“If you are not a millionaire or bankrupt by the time you are thirty, you are not really trying.” -- Nolan Bushnell

“A ball player has got to be kept hungry to become a big leaguer. That's why no boy from a rich family has ever made it to the big leagues.” –Joe DiMaggio

 

When Jonathan Wiley enrolled in the undergraduate business program of his Ivy League university, he expected to become a “business man” upon graduation.  The means by which this transformation was supposed to happen were a complete mystery to him.  He had no idea what he meant by “business man,” but in his mind it conjured up images of him wearing a suit every day, carrying a briefcase, and making a lot of money.      

After Johnny’s freshman year, he learned to distinguish finance, accounting, and marketing as different fields within the business world.  Unfortunately, he had no passion for any of these professions.  For whatever reason, being a Wall Street trader inspired no interest in him.  Among his friends, he was one of the few people who wasn’t interested enough to finish reading Liar’s Poker.  The more he learned about accounting, the more he knew he didn’t want to become an accountant.  He also found that he had no desire for a career in marketing. 

The reality struck him one day that he just didn’t get excited by his career choices.  He had spent all those hours studying, but he had no idea what the next step would be when he graduated.  The following semester Johnny enrolled in his first entrepreneurship class.  Many of the professors were self-made millionaires, who preached the virtues of entrepreneurship. Their message was simple, “go and work for yourself.”  Since Jonny couldn’t figure out what career he wanted, the idea of becoming an entrepreneur intrigued him. 

Being a student of entrepreneurship meant listening to lectures from entrepreneurs and analyzing case studies.  Johnny learned how successful entrepreneurs took the road less traveled and were rewarded.  Before long, he was sitting in the lecture hall thinking that now was the best time in his life to be taking risks.  After all, he was young and had no family to support.  Besides, he wanted to become wealthy while he was still in his twenties, so he could really enjoy it.  

Johnny was more excited by the prospect of building his own company than starting at the ground floor of someone else’s firm.  It felt good to think he might have some control over his future.  It also felt good to "think big."  Johnny looked at the portraits of the school’s benefactors hanging in  buildings around campus and realized that most of these moguls acquired their wealth through self-employment.  He wanted to become one of them.   

When Johnny was back home visiting his family for the holidays, he sat down with his father to discuss his “future.”  He tried explaining to his father, who was paying his son's tuition, why he considered becoming an entrepreneur instead of taking a job in finance or consulting.  At first, his father rolled his eyes at him, but Johnny pressed his cause and told his father how he intended to come up with a good business idea, raise financing capital, and manage the company for a few years before selling his stake for a huge profit.

When his father objected, Johnny argued, “I don’t need to have ‘experience’ to operate a company, because I can hire other people to help me.”  When his father asked, "And what do you plan to do with yourself after you sell your shares?" Johnny responded, “I’ll do it again with another business.  I’ll become a serial entrepreneur.”  In Johnny’s mind, it was all that simple.

Unfortunately, Johnny didn’t have a clue about the type of business that best suited him.  He was willing to consider almost any idea in any market, provided the company could make money.  It sounded ridiculous, but if someone had presented him with an idea to sell widgets on the street corner, he would have considered it.  Provided he thought it could make him rich, he was able to rationalize his involvement in almost any new venture.