I have two conversations wrestling in my head.
Convo #1 – a young man, an impressive, guileful young man full of potential who said something close to: “I am looking for something to do for six months or so that I can immerse myself in and make a lot of money.”
Convo #2 – a salty, seasoned, scarred, wise septuagenarian who said: “It takes about ten years to become an overnight success and there is always a price.”
This got me thinking about some things which in no particular order I share with you, dear readers.
The Nature of Success
Success is almost mechanical by which I mean you define your own brand of success, plot how to get there, undertake the journey, and work your ass off for years.
If you are easily distracted, if you wander off the path success will elude you.
THERE WILL BE A PRICE
The Pathway to Success
In the mechanical process to success, you will follow a time map.
You will get up early.
You will work late.
You will skip lunch a few times per week.
You will work harder than you ever imagined.
You will take work home.
You will sleep with work in your head.
In coffee shops, you will pretend to drink coffee, but you are there to work.
On vacation, you will learn that a week away from the business is torture.
You will grow until you no longer recognize the person who started the journey.
THERE WILL BE A PRICE
Sacrificing Your Life
To be successful, you will shed your old life like a snake sheds its skin and you will build a new skin.
When you are successful, you will never return to your former existence. Ever.
The journey to success is a one way ticket, amigo.
THERE WILL BE A PRICE
Deserting Your Friends
If you take this journey, it will be alone.
You will depart from your comfort zone, you will turn away from those not on a similar journey, and you will purposely leave behind those former friends.
When you return, you will not be the person they befriended and they will know it and you will know it.
THERE WILL BE A PRICE
Work – Life Balance
It is popular to suggest there is some nirvana out there wherein you may have both a full life and be successful in your work. It is a lie.
It is the second biggest lie ever told. The first one is: All men are created equal.
The only true equality in life is the 24 hours both you and Elon Musk receive each day.
Can there one day be work – life balance? Maybe, but it will get in the way of the journey.
THERE WILL BE A PRICE
Life Is Not Fair
On the road to success, you will learn repeatedly a great truth: Life is not fair.
Its corollary is that in life you do not get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.
This may make you hard. Good. A thousand times: GOOD!
Success is not for sissies and you will not only have to fight to get it, you will have to fight to keep it.
THERE WILL BE A PRICE
It Is Lonely At The Top
When you sit atop your creation, peopled with folks you have handpicked and trained, you will always be the one with the power to determine their fate and in that comes distance.
Even your own mother will wonder, “Who is this child of mine?”
Why? Because you are different now. You have made this so. It is irreversible and you will come to want it that way.
THERE WILL BE A PRICE
Your Work Will Become Your Best Friend
Work is a joy. Men are defined by their work. Ask a man, “Who are you?” and he answers with his work.
“I am an entrepreneur, a baker, a butcher, a lawyer, an accountant, a CEO.”
In your enterprise, there will be only one boss. It is the work.
THERE WILL BE A PRICE
You Will Be Forced To Judge
It is cruel to judge yourself as every single criticism is correct and stinging. We can never truly be the person we want. [Do not even mention living up to the expectations of our dogs.]
We may come close, but the struggle is uphill in the snow both ways for eternity.
You will judge men and women when you hire them. You will hire with certainty and fire them with the same certainty wondering how you got it so wrong.
You will judge their performance. They will recoil at your sincere attempts to better them and they will tell you. [You will love reading exit interviews.]
Some small part of you – the part that made you want to please people until you learned it is not possible — will grow hard like a lump of coal and, ultimately, a diamond replete with occlusions, flaws.
THERE WILL BE A PRICE
Compensation
You will find that wealth is a hard mistress. You cannot get enough of it, but you cannot do good works without it.
Earning it was the payoff for getting it and giving it away is better still. It is a ghost, a hallucination.
You will find that there are more powerful and dear means of compensation:
1. The respect of good men and women
2. Ego enrichment which sounds toxic, but is a true currency
3. Self esteem nourishment which is a drug addiction
There will always be someone who is wealthier, better looking, has a bigger house or prettier wife or better children, but you will know: “I did the best I could with what I had constrained by the reality of time.”
THERE WILL BE A PRICE
Peace
You will for all time second guess everything you have ever done. Not because the outcome was not good, but because in your journey perfect is the mortal enemy of good.
Good is not good enough. Perfect is not attainable.
This will create massive friction and you will torment yourself endlessly.
What you think is peace will really be exhaustion.
THERE WILL BE A PRICE
Risk
You will become a friend of risk and it will burn you. When other lesser men step back, you will move toward the sound of the chaos and think you can make order from it.
Sometimes, you are right. Sometimes, it is hubris.
You will fail. A bold entrepreneur will fail spectacularly twice a year whilst a timid man will also fail twice a year. Yours will be more dazzling and scary.
Your enemies — having enemies shows you stood for something — will laugh and smirk at your failures, but you will personally affirm a great secret: What does not kill you makes you stronger.
It will hurt for a while and then it will transform into power. You can survive anything.
THERE WILL BE A PRICE
Power
Lessons will abound, but one of the most important its this:
The world does not give you power; you must take it and until you take it, you have no power.
Power sits uncomfortably on your shoulders at first, but then it becomes your most comfortable and welcoming garment.
You do not have to show it or exercise it because the most powerful persons deploy its simple presence to change the world.
When used correctly this power allows you to right a few wrongs in the world and that feeds you.
THERE WILL BE A PRICE
Success Is Fleeting
One day you will sell your creation, turn it over to mercantile knaves who bought the income statement, the balance sheet — not the heart and soul of your work.
They will defile it, desecrate your values, and disassemble it while the world applauds your success.
Through it all, you will smile because you have long learned not to reveal the emotions raging in your head.
THERE WILL BE A PRICE
And, yet, you would not have it any other way. Think carefully, dear reader, are you prepared to pay the price?