A 15-year-old emailed me last week and asked a question I wish I
A 15-year-old emailed me last week and asked a question I wish I had thought to ask at 15:
“If you were 15 again, what would you spend the next few years learning?”
I’ve been an entrepreneur most of my life, and I’ve made enough costly mistakes to have a pretty clear answer.
I sent him five things:
•1. Learn who you are.
Figure out what you’re unusually good at, what gives you energy, and what feels natural to you.
I spent too much of my early career trying to get good at things I didn’t like doing and trying to be more like other people.
The older I get, the more valuable I find authenticity.
•2. Collect experiences.
At 14, I worked in a grocery store and learned customer service.
Later, I started an online store and learned websites, ecommerce, marketing, sales, and drop shipping.
At the time, none of these experiences looked connected.
Years later, they were.
•3. Expect your first idea to change.
Nintendo made playing cards.
Nokia made paper.
Samsung sold fish.
3M started as a mining company.
Wrigley sold soap.
A business usually reveals itself as you build it.
Pay attention to what customers are telling you.
•4. Learn from people a few miles ahead of you.
Early in my career, I thought everyone else was doing things wrong.
That was expensive.
Talking to someone who has already climbed the mountain can save you a lot of unnecessary climbing.
You still make your own decisions. You just make them with more information.
•5. Choose the people around you carefully.
Friends. Business partners. Mentors. Eventually, the person you marry.
Those decisions shape almost every other decision you make.
Looking back, I wouldn’t spend 15 to 20 trying to figure out exactly what company I was going to build.
I’d spend it learning, trying things, meeting people, making mistakes, and paying attention to what I was unusually good at.
The business can come later.
The experiences compound.
If you were 15 again, what would you spend the next few years learning?