Skip to main content

Is it too late to start?

All I want to do is be more like me and be less like you...

This article is dedicated to my girlfriend, I think both of us need to read this...

Last night I was reading about all the successful entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley and their ages: when they started their business.

It was quite depressing that most of those geniuses started their entrepreneurial hustle in their early twenties.

Those data are dejecting, especially for new entrepreneurs. Initially, I thought I am too old to start a new business. I started searching for expert opinions in the internet writing:

‘Am I too late to be an entrepreneur?’

Most of the suggestions you’ll find online have a common genre like: ‘Age is just a number; you are never too late to start. If you follow your heart, destiny will follow you back.’

It takes time to build something from the scratch, Photo by Rodolfo Quirós on Pexels.com
However, I always hate trite. Motivational speeches work when we tend to relate those with our personal lives. But for people like me, common advice seems hackneyed most of the time. We need customized suggestions, something tailored exclusively for us. It’s hard to align netizens’ opinions with personal lives.

But this time, Google didn’t disappoint me. I have found an article, which is in fact full of general advice, but a single paragraph describing a person’s life story has caught my eyes-

‘…when I was 13. I was obsessed with music — spent the money from my part-time job on new records, stayed up late to listen to the best late-night radio shows, read all the music magazines — and I felt like I was always reading about these fantastic guitarists who had started at eight, seven, even five years old. It would be fun to play the guitar, but at 13 with no skills at all, not even a guitar, I felt like it was already too late. The ship had sailed.

Even your 40 isn’t late to start learning guitar! Photo by Ethan Jones on Pexels.com
Luckily, I fell into a deal to get an electric guitar from a friend of mine. Now, in my early 40s, I’ve been playing for 30 years, and the fact that I started at 13 instead of five is meaningless. Life is long, time passes either way and if we try, we learn and improve.

We talk to lots of great businesses that are being started and run by first-time entrepreneurs in their 40s, 50s, and beyond. In fact, 28 strikes me as relatively young to start your own thing. So don’t worry about being behind. Don’t worry about the prodigy kids who started their first business in middle school. Don’t worry about the folks who went straight from their MBA to their first business. Just start your thing, and work, and learn, and in no time you’ll be an old hand at it.”

Life is long, time passes either way and if we try, we learn and improve.

If someone starting at 13 can be bogged down with the ‘Right Time Fallacy,’ considerably this problem has nothing to do with your age. It will succumb to any newbie entrepreneur or someone who is trying to start anew. But the point is, we tend to extrapolate from our past data. Our sample size is always retrospective. If we picture ourselves right now, we shall connect some dots based on our available information.


You never know what is holding in the future, Photo by The Lazy Artist Gallery on Pexels.com
In this process, we underestimate the potential we have got in the future. Do you remember the richest or most successful person in your peer group 10 years back? Perhaps you don’t. But if I had asked you to draw your success 10 years back, most probably you would have benchmarked him in your imagination.

Tomorrow never comes. You will never be happier tomorrow because every day you have got a new ‘tomorrow’ in your bucket. It took me more than three years to chase my ‘tomorrow’ to start my business. Even worse, it took 26 years to find my ‘tomorrow’ to wake up early, do morning exercise, and have a healthy breakfast.

All we have is a ‘today,’ and we shall keep having that ‘today’ till our death. There is no ‘I am too late to start in this universe. Instead, the replacing phrase should be ‘I am too lazy to start,’ or ‘I don’t yet have the courage to start.’

If today is my last day, till now, I can die in peace thinking: I had a fairly good life. If there is any God, She/ He was so merciful to me. I only wish I could pay back my society all the privileges that I have been provided from my childhood.

That’s all for today folks!

Before I end, let me share another thought-provoking quote that I came across:

‘You are free to choose, at least most of the times, but you are not free from the consequences of the choice.’

- Unknown

Labels:
Location: Dhaka, Bangladesh

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Trader with an Investment Mindset

Invest in good stock... Being a finance student, I have always been told that investors make much more profit compared to traders in the long run.  In a sense, that statement is apparently true. If you take the historical gain reference of traders vs. investors, the latter will come triumphant without any confusion. But remember, few traders make much more profit compared to investors.  For the traders, the profit curve is seemingly positively skewed, only a few can truly make a profit, but most of them lose money and cancel out the average profit. For the investors, the profit curve follows a normal distribution and returns an average profit to the clients in the long haul. And most importantly, it is always the small ticket-sized shares that give you the best return. For instance, a stock priced at BDT 10 has the potential to go up to 20 or 30 TK, giving you a return from 100% to 200%. But imagine a good stock that is already priced at BDT 600, how much can it go up? I always calcula
2 comments
Read more

I Know How Fake Everything Is

We had an AC installation project today at Manikgonj. Our technician team went to the site, saw a 30'' thick wall that has to be pierced for copper piping. And they backed off. I was communicating over the phone with my PSL, with a heavy voice, pretending everything is under control.  Those are miniature life hick-ups that an entrepreneur has to face, regularly, and for me - intentionally. Only a few have the guts to continue after all these. I want to be one of them of course. January 2022 Update: Another year has gone by without any fruitful progress. Still, we don't see any tangible source of revenue. We are kinda parasite of Muspana. This burns me like hell, I wanted to live an independent life. That's why I chose to be an entrepreneur Now is the real challenge. What value am I providing to my users? What is the one big vision that can change the lives of billions? Can I acquire a big investment ever? Why am I so self-centered? Am I all after money? Today a kid 10 y
2 comments
Read more

Network = Net Worth

Need to boost up my networking skill So far I have been a socially awkward person. I don't like public gatherings, I avoid phone calls, even I don't have any active social media account. For me, deciding to do business was an internal soul call, which I hardly could relate to my shortcomings. Almost three years back when I was an employee of LankaBangla Finance, my SME head told me, ''Why don't you laugh man? There is a Chinese Proverb you know - if you can't laugh, don't open a shop.'' I thought a smiling face is a mere redundant verbal expression. Unnecessary, showy, sycophantic.  At this moment, after almost a year in the business world, I am to words changing my mind. In fact, a smiling face can win million hearts, and those million hearts are money in business. Am I sounding too commercial? Probably am, but smiling is also prophylactic. If you love yourself, you should smile. Another reason behind smiling is - human nature is precoded to accept
2 comments
Read more