An 18 year-old named Ethan who is about to graduate from highschool writes in and asks…
“Hey Justin, I heard of you through your Youtube interview with Dan Lok. Here’s my situation, I’ll be graduating from highschool in a few months and my goal is to own my own business someday. Everyone I know is pushing me to go to college. All of my friends are going. My dad thinks I’ll be screwed if I don’t go. But I don’t really see the point if I want to be an entrepreneur. I’d love to know what you’d do if you were in my shoes“
Great question.
Knowing what I know now, if I was 18 and about to graduate here’s what I would do…
I would find an entrepreneur who is doing what I want to do – and I’d do everything in my power to work for him.
I’d basically offer to be his guinea pig.
Do his laundry…
Be his right hand man…
Whatever it takes.
And I would work side-by-side with him, soaking up all his knowledge when it comes to running a business.
If he’ll pay me to do this, great.
If not, I’d do it for free (and I’d find a job at night to pay my bills).
My goal through all this would be to simply learn what works and what doesn’t work.
And learn everything about acquiring customers, increasing LTV, running ads etc…
Cause once you know that, you can kind of do whatever you want.
You could go work for someone else…
You could start your own company…
You could partner with someone who needs your skills in their business.
There’s a million opportunities.
And all that opportunity comes from having REAL skills.
Also…
While I’m a big believer that college is probably a waste of time if you want to be an entrepreneur…
I’m also a big believer that the social aspect of college is very beneficial.
I personally loved that part of college.
I loved living with my buddies, going to parties, and hanging out all day for football games.
I would have missed out on a lot had I not had that experience.
For me, college was my first chance to be out on my own.
And to make my own decisions.
But here’s the thing.
You don’t have to be enrolled in college to have that experience.
You can get all that by simply living in the same area that all the college kids live.
For example, when I was at Ohio State, you could either live in the dorms, or you could live off-campus which was a bunch of houses and apartments that were a 10-minute walk from campus.
So most of the students live off campus.
But you don’t need to be a student to live in the off-campus houses.
Anyone can live there.
So if I had to do it again, I’d live off-campus with some of my friends who were going to college.
That way I’d still be going to parties, meeting new people and getting all the social aspects of college (without dropping $150k+ on a degree).
To me, that’s the best of both worlds.
Working for an entrepreneur who can teach you real skills (like FB ads, or copywriting) is worth a hell of a lot more than coming out of college with a marketing degree.
You’ll have REAL skills doing this.
And you’ll be miles ahead of your buddies after 2-3 years.
The big thing is that you just have to be strong in your belief.
Cause the normal thing is to go to college.
And everyone around you will try to push you to do that.
They don’t really see any other options.
But the option I just laid out for you is a much better option if you want to be an entrepreneur.
You’ll learn REAL skills…
Plus you won’t be saddle with 6-figures of student loans.
So there ya go.
If I was 18 years old and had to do it all over again, that’s what I would do.
BTW if you want to see a picture of me at 18, check this out…
Look at those highlights…
And the sea-shell necklace…
What the hell was I thinking?
Yikes.
That’s all I got for today.
Enjoy your Tuesday.
– Justin
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