On Seeking Validation for One’s Idea

Taking a break from work I’d barely started, I went on a walk, phoning an old friend. As the phone dialed, my mind raced with disorganized thoughts about the prospect of building an online course in the upcoming months. I believed it to be my clearest route to financial freedom.

“I’m building a course,” I said. “I think I’m going to try and teach video marketing to business owners.” 

“Why? Why don’t you just charge them more and you can go personally film it?” 

I could’ve explained to him that that wasn’t as scalable as a digital product. That the goal was to finally disconnect my money-making ability from my physical presence. I started to explain the concept of leverage, but soon realized that he would never get it. 

I began explaining how much easier it would be to make your first million with a digital product than with a do-it-for-you service. We did the math. A $500 product sold to 2000 customers equals $1,000,000. He seemed mad at me for quoting those numbers. “Do you really think you could sell to 2000 people?” he said, somewhat stand-offish. 

I googled how many small businesses were in Texas. 3.2 million. (2,000 / 3,200,000) x 100 = 0.0625%. That’s the percentage of small business owners in Texas that would need to say ‘yes’ to my offer in order to break a million in revenue. “Not even a quarter of a percent,” I told him. This number seemed to upset him more. “It’s never that easy,” he said. “It’s never as easy as millionaires make it seem. They can just go get a loan and start whatever business they want.” 

I immediately registered what he said as cope. It boggled me to think that he didn’t see what I was seeing. 

But even worse than his cope was my cope. His cope consisted of this– that what was achievable for some was not equally achievable for all, and that making a million dollars had nothing to do with individual effort or strategy and everything to do with luck. My cope consisted of this– that my intuition should or could be validated by unimaginative peers. 

I had called him, initially, while out on a walk. What exactly was I doing out on that walk? I told myself I was out because I needed to brainstorm before truly setting to work. In reality I would have benefited from simply doing that task which I already knew was waiting for me. Instead of setting out to undertake my task, I procrastinated, fooling myself into believing that the consultation of this friend would prove essential. 

Annoyed as I was at his disapproval, I found myself more annoyed at my procrastination. Were he to affirm my intuition, would I have then run home and set to work? Or would I have simply gloried in my cleverness? 

Self-pity too, I realized, provided no source of comfort. If what I hope for in my entrepreneurial endeavor is to yield some extraordinary return, why should I expect ordinary opinions to contain what I hoped to learn? The truth is I am unsure of my own intuition– “will this profit?” No one is able to secure for us the certainty that firsthand experience provides. Indeed, even what few mentors I have are somewhat remote from my perspective– it is impossible for them to see what I see precisely how I see it. 

There can be no inheritance in this regard; every man must assume his own risks. We can’t expect from others what can only be found in ourselves.