days) is truthfully not really about the seller at all. It’s about us as consumers.
Every time you buy into one of these e-books or digital courses or workshops, you’re diminishing the greatest power you have as an entrepreneur:
The power to choose.
For better and for worse, you are always in control of what happens in your business. The decisions and daily navigation are up to you—which is both the most amazing and most stressful part of running your own show. It’s tough going it alone (which you incidentally feel whether you have a team supporting you or not). So we turn towards those idols of business success who seem to have all the answers we need. But do they really?
Did you ever pause & breathe before investing $200 in that Twitter course and ask yourself if Twitter even really mattered to your business? Before that guy’s double your-sales-in-3-months book came along, were you even ready to do that? Probably not. And the root of this problem lies in that one word a few paragraphs up:
Success.
Before you make the next investment in your business, I’d like to challenge you to do two things:
- Get your own version of success. What are the goals of your business? What do you need to make them happen? While I can’t guarantee that that will be easy, I can guarantee that your definition won’t look like anyone else’s. There’s no simpler path to clarity.
- Make a conscious choice. Ask yourself if the investment really serves you. Know how you’re going to use it. If it’s a quick fix or you’re just grasping at straws to keep your head above water, it’s probably not going to do much except stress you out even further.
The choice is the only constant you have on the entrepreneurial path. Own it.
{Featured image via Mardel}
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