Anyone that saw the film The Pursuit of Happiness with Will Smith will remember that iconic scene, where Chris Gardner is walking down the street with his sad little medical device, and he runs into a financial broker coming out of his amazing Ferrari. But unlike most of us, which would of just stared for 2 seconds and then continued on our merry way to sell our sad medical device, Chris Gardner took a slightly different approach. He was probably tired of not making any money, and he had a son to take care of. He did something that most people would never do, either due to the fear of getting shunned or to the idea that they're way out of their leagues and should leave the nice rich gentleman alone.
He asked 2 tiny questions that would make the biggest impact on his life. And that's what this post is about today. Just recently I found myself in a similar situation. I'll say this now, that I'm no Chris Gardner. I've worked as a software developer for the better part of a decade now, and I can't afford a Ferrari, or the sad medical device that Mr. Gardner carried around with him. And that's mainly because if you ever see anyone with a car worth 6 digits, more than likely they don't have a 9 to 5 job. Back to my story. After a trip to the grocery store, I found myself in front of one of the most beautiful sports cars that I have ever seen. Amazing color, amazing tires. Overall, much better than my 2 decade old Honda Civic. And I love that Honda Civic.
And as luck would have it, the guy walking just 2 feet behind me was the owner of said vehicle. I stopped for 2 seconds to catch a glimpse, just as he walked past me and bloop blooped his alarm to enter this wonderful ride. Immediately, flashes of that iconic Chris Gardner moment appeared in my mind. This was my shot. I too would find out what this successful person did, and I would soon be swimming in a dime filled money-bank. At least that's how things work in my mind.
So here's what really happened. I met eyes with the owner of the car. A guy that looked much younger than me, and I'm not that old myself. The words "Nice ride man" came out. Which is step 1 in the millionaire plan. He replied "Thanks bro". As I prepared my next statement "2 questions. First, what do you do?", I left and he left. And here I am writing a blog post about why we fail in life sometimes.
So let's take a look at these two life altering questions a little more and see just how important they are.
1. What Do You Do?
Because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. In Chris Gardner's case, the Ferrari owner was a stockbroker. But more importantly, he was a successful stockbroker. He could of easily met an angry and overweight guy on his lunch break who is also a stockbroker, just not as awesome as Steve over there in his Ferrari. In my case, I have no idea what this guy did. He probably wasn't a stock broker. Maybe he owned a tech company. Maybe he designed jewelry. I'll never get a chance to know. But from the looks of it, he was successful.
For the most part, successful people tend to not have office jobs. I personally have met many people in my past jobs and in college that became very successful in their lives. One sold his online service for several million dollars, and the other marketed his own website so well, that he gets several million unique views per month nowadays and makes more than enough off of ad revenue to live a good life. Both no longer work for anyone else. So that's definitely a good start in the search for success. Many successful people own and operate their own businesses. Check.
2. How Do You Do It?
Because the what is easy..but the how?. The how is always more interesting. But also more difficult. This is the real fork in the road. In the case of a stockbroker, the answer was simple. You have to be good with numbers, and you have to be good with people. But not just good. You have to be amazing. You have to impress people, and you have to be able to talk your way into money. And Chris Gardner met that criteria. In terms of many other entrepreneurs, they'd have to go back years to recall how much they failed and how much they learned. From the successful people that I mentioned earlier, they ran their websites and businesses for 7-10 years before they became profitable. Which again, check, is a good answer. Run your business and grow it, and even after 10 years of failure, keep it going.
The truth is, these are just 2 tiny questions in a giant pool of other important questions. If someone told me that they made t-shirts and made good money doing it. I could technically start my own t-shirt company (and I have), but having a target audience, a buyable design, the finances to support the company, are many times more important than the idea itself. Getting to the end of an idea, is easier said than done. It could take years upon years of failing and getting rejected, before you learn enough to begin to create success.
If you ask me what I do, I will tell you in a second with a smile on my face. "I make websites". This alone, will not make you successful. Believe me. However, if your dream is to own a 2000 Honda Civic, then learn to make a website and apply for an office job. You will achieve these goals in on time. Having said that, the truth is, that I'm not too certain myself how to be successful. I just know how to get a job and work in it for some years. I don't know how to start a company, or acquire clients, or handle anything on the business end of that spectrum. The longest that I've run a website is for about 2 years, and then it shortly died after I neglected it. So while I know "what" and "how" successful people operate, I've yet to implement those ideals myself. Some food for thought I hope.
Walter Guevara is a software engineer, startup founder and currently teaches programming for a coding bootcamp. He is currently building things that don't yet exist.
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