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You’re Not a Failure. You’re a Work In Progress.
Life is a single-player game. Stop comparing your stats.
Last week, one of my oldest friends told me he feels “behind” in life. He’s 27, he’s switching jobs more often than he’d like to, and he feels strongly that he is failing at the game of life. I’m not going to tell him how to feel. But I would like to remind him a few things.
First of all, stop treating your life as a finished project. Over my career, I wrote a LOT about successful entrepreneurs. I’ve listened to countless hours of interviews and talks by some of the very best. I’ve interviewed a couple dozen myself. If I had to extract one single lesson from their stories, it would be this: nobody, not even themselves, could or did predict the success of their companies. Or the timing. It all just comes together, almost as a by-product.
Age is the most ridiculous metric you could use to measure progress. I’m not even talking about the fact that most entrepreneurs find their success at 45, not 25. I’m talking about the fact that age no longer plays a role in professional success. Here’s a 9-year-old kid who’s made 30$ million on Youtube. Fashion designer Vera Wang didn’t design her first dress until she was 40. Age may not be just a number, but it certainly is in business.
