The Right Decision Will Make Everyone Squirm
written by Allan on October 29, 2009
Recently I started talking about purchasing a 1963 Lincoln Continental. The people around me warned me and generally were a bit skeptical. This only fueled my interest. Why? Because everyone thinks I'm crazy for doing it.
Seth Godin talks about how the safe choice is often the risky choice and the risky choice is the safe one. I've made a life few decisions that made no sense to the people around me. It turns out those were some of the best decisions I ever made.
Here's some example from my life:
- Took art classes in high school instead of working out with the football team. I design for a living now.
- Left a full football scholarship to play at a bigger school, which led me to meeting my wife.
- Took a job offer and quit school right after 9/11. I made 40k as a junior designer and that company was my first freelance client.
- Left said job to go freelancing, which led me to Steve.
- Put in every dime I owned into Less Everything so Steve and I could change our piece of the internet.
- Released LovdbyLess our open social network, free code = good for business? Yes it's helped bring in over 1.5mil in consulting work in the past 2 years.
- Launched WeAllHateQuickbooks.com much to the disagreeing marketing consultant that insisted we'd be sued.
- Poured time and money into ideas like LessAccounting, LessTimeSpent, LessProjects, now these side projects represent 40% of our income.
- LessConf, who throws a conference in 7 weeks? We did, solid turnout, amazing love and a great time was had.
Most people are sheep and they don't realize it. Follow their beaten path and face the cliff after them.
I'm waiting for a few "Less Everything except cars" type jokes, but FYI this car cost less than what you're driving.
I hope you'll join us for LessConf 2012, Feb 23-24, 2012 in Atlanta Ga.
We're releasing our first ebook titled "How we built our consultancy to over $1,000,000 a year in revenue." Get early access to the ebook.
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About Allan
Allan loves his family more than breathing. He lives in Panama City, Florida & grew up washing cars at his family's car washes. Oh and Allan hasn't worn underwear since 2004.
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18 Comments
Love it. Great post.
Great post. Fear is absolutely certainly wrong motivation to not do something. I think it was Copernicus that said (paraphrased) that “If you follow the same path, you’ll end up at the same destination”.
Nice Post man. Your posts are really cool compared to the stuff I usually come across.
great post. i should probably take more risks myself…
Most people are Sheeple!
Allan, great post! It’s very interesting to read about other people’s experiences and the choices that led them to where they are now…
3 years ago I was enduring a miserable internship working at Boeing, about to start my 4th year studying Aerospace Engineering… today I’m having a blast creating cool web apps like http://tweetsaver.com with my awesome co-workers at Squeejee!
Risk = Reward… one way or another something good will come of it!
Is the picture on this post the actual car? Do it! That thing looks cherry. Since it’s not computerized, you can fix everything yourself, and there’s plenty of room in the engine bay to make work easy. Very classy ride.
Nice post! If you look at our website, you’ll notice that we whole heatedly subscribe to the idea of “Less is More”.
Going to follow you now on Twitter… :)
it’s not so much about risk=award but when you do something, there’s always a reaction. results will show. They migh not be what you expected or wanted, but you will get results if you take action.
Except when they aren’t the right risks to take
http://www.hulu.com/watch/10310/saturday-night-live-bad-idea-jeans
the flipside of your argument is that you could be a very well paid football star by now married to a hot cheerleader driving a maserati
@hayden Football wasn’t my passion it was something I was just really good at. I didn’t want a career in football, that makes people scratch their heads but I hated football.
Not to minimize your success and happiness, but making a choice to not to follow a career in football when it “wasn’t your passion” is just smart, not risky.
Item 5 is the only one that is really a risk and that would depend on the following:
1. approximately how much money?
2. how old were you?
3. did you have a mortgage
4. were you married at the time, and did you have children?
Again, I applaud your success, but we’re not really talking “Sell your parent’s farm for a 1 in a million chance” level of risk here, are we?
@Aaron I am sorry, but your logic is flawed. Being risky isn’t the stupid choice like your example shows about the farm. Being stupid is called being stupid. Anytime you invest time, interest, money into something that isn’t a sure thing it’s a risk. All the decisions I listed were me leaving the “easy path” and taking the harder path which I feel has given me longer term happiness.
Great post Allan. My mom calls it “the path of least resistance”. “Don’t just follow the path of least resistance” was my mom’s advice. Thanks for sharing some of your personal examples of where taking the harder path can pay off.
“FYI this car cost less than what you’re driving.”
Seriously doubt that…
always follow your heart — somebody said…
Nice wheels, Alan. Did you end up getting it? Interested in selling?