The number one rule to (potential) success: Trust your instincts and have the guts to risk your money to prove your instincts. Then, adjust your strategy as you get feedback and collect data.
This line of thinking breaks the mold of traditional education. Most people won’t encourage you to think or act this way.
Generic Advice and an Example Wrapped into One Core Idea
Don’t trust your individual success and the validity of your ideas/path to success to someone who hasn’t risked their own capital trying out their own business ideas. Ideas are cheap. Talk is cheap. Execution is difficult, draining and expensive get serious with business. That’s why you’ll hear 10x more “innovative ideas” than ones you’ll see in your life. It takes guts, time and overcoming fear to progress forward.
On Perceived Safety/Risk Avoidance/Job Security
I’m more inclined to argue that if you’re saving money you’ve earned but are afraid to reinvest in your understanding of human needs and behaviors, then what is truly the point of earning money in the first place? No matter if you work for another organization or yourself, you create your own job security, or lack thereof, based on your skills, the industry you’re involved in and the competitiveness of your business model (as an employee, contractor or business).
In the words of Jay-Z: I’m not a businessman, I’m a Business, man.
