#60 - Is college important before starting a business?

Summary

Going to college or not can feel like the most important decision of a lifetime. Standing in front of such an important choice can easily cause confusion, apathy and a feeling of overwhelming.

Erik Bergman has built a company with 300+ employees. Today we explore his perspective of the importance of a college degree both as an employer and as an employee.

One of the most common questions that Erik gets from social media is "Is college important before starting a business and becoming an entrepreneur?" or "Is college even important?". We are no experts in this topic but we have lots of thoughts and our own experiences to share.

Some questions we touch upon is:

• Is college important as an entrepreneur?
• Why didn't we go to college ourselves?
• How did our parents take that?
• When is it a good idea to not go to college?
• What skills are most important for an entrepreneur, and is college the best place to learn them?

Today's episode is an entrepreneurship episode, where Erik and Emil explore topics about how to become a better business person.

We are often sharing real life examples that have happened previously in our careers. What we have learned, who we have learned from and how we have applied that into our real lives. Everything in a mix with personal thoughts and reflections.

We start this episode by exploring what "college" even means. As two swedes this is a somewhat confusing terms that has been romanticised by teen comedy movies.

We move on to describe the confusion that is very common to feel when standing in front of such an important decision. It can feel like the entire future depends on this and that's a very overwhelming feeling.

From there we move on to talk about what skillsets we believe is great for an entrepreneur to learn and how college can be used to find those skills. How networking can play an important role and how college can be great place to find likeminded people with inspiring goals.

Is college important before starting a business and becoming an entrepreneur?

Transcript

[00:00:50] Are you about to make what will feel like the biggest decision of your entire life and hey, it might be. And the decision is, should you go to college or not? What is in college?

[00:01:08] Wasn't that a dramatic opening? That was really dramatic opening, but I was like, no. Yeah, that was the most dramatic I can go.

[00:01:18] I actually never really understood. OK. College is an American term, right? Yeah. And so officially, it's so confusing. It's. I actually don't know, even though we have been looking into this, cause it's it's like different everywhere, but what is our definition of college?

[00:01:34] Ok, so our definition of college is, are you going to choose to study after whatever studies is mandatory in in your country, like are you 18, 19, whatever the age is and you're about to choose? Am I going off to university or college or whatever the fancy word is? Yeah. Why should you just skip it? Rock and roll and become an entrepreneur.

[00:01:58] And I did a dramatic introduction to this kind of tongue-in-cheek. And at the same time, this is a tricky decision.

[00:02:08] If you are standing in front of this, it's very natural to have fear of messing up your future like I do if you go or if you choose to stay. That that comes with fear and. Also, there's so many conflicting feelings, right?

[00:02:24] I remember second year in in before whatever they were, wherever I was, one year before I was quitting school. I was so tired of it. And I just wanted to get out and follow my passion.

[00:02:37] But at the same time, I really wanted to stay put and make sure that I got good grades in case I would ever need them for a job or whatever. And also, what would my parents think if I didn't stay in school? They had invested so much in it, so many confusing ideas or put together.

[00:02:56] We're going on a really long into here.

[00:02:59] Yeah, I love it.

[00:03:02] I'll just jump in to introduce you. Yes, I'm here with e-mail. My good friend. And in this beautiful new studio of ours. In this beautiful lie. So pretty. Yeah. And very good friend of mine is the host of this coming great dot.com podcast. And he was the first one joining me. Great.

[00:03:22] Thank you. I'm also the host of our other podcast. Great. Com Cox Web.

[00:03:27] We went to your different shadow organizations. And if you haven't checked that out yet. Go on. Go check it out. It's very interesting, but it's probably. It's probably going to be in the description. Now, I'm here with Eric, who is the founder of Great. Is the founder of Catina Media, a company that ran up 300 employees, probably college dropouts and college graduates.

[00:03:51] So you have a lot of experience of not only being an entrepreneur and creating your own company. You also have a lot of experience of hiring people. And I'm just curious myself to know how important is a college degree for you? Don't answer now, but I want to find out your perspective later. Get there. We'll get there.

[00:04:11] And hey, if you knew here, this podcast is called Becoming Great Dot Com. And the reason we do this is because we want to help people who wants to make the world a better place. Transparent ownership.

[00:04:24] And why are we talking about college today?

[00:04:28] So this is actually one of the most common questions that I get. Should I go to college? Is that a good or bad idea? And there seems to be so much confusion about this question. And I understand that it's like this big life decision, or at least it feels like that big of a decision. And I don't have the right answer. But I'm happy to kind of discuss it and see where we end up on it. Yeah. You didn't go to college. Why didn't you go to college?

[00:05:01] Because I found the biggest passion of my entire life when I was 16. So that was the second one and a half year to go of school.

[00:05:11] I found poker and that escalated when I found online poker, which meant that I could play 24/7. I remember last year in school, I slept for three hours per night than average. Was that a good idea? No, because I was so tired. I went from having the highest grade in almost all grades to having the highest grade in like one grade. And I also didn't make any money from poker because I was too tired. I played horrible, but yeah, I knew.

[00:05:44] School, yes, didn't seem important for me at all anymore because I knew that after school I'm going to play poker. I had a huge passion in this. I was good at it. I knew that I could make money from it. So it wasn't even I never even considered it.

[00:05:58] Do you think it was the right call? Oh, yeah.

[00:06:00] Fajar for me, because it was such a rare opportunity to find something that I was good at. I loved that I could make money from.

[00:06:10] Okay. So what can someone else learn from that experience? If you're a confused teenager right now thinking about should I or should I not go to college? What can what can your perspective teach them?

[00:06:21] Like I said in the introduction.

[00:06:24] It depends on what is the reason why you are anxious of school and want to do something else.

[00:06:30] Are you just bored and tired of it with no real good alternative, then?

[00:06:36] Probably it's a smart thing to stick it out. But if you have something truly passionate about. You feel like I had Sered up, that this is what I'm going to do. The deep conviction, if you are coming from that place of conviction and passion, then, yeah. Thinks pursue that first. You can always change your mind later, OK?

[00:06:59] If you are very confused about should I go to school or not, then it's probably a good idea to go to school. But if you feel I really want to pursue this dream, I really love poker. I really want to build this, this business idea or whatever it is, then it might be a good option to just skip school and go ahead with me. How come you didn't go to school? Was it poker as well? Yeah. So I was also playing poker and. Yeah, and I never actually really considered going starting. I actually started studying when I was 20. I had just started my business. I was still playing poker and I moved to Stockholm from my hometown. And I started studying mainly to get to know people. Mm hmm. And I think I went to school for like three weeks and then set three solid weeks of university, you know. But it was the same for me. I didn't go. I started going to school mainly because I wanted to meet exciting people. And I was already starting the company. I was poker. I didn't feel I never felt confused. I never felt should I or should I not. I always felt like this is direction I want to go in.

[00:08:22] And what did your parents say when you decided not to go? I actually never had any problems with my parents when I played poker.

[00:08:34] Not only real problems, I wouldn't say. I think I'm a very kind of they learned earlier it's hard to stop me now. There wasn't really against me playing poker either. And I think that comes from. I started with zero, so I started playing free poker tournaments. No money whatsoever. And then suddenly I started winning because it was very easy back then. Like, it's not today. It's really hard to.

[00:09:02] If you're listening. Don't play poker. It's it's over.

[00:09:06] It's so hard to make money. It is 15 years ago. Everybody you're seeing now today are way too good. Fifteen years ago, no one had 15 years of experience.

[00:09:14] Today, there are lots of people with 15 years of experience. But they couldn't really say, well, they never said anything because I didn't put any money into it. And I started winning. And it's your money. It was my money. One thing that my mother really wanted because she was concerned was that every month I put some of my winnings into a bank account that she controlled. I couldn't control it. That that was a buffer in case I actually had lost a lot of money that I wouldn't tell them about. So that way she felt that she could trust me, because if I could put I don't how a couple of hundred euros or a thousand euros into a bank account in her name. Obviously, that was my money. She just kept it for me. Then she felt safe, me not gambling on my life savings away. I think that was a good way. No, I never. But I think that came from my my conviction in this as well.

[00:10:09] Yeah. You have problems with your plans?

[00:10:12] My experience is very similar. My mom was very worried because I was doing gambling. My dad really prioritized education. He was, I guess, disappointed at first that I wasn't going to the same university that he did. That was his plan. But when I started winning early, he was excited for me and his math guy. So he was like, I think he likes the idea of gambling somehow. My father was the same. But but the thing is, there was no stopping me. They would not have mattered what they said. There was just this deep conviction that this is what I'm supposed to do right now. So that made it much easier because they saw about.

[00:10:59] I think the conviction here is an important part. You know, if you're confused, if you don't know what you want to do or not, then you probably don't have the conviction that it takes to go after something. That's probably your know, right? Yeah. If you don't have hell. Yeah.

[00:11:15] That was I was willing to do anything to become good at poker. I was dedicating my whole life to it. Yes. I like it so much.

[00:11:29] Now we have the Swedish perspective as well. I mean, in Sweden, school is free. Yeah. So it's it's easy to say that if you don't know what to do in Sweden, then school is probably a good idea. If you have to pay for it, I don't know how much colleges in the US, for example. But I'm thinking it's expensive. So how should you think that if if school is expensive.

[00:11:50] I'm no expert. I don't know how necessary college is for your ability to find work in the US. But my gut feeling is that now you're standing in front of the reverser risk as you're doing in Sweden, where if you're starting to become, let's say, a doctor in the US, then I would at least want a certain amount of conviction that I want to do this for five, 10, 20 years. However long time it's going to take for you to repay the cost of having that education.

[00:12:20] Yeah. So what you're saying is in Sweden, if you're gonna should decide to go to college, you're not. You should go to college unless you feel you absolutely want to do something else. And in the US, if you're going to decide what to study, then it's probably more important to know I want to study because that's the financial risk. Yeah, but if you just take a regular job, whatever in food markets or anything, you start earning money instead of needing to pay money, you start earning money and you give yourself time to develop as a person.

[00:12:51] Trust me, you might feel like you know everything, something.

[00:12:55] Is this going to become apparent?

[00:12:57] What to do? But I thought I understood myself underworld when I was 19. I was an idiot. You're still an idiot. My father. But I like you anyway. I, I'm over it. When you look back at this.

[00:13:10] When you listen to this podcast. In the year 2030 AIDS, you'll look back at little childhood ailments.

[00:13:17] I told you, I'm aging backwards. These things. Benjamin Button's aging backwards. Right.

[00:13:25] I like that way of thinking about it.

[00:13:27] In the US, it's probably good with more conviction to study. No, not enough about study.

[00:13:35] I would calculate how long time will I have to be in this job? Just to be break even.

[00:13:40] Is it.

[00:13:42] I'm guessing that a lot of the time you're not going to college for a specific job like doctors you do.

[00:13:47] But if you go there to study your seven, I guess I saw a sunrise law or economics or you have some sort of idea what path lies ahead of you unless you doing entrepreneurship where kind of anything can happen.

[00:14:02] Because you're getting employed, right?

[00:14:04] Yeah, not necessarily, I mean, if you. So let's take this from the perspective of if you want to be an entrepreneur. Is college a good idea or not? Should I go to college as an entrepreneur? And I believe that if you have a great idea in mind, you really feel passionately about one idea. Take a year and try it. And if it's an idea that you can do at the same time as you go into college, because I imagine that a lot of people have a lot of parents have saved up. They're really expecting you to go to college, go to college, but don't feel that you have to put the business to decide. I think college or university or whatever is a great place to start a business because you studying. I mean, to be fair, it's not a full time thing for most people. You can go to college and you can have a side business, spend one, two, three, five hours a day on it and you can do it for a couple of years and then drop out. It's not a necessity to complete it just because you started starting a business on the side while studying, maybe with someone you needing school or in one of these clubs and school is probably a great place to start a business.

[00:15:18] And I want to underscore again that we don't know the details of what the school system looks like. Where do you live? We don't know if your parents have saved money for you. So all of those things make your own decisions about this. I think the main point of this conversation is to spark ideas and point of views. Look at this decision from and I think something that can be very valuable, done for. We'll get back to how you can meet other people in college soon. But I'm super curious to understand you as an employer, someone that has run a company with three hundred and produce. How important for you is that someone has that degree? When I was in school, it seemed like the most important thing in the whole world. That degree. That's what teachers said.

[00:16:08] Yeah. So I think that degree is superimportant in like classical jobs. Like, if you're gonna be a doctor or a lawyer or financial controller or whatever, you're going to need a degree. But if you're gonna work for a tech startup kind of company with our first 10 employees, I think five of them didn't even finish school for college. They didn't have. He didn't complete their grades when they were 18. I mean, my co-founder of the other company, he didn't have finished grades for it. He was a dropout even before college, which probably isn't a good idea to suggest.

[00:16:50] Just say how much he made from Katrina. Okay.

[00:16:54] We made a lot of money, but he built a calculator when he was eight. So if you have built a calculator when you're eight, it's OK to skip school. So what?

[00:17:05] What were you looking for in these people then? If you decided to hire them in spite of the college degree?

[00:17:13] There's probably not a good idea to look for, what did I look for in beginning because I had absolutely zero experience hiring and I was twenty four when I start hiring people. But what I would look for today, I would look for curiosity, like how eager is a person to learn? I would look for. Passion like what is it that they want to do? Why did they look for this job? That's like the first question I ask people who reach out and want to work with me. Like, why me and people who say because I want to be rich? It's just a really shitty answer that people have listened to a lot of content or done a lot of research and have a good reason why they reach out to me is like, OK, this person had thought this through. This person knows why they're doing this. They're not sending out a hundred CS to any reason to do this. They think showing that conviction to me is crucial. Writing well is something that I look a lot like. How well do they formulate their first e-mails to me? Have they given this any thought? Or is it clear like they just wrote something and clicked send like is this well thought through is the correct grammar in Chromatics because it's show that that is a personality type that is willing to put in that little extra effort.

[00:18:36] Yeah. And all of those things, passion, enthusiasm, those must be harder for you as an employee.

[00:18:43] And as an employer, to train with someone who know when I think about seven people in great right now, I have no idea who has a degree.

[00:18:52] I don't think anyone does your work and probably does. I don't. I don't even know who has degrees in our business.

[00:18:57] Didn't ask for anyone. So that says quite a bit to the degree. It's a very special company. Right. So it's a very sort of high across the board at all.

[00:19:07] No, I mean, if you're gonna be a lawyer, if you want to be working in big scale businesses like, I don't know, Mercedes or Deloitte or whatever, they're probably gonna ask for your degree. But I don't think it's it's a necessity in most is the degree in itself. That is, I think that there is a lot of beneficial things about going to college. If you don't know what you're gonna do otherwise, I think the networking. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:19:37] But for now, we're getting back into this really interesting topic. But I'm sure our producer want to cut in like a music thing here. So how about we create our own. He can cut it away and put in his own music thing. OK. Say that question again and allude with us. What is the benefits of college? Except for a degree in itself?

[00:20:03] I believe a really crucial part about college is finding like minded people and. Young people who choose to study business, for example, the most likely have a an innate interest in studying business. So a lot of them are going to want to start companies. So if you network with the ones in your class, but also be very, very active in. In the different clubs of schools, I told you that I went to school for three weeks, but I stayed in school for a year hanging out with the People in the Economy group. So there was like an economy club club in my school. They were actually like competing in the Swedish Championships of economy. And I went with them to like parties and their events and stuff like that, because those were really ambitious. People really wanted to do things. And I'm still in contact with some of them 10 years later. And I think that's being in those clubs. The only people in those clubs are people who are willing to walk the extra mile. Otherwise, they wouldn't be in that club. So if that is the football team, because they're willing to walk the extra mile in terms of sports or it's the economy club or math club or whatever it is, all of those are people who are willing to walk the extra mile because otherwise it would be at home watching Netflix.

[00:21:24] I think that's crucial.

[00:21:25] Part of it could find those people outside of school as well. Lauren?

[00:21:29] Yeah, definitely. It's just school is a very easy place to find them. All of those appropriate bond, I get to do projects together or whatever. During the same part of life, if you go out networking elsewhere, maybe you'll meet people who have kids, have other jobs. They have they live in different places. You do it in school. Everyone is in the more or less exact same chapter of life as you are. No one already runs a big company. You could start a company with him. No one has a job, or at least not a full time job because of them. They wouldn't be in school. Almost no one have kids. So when whoever you meet is going to be a lot more like you, them outside of school.

[00:22:13] And then if you have a passion, then you could always run that on the side.

[00:22:17] Like you said, you can maybe find a friend in school that can you can run it on the side with.

[00:22:22] Yeah. I mean, one of the lowest pressure. Yeah. I mean, when we started Catina with the first two years, that was a hobby. We spent maybe five, 10 hours a week on that. We two years. The first year we made a thousand dollars for that full year. The second year we made maybe ten thousand dollars. And first the third year we started doing it full time. So we did this. We didn't even start school. Well, I once for school for three weeks during this period. But this could have been, let's say, a thing to do in college. Maybe you make a thousand euros the first year doing this or dollars or whatever. And then the second year in school, you're still running this as a side business and you make ten thousand dollars and like, hey, that's like eight hundred dollars a month. Maybe it's time to then you can drop the step. Yeah. Then you can drop out or take a year off format's and see where it goes because you're not just risking so much. You're already, you already built something.

[00:23:21] I want to touch upon what skill sets are necessary to become an entrepreneur. And I think that is so important to have a mindset of how can I improve my skills instead of the mindset of how can I make money or have this company? I think if you focus on the skills, you are going to have those things as a side effect of you being able to provide value. So which skills that you see as crucial for an entrepreneur?

[00:23:51] Can you learn very well in college?

[00:23:54] Networking is a first one which we touched upon. That's a big part of college. I would say, second, when and with networking that would your focus be on the net, the value of the networking itself or the value of practicing the skill of networking? Because you wouldn't need that later.

[00:24:11] Good question.

[00:24:15] Both I would say I like the idea of thinking in on it as I'm practicing networking now, putting myself in situations where I might be uncomfortable. I'm learning how to interact better with people. I'm learning to understand what to other people want. And how can I help them to get that? Yeah, I'm coming. Great at listening. That's so crucial. Become a better listener because then you can understand so much more about other people. Yeah. Yeah. And.

[00:24:46] I think that is important, too. And a reason why I think it's important that if you are doing it to create a certain outcome that is the network with this specific relationship, then you are going to be scared to lose that person. And I think a very good way to learn a skill or any skill social skill is that be too much sometimes. Ask some weird questions. Be ready to be the weird guy. Maybe you loose this relationship, but at least now you know. Right. So be willing to take many risks when you're socializing. Go ask someone that you think I can't go up to that person. I'm not that their level try. They might laugh you off, but at some point you're building that skill set.

[00:25:32] I can see that, so I'm a person that is fearless socially and that you can do in college or anywhere in college, just a good skills, super good skill to learn. Yeah. Practice to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations. You know.

[00:25:47] And what I like about networking is socializing as a skill for an entrepreneur is that. That is so useful. What ever company you're running. Yes. So some scale servers are specialized, like poker, unfortunately.

[00:26:01] Touch social. So if I only learned that instead, I would have other friends than, you know. OK.

[00:26:10] So to go back to your question, what good skills can you learn in college? Networking is one of them. Learning in general, I would say, is a more important skill than what you learn. What I mean by that is like learn how to learn, how to memorize things, how to find out what your interest again when there is a boring topic in school. Figure out how to make that fun for you. Maybe that teacher is really boring. OK, then maybe the best idea for you is to go and find a better teacher on YouTube or find a broadcaster talks about this or find someone in your class. You can kind of learn this together with if you can make any topic interesting. That's super skill because it's a super skill. As an entrepreneur, you would run into so many things that are boring and becoming good at asking for help, becoming good at practicing that is such an important, so important.

[00:27:06] Figure out how you learn. Like in school, you only get to try books, but maybe you haven't. You haven't tried podcasts in school. You haven't tried YouTube in school. I learned by far the best from YouTube. I never try. I never learned from you to be my whole school.

[00:27:20] No, I didn't really exist. I didn't exist. But it would have been so much easier if I would have been able to learn Vishal.

[00:27:33] Another really crucial thing about college is to learn learning. Even if you have a boring topic, and maybe specially if you have a boring topic and a boring teacher, you can practice here is to learn learning because as an entrepreneur. Pretty much the most important skill you can have is curiosity and wanting to learn things and being good at having Google as your best friend. Yeah, that's something. Learn how to Google things.

[00:28:02] Can you just share on your journey towards getting media some insanely boring things you've had to learn?

[00:28:12] I'm not sure if you think that's one of the crucial things that I've learned that.

[00:28:17] Nothing is really boring to learn if you're just like my superpower, because some things about law and economics and stuff and things and some things have been the most challenging has been how do I deal with this financial bookkeeping situation? Things like that. And I remember I was going to hire my first financial guy and I didn't know what questions to ask. I didn't know how to deal with this, how to hire someone who's supposed to be an accountant when you don't know accounting. And he had this CV with M CFF, a CPB, whatever. Different observations that kind of told me what degree and another look. I have no idea what this is. And I then found someone who could help me, who are sitting with me in the interviews. Actually, a friend of a friend was with me in those interviews helping me with that process and being able to be with me. So that was one way to kind of not even needing to learn that part of this, because I couldn't learn to determine if this financial person was good or not. Within just within a couple of days before the interview. But that way I could kind of get someone in there.

[00:29:34] I don't think there's been anything.

[00:29:38] Have considered, like, super boring to learn and.

[00:29:43] Something has been really hard. I've been struggling with it in various ways, but. I think if you two is an amazing teacher, it's nothing compared to Google because Google can give you answers to anything and if it's one superpower that I would like people to have one. You're gonna be an entrepreneur to ask Google for answers. Don't even find a mentor. Google is fast to get good at doing things good. I get so many questions from people that would have been much, much, much faster and better answered by Google. And just getting into the habit of can I Google? This will be a super skill and using that in school than if you're in college. Being good at Googling. Being good at knowing. Where can I find reliable information. Yeah. I mean, I Google everything and I think that's a crucial skill to learn. And let's say you have a boring topic in school. Learn to Google ways and understand these things. Learn to find sources that you enjoy. Find podcasts. Find YouTube videos. Or find even people who are really passionate about this. Find your own teacher if you. Because in school you have someone else have decided what you're supposed to learn in business. No one has told you what to learn. You need to find your own paths to learning and find new perspectives.

[00:31:02] Some things often as well. In school, you learn things. I was put in the books 30 years ago, probably.

[00:31:09] Yeah. I've been on that data. Yeah. So networking and learning are also the two most crucial skills that you can learn in school or outside of school. And you can learn them regardless of what college degree you're going for. Whatever school it is that you're going for. And those are two of the most crucial things that you can have in. When you meet as an entrepreneur.

[00:31:36] And then find a way to learn that is fun for you. Maybe for one person, books for one is podcast's for one is YouTube and unspecialized and apply it to whatever you're doing in school right now, regardless if you're in college or if you're in junior high or high school or whatever all of these words are that I don't really know what they mean. So one more skill set is useful.

[00:31:59] And.

[00:32:02] So one thing that I believe is super crucial as an entrepreneur is to take small, calculated risks. So one thing that is common, I believe, when people think of entrepreneurs is people that take you to risks your Kristoffer Colombo's you are going straight out over the ocean because you're gonna find America. And when you're halfway or out of food and you're kind of saying other, we'll go forward and we'll see if we find something or we go back. That's like. The kind of perfect example of an entrepreneur you launch to Elon Musk and you like, I'm gonna go to Mars.

[00:32:37] I think that's.

[00:32:39] The wrong interpretation of what is an entrepreneur, I think successful entrepreneur. Most of the time is someone who takes a lot of small risks and never risk it all. Because if you risk it all, you can only be wrong once and you can't really afford to be wrong once. I've been wrong so many times and it takes a longer time to rebuild. If you lose it all. Yes. Sometimes a continent. I think that what you touched upon before learning social skills can be part of that. Take risks socially. Go up and talk to that man or woman, or try something new. Just make a fool out of yourself because that's taking a small risk that can have big return. I mean, going up and talking to that girl, that's probably the smallest risk you can take compared to the returns you can have. Good. Worst case scenario, she doesn't like it. Best case scenario, do you fall in love and you spend the rest of your life together?

[00:33:36] Yeah. Or you try 100 more times. And then when you meet the right girl, you now have built up the confidence and social skills to mesmerize her.

[00:33:45] Yeah. Learn how to take small risks. I would say is a crucial part of college as well. Start a small business. Don't drop out of college. Start a small little side product with case you fail. It's not the end of the world. Join one of the sports. They around with it and see what happens. Talk to people. Just take a lot of small risks and take very, very few big risks, especially if you're talking about risking a lot of your money.

[00:34:13] This time, money can be spent to buy the most valuable thing in the world. Which is your time? Freedom to learn things that you are passionate about. That you then can apply to your entrepreneurship.

[00:34:26] Yeah. If you have money, you can spend that to survive for a while. Instead of taking the job. Yeah. Don't start a business that requires a lot of money in the beginning because it's very likely you will fail. Almost.

[00:34:43] Off the top of my head, I don't know any entrepreneur who succeeded on the first try.

[00:34:48] Anyone I know, I know a lot of people are on companies and I can't think of anyone who succeeded with their first one. Such an interesting insight and thought of that. Maybe one. Yeah. You prepared to fail. Don't put up too much money in the beginning because then it's gone. Earn.

[00:35:15] I'm curious to talk about how you can even talk with your parents about the idea of dropping out to school. I mean, they might be word or upset. You have some more skill you want to explore before we go there.

[00:35:26] No, let's go there. Okay. I think that's a very common thing. I mean, if you have the same conviction that we had, our parents probably gave up long before they even tried having that conversation. But a lot of parents, I don't think, do especially stuff to put money into it, how they put money into it. I think a very crucial part about this is not to try to convince your parents that this is the right thing. The crucial part is to start by listening to their perspective, like sit down and like try to understand why is it so important to your parents that you go to school and make them feel that you're really listening and valuing their opinion? Because if you're just saying your thing, your thing, your thing, they're gonna feel that you haven't even listened to their aspect. And that's why you. I mean, taking in the information so you can't possibly be right. How are they gonna react then? I believe that if if they don't feel listened to, they're gonna get angry. They're going to feel disrespected. They're not going to trust your judgment because you haven't even listened to their their thoughts and their perspectives on this.

[00:36:37] But if the other hand, is a better word for Lissome than to ask questions and really want to find out what their perspective is.

[00:36:45] Yeah. I mean, to me, sounds like you are not saying things. I think that's an important distinction to make them.

[00:36:54] Thank you. Active listening. Yeah, I mean, listen to understand, ask a lot of questions before you start to tell them why you don't want to do something. Try to understand why they want you to do something.

[00:37:09] And it's.

[00:37:11] I believe that a lot of parents are not listening to their tea and their teenagers when they say I want to drop out of school. They're like, that's a stupid idea. You stay in school. And I think that comes a lot from that. The parents aren't being listened to either or understood. I believe this comes from experience with that particular situation. But my experience with other situations, when I feel that people don't understand me and if I focus all of my energy on understanding their perspective fears, I'm not arguing against them. I'm just trying to listen, ask questions. When when I can make them feel that they have have gotten the time to communicate everything they want to tell me when they have gotten their message clear, then they are so much more receptive of whatever it is that I want to say. Then they are more or less open to hear me out because they feel that I heard them out. So I think one of the problems with trying to just tell your parents I'm going to drop out is that the parents haven't got the time to tell their story. Everyone who asks me questions about how to talk to their parents just ask me, how can I convince my parents this is a good idea.

[00:38:20] It's like you're starting in the wrong end. You don't know why they think college is so important. Exactly. You don't understand why. What was the consequences when they were in school? If you didn't go to college.

[00:38:31] Yeah. Convince. I believe this is a really bad word. I think if if you really understand your parents.

[00:38:43] And they take the time to really understand you, which I believe at least a lot of parents, not all parents, but a lot of parents will once they feel listened to and heard and understood. I don't think convincing is needed to the same extent, because then it will be so much easier for them to see why you really want this.

[00:39:02] So. What should you do then if a parent comes?

[00:39:10] Gets so afraid that they.

[00:39:14] For example, I forbid you to do this, you have to do something starts to make an order, so you have kind of what I would call toxic behavior. I mean, it's really, really hard.

[00:39:27] It's I think you get a long way with listening. I think you get a long way by asking questions and trying to understand. And at the same time, it's not gonna solve every situation at every time. And if a parent is far too demanding and you're not getting anywhere.

[00:39:49] I don't have the perfect solution for it.

[00:39:52] I think really trying to understand them the most you possibly can is a good start. And if that really doesn't work, then you either have to obey or disobey, either listen to their accommodation or iest, go the other way and do your own thing.

[00:40:13] I don't have a native superpower to. Be so calm and grounded that you can.

[00:40:22] Respond to orders and accusations and demands with questions. Why is this so important for you? How would it feel for you if I didn't go to school and. I messed up my economy. With that fate make you feel unsafe. Would that make you feel like a failed parent? Of course, you can't speak like that to every parent.

[00:40:45] But I think that you get so far with silence. I think that's the easiest trick because to be able to find the right answers and the right way of communicating to people is really hard. I think by just not interrupting someone who's talking and just listening and looking at them and really try to understand them. I think you get so far. That's my experience at. Most, most a lot of people keep talking, and even if you don't even understand them, as long as they feel that you're trying. That means a lot. I never tried to understand my parents when I was a teenager. I. I screamed and I did it my way. And that hurt our relationship. And I believe that. And it was the same with the other way around. I didn't feel listened to. And you feel that they tried to understand me. But today, when I'm in similar situations.

[00:41:48] I very rarely talk until I feel that the other person is down talking. And I very rarely ask questions, but only after. Like at least 10 seconds of silence or when it's really, really clear that they are done talking.

[00:42:11] Ok, so would you like to summarize what we've been talking about in this episode?

[00:42:16] Yes, so when it comes to. School or not school?

[00:42:22] I think the most crucial part is, are you running towards something or are you running away from something? And if you feel I really want to start this business idea or I really want to pursue this poker career in our case or this football career or whatever it is, you're running towards passion, go with a passion. But if you feel that all school just sounds boring, I don't really know what I'm going to do. I just I don't really know. And it's probably a good place to start school and then rather drop out of school later. When you find something, start school and keep exploring other options, start a side business, get a hobby, meet people, see where it takes you. It's easier to drop out of school than it is to realize four years later that you wish you would have done it and you haven't done anything with your life.

[00:43:13] So that's like the main takeaway from this. And. Yeah, school could be important. It's not superimportant. There are tons of businesses you can do without it. Tons of jobs you can get without it. But it's a good way to learn skills. And it's a good way to network.

[00:43:32] And learning the skills. Should be the main focus.

[00:43:37] Learn the skills if you want to be an entrepreneur. If you get out of school, that's a life mindset as well. Learn the skills, skills.

[00:43:46] So psychedelics as podcasts. What should they do? Let's move this way and address people might be watching this on YouTube.

[00:43:54] I would highly recommend you check out our YouTube channel. But if you're listening to us on a podcast, stop and you feel like, OK, I got benefit from this. And I would like for more entrepreneurial minded people to get a chance to listen to discount self conversations. The best thing you can do to help us is to go into your podcast, step and press subscribe. And the reason why that is helping us is because. How high ranked you get in podcast? Top lists doesn't have to do with the amount of total listeners.

[00:44:27] It has to do with a subscriber to listener ratio, which means that even if we are at play me time and time again a podcast.

[00:44:36] So can we get into these top lists? And that means that a lot more people can hear these messages that we want to give to the world.

[00:44:45] Did I get that? That I did I. It's solid, solid. OK, let's stop there and I'll see you next week.

[00:44:52] Thank you.