Ten Tips Now for Then
by Ken Goldstein

About a year ago I was asked to give a talk to a group of high school seniors with aspirations to pursue entrepreneurial careers.  I though at length about when I could tell a bunch of young men and women who hadn’t even left home yet, in a voice they might actually hear and not ignore.

The path I picked was a series of tidbits that I wish I had known at their age, that might have made the next thirty years a bit easier to navigate.  My thinking was that if they only remembered one of the ten for even the next few years of their lives, the talk would have been successful.  I invited them to contact me any time and let me know how it was going, and a few have been in touch.

I thought I would d share the summary of the those ten tidbits here, and then over the next few weeks riff on each with a bit of cake under the frosting.  Understand that these have been borrowed and adapted, cut and pasted from friends, writers, bosses, and colleagues over the years, so if you smell poetic theft, you smell correctly.  I promise attribution as best I can in the follow-on entries.  These are not necessarily in order of importance, but emotional resonance at this particular moment in time.

1) The most important career decision we make is who we choose as a life partner.

2) Talent is precious — and rare — revere it!

3) The world is filled with 90 percenters — a.k.a. good enough is not good.

4) Networking is not going to parties — it’s helping as many people as we can as often as we can.

5) Investing is not the same as speculating.

6) A plan is something you have,  until you get hit.

7) Our greatest strength are our greatest weaknesses.

8) The harder you work, the luckier you get.

9) Tell people what you are going to do, then do it.

10) The journey is the reward — it will take longer, cost more, and return less than you think, so you better enjoy it.

Stay tuned for a more detail on each individual theme…