Does Business Success Require Sacrifices? l Keynote In 5

if you told the majority of the most ambitious kids in this room that they're only gonna make a million bucks a year Max in their career they would think like they [ __ ] up and so I think success got reframed into crazy numbers like you had movies coming out 15 years ago it's like you know what's better than a million a billion like you know it all got weird I think people are confused out there what's success a million dollars 10 million dollars 100 million dollars it's a million dollars like you get to decide what success is what are some of the things that you sacrificed to get where you are today and do you think it's possible to reach a high level of business success without immense sacrifice of course it's a possibility if you decide to Define business success at a certain level I would argue that business that's living and breathing that is alive and growing that makes the founder eight hundred thousand dollars a year is an outrageously successful business the top one percent earners in America make 480 000 a year you're a top one percent success and at eight hundred thousand dollars a year take home from a small business one does not have to sacrifice in the way that the question was posed right at that level you don't have to work 19 hours a day you can have 60 hour work weeks 45 hour work weeks achieve that level of financial success and still have family time and still have your mental health I mean I don't think mental health has a number I know people that are struggling with mental health that have businesses that do forty thousand a year and I know people that have do not have mental health issues and have good you know um content happy peace of mind that run 300 million a year businesses so I don't think Mental Health has a direct attribute with guys and scale I think it goes back a little bit to self-esteem self-awareness I also think for by show of hands because I see most of you how many of you in this class intuitively believe like doing business or being an entrepreneur is as fun to you as like playing sports or watching TV or skiing or like it's like the most fun raise your hand right so like you know for me that group is going to struggle to burn out if their literal favorite thing on earth and their Hobby and their fun is business building of course there's sacrifices but I don't know if you know this there's a lot of people in this classroom Professor you and I know who do not own businesses who are employees who sacrifice things too sacrifice is just a reality of life but you get to decide what success is right like what's success a million dollars 10 million dollars 100 million dollars trillion dollar like you know to me why I love entrepreneurship for me success is being able to do what you want to do every day and living within the means of how much money you have so if you don't have tons and tons of money well then you fly private everywhere anytime you want but having the freedom to create and do your [ __ ] thing well that doesn't take that much money um so you know I think this is a very complex question I think a lot of kids are and a lot of grown-ups are confused by this I don't think you have to be unhappy like you know to like win you know like I think you can build an Empire on your terms and in your way I also think people lack patience I think people want money too fast I think that hurts them I think that's where I think people burn out or sacrifice because they're trying to win too fast to show everybody that they won I'm petrified of people thinking entrepreneurship is cool and like just doing it because they think it's cool it's [ __ ] hard when we were growing up if you've made a million dollars a year you [ __ ] you were big time now like if you told the majority of the most ambitious kids in this room that they're only going to make a million bucks a year Max in their career they would think like they [ __ ] up oh my God and so I think like success got reframed into crazy numbers like you had movies coming out saying like Justin Timberlake's I mean making a movie 15 years ago that's like you know what's better than a million a billion like you know it all got weird and the separation of wealth and Society has gotten weird and too extreme and so like I think people are confused out there uh hi Gary so just relating to the concept of failing fast and learning from your past mistakes how can individuals reframe their perception of failure and um use as a tool for growth

and progress a lot of you were of the generation where failure started to get demonized right back to me and Professor being older like there was no such thing as any trophy for anybody than besides the people that won Little League and so we created a culture in the last 30 40 years where we tried to over protect people from failure you know when you when I hear that question from you I get scared because when I think about the school system Society for the last 30 40 years we didn't do a lot of favors for people to get comfortable with losing we demonized it we by over protecting people from it we made them think it was bad humans not gen Z not emerging gen Alpha not Boomers like humans need to practice losing a lot more so the answer to the question is it's easy go do [ __ ] you'll lose all that entrepreneurship is micro losing with the occasional macro win