Know thyself – a phrase you heard when you were younger but it had no application as you tried to fit in.
As one gets older, like myself, one understands more and more that it’s best to follow your unique interests and proclivities rather than trying to force yourself to be someone you’re not.
For example – I’ve always been intensely passionate about all things business. In high school no one really cared about it around me – there was no culture or support for entrepreneurship in high school.
In college it was similar. Much more support but a very minor thing.
Now on Twitter I’m aware of how some of the most successful people followed that thread and passion of theirs back in high school. They were the weird dudes flipping stuff from garage sales and attempting to do things they shouldn’t at a young age.
No regrets, as that time was spent on other forms of personal growth and development, but it’s quite interesting in retrospect.
I did, in fact, build a few websites for strangers after posting Craigslist ads. The difference was that after a few clients, Craigslist lost its organic advertising effect – it got flooded by professionals squeezing out a high school kid. In retrospect, I should have kept pushing and iterating. I think that’s something I’ve realized about myself. I can grind long-term, but I don’t have the iteration gene as much as other entrepreneurs did. That’s a differentiator.
Business is a long-term game. You have to love the concept of business to be an entrepreneur. That’s because there’s no clear answers. So you have to be willing to figure out finaance, accounting, law, marketing, and many other specialties.
You can model your business off of those you admire. But if you only model your business off of others, you’re not following the “know thyself” mantra. That’s because to stand out you have to have some differentiation. It’s best to model off of a few of the best but add your own spin.
Use your intelligence and deep thinking to both think about what will stay the same for 10 years (Bezos) and what’s coming down the pipeline in the future.
It’s very, very powerful to think deeply, be creative, know thyself, and put that out there into the marketplace.