How Can I Teach Success When I Haven’t Achieved It?
To be in business school has got me thinking about that. I don’t have experience; everything I know is from textbooks and teachings from my professors, and when I get asked about how to invest or anything money-related, I think about that as well. I’m not rich, how can I tell people how to be rich?
I never had a company (maybe someday), consulted in one, or had the subject that teaches you how to do that yet. Even though I know what to do, I’m afraid to tell people what to do.
Furthermore, I see people with no textbook knowledge giving advice on how to succeed in the things I’ve studied, and I almost always find something wrong about what they are saying. The only difference? They are successful, possibly not in what they are teaching, but how they are teaching, their marketing, the behavior they have, somehow is the only thing needed for people to almost literally treat them as gods, or like their words are the truth of the universe, when it is not the product they are selling, or the advice given that brought them to be what they are today.
The truth is not as engaging as the idyllic bullshit the successful gurus tell. It's frustrating because to say you won’t be rich from night to day is not as appealing to the people that need money. Or that you can’t grow a company from a pre-made company plan, a formula for success, because every company is different, and it takes time and effort to plan and deliver results. It won’t sell to the people that are desperate for money, that have already heard the testimony of a random CEO that is more focused on selling his, soon-to-bankrupt, company stock other than the product (if you see something like this, run for your money and peace, this is a major red flag, especially when the company is a startup).
The economy we live in doesn’t allow us to grow—we need it to survive, to buy food, and to afford a house. The system doesn’t want us to succeed, neither the CEO of “we are the next Silicon Valley big tech, please, buy stock? I promise we’ll make you rich”, as they say.
Also, what does it mean to be successful? This is a question everybody should ask themselves. What society tells you success is might not be what you really want, and I think, once you find your passion, what you really want in life, and work hard on making it, you are already a successful person and the income is just a bonus for it.
So ask yourself: What does success mean to you?