Actually conventional wisdom is probably good for most people because most people don’t seem to have any plan, any goals, any initiative to take action, or any persistence to stick with it when the obstacles inevitably appear. As far as I can tell that describes most people so I guess perhaps they should follow conventional wisdom.
Go to school and get good grades so you can get a good job, make a living, and retire at 65. Or in other words, instead of having bigger goals and aspirations, lower your expectations and become part of someone else’s plan…someone who has bigger goals and aspirations. Let yourself be used as the leverage that makes someone else wealthy. Let them make $100/hour off your efforts and pay you $25/hour or make $1,000/hour off your efforts and pay you $250/hour. What’s the difference? If your time is worth $1,000/hour, you’d have to be nuts to be happy for someone to pay you 25% of what you’re worth, wouldn’t you? If that’s conventional wisdom, I don’t want the person who came up with that crappy plan anywhere near me. Or anyone who follows it for that matter.
Conventional wisdom is stifling. Have you ever noticed how children generally have a cheerful expectancy that they can do anything? Then at some point, after years of exposure to conventional wisdom, they lower their expectations.
I wonder how many big dreams have been crushed by conventional wisdom. How many children had big dreams of being doctors, lawyers, actors, musicians, pro sports stars, entrepreneurs, or whatever else they dreamed of being only to be told by their parents, relatives, teachers, etc. how difficult it would be to succeed and dash their dreams. So these kids lower their expectations based on advice from unsuccessful people. Conventional wisdom might be good for the masses but is it good for you? That’s for you to decide but it’s not good for me. I think conventional wisdom sucks.
Think about it. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team as a sophomore. Clint Eastwood was told he’d never make it in Hollywood because of that thing just above his lip. And Elvis was told he couldn’t sing. Did they follow conventional widsom? Did they think to themselves, “Oh well, I tried but I guess I’m not good enough?” No. They didn’t follow conventional wisdom. They didn’t see these rejections as the end of the road but as obstacles on the road to success. Obstacles they eventually overcame. They didn’t listen to the morons who tried to tell them what they coudn’t do. And neither should you.
Most successful people don’t follow conventional wisdom. How many potential Michael Jordan’s, Clint Eastwood’s, and Elvis’s have had their dreams squashed by conventional wisdom? We’ll never know and that’s sad. The good news is that it’s never too late. No matter where you are in life, it’s not too late to dream your perfect life and take action to make it happen. What’s stopping you? Is it conventional wisdom?
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Rob,
That is one of the best things I have read in a long time! It sounded like it came from one of my ramblings when my friends and I sit down with a beer. IMO the same really applies to higher education.
When I used to work at a “real job” I drove past these 2 young guys every morning that had a small yellow pickup with a big water tank in place of where the truck bed should have been. It also had some sort of vacuum system on it. They would go around to the local businesses and charge around 20-25 bucks (depending on what options you chose) for a car wash/detail job. When they used to stop at my building, they would get at least 10 folks to buy and be done within a couple hours and move on to the next stop. After doing the math, I realized not only were those 2 making more than I was, but they were probably making more $ than most of the folks they were servicing each day. These 2 young guys said forget what you hear in high school about having to go to college to get ahead, forget about faux pride and the fact that people look at us like scrubs, forget about having to have some unbelievable skill… basically forget conventional wisdom. They saw an opportunity and filled a need. How awesome is that!
-Dave
Dave,
Great story. The only thing left for these guys to do was to train 2 other guys to do what they did, pay them $10-$15 and then they’d make the difference themselves not doing anything. Then train 2 more, and 2 more…and before you know it they’d be making more money not doing anything than they would doing the work themselves. The power of leverage.
I have to agree with you on higher education…and I’m knocking myself too. I just blindly followed the herd and went to college and even got a masters degree. All I ever learned was how to work for someone else which is something I never wanted to do in the first place. That’s what I get for not thinking for myself.
Robert
You have been writing some awesome posts lately Robert, this is certainly one of them.
-J
Jim,
Glad you like the post…
Robert
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