10 Lessons I Learned From Working For Everything I Have

When I was 15 years old, my parents dropped a bomb on me. They said that they would only pay for my necessities while making me earn the money I needed for the ‘fun’ things in life.

I was devastated. I didn’t want to work, I just wanted to be a kid who sat around and played games all day. However, my parents were serious. They meant business.

Within a few months, I had picked up my first job. Ever since that day, I have earned every single thing that I have today. No handouts, no inheritances and no breaks. When I first started working, I despised my parents for putting me through it.

However, I am very thankful they did what they did today. In this article, I’ll share 10 lessons I learned from working for everything I have:

1. The Value Of A Dollar

You’ll never truly understand the value of a dollar until you see how difficult it is to make money. When I was getting paid $8 an hour, I truly realized how hard it was to make money.

All my life, I would go to the store and point at the things I wanted. When I got a job, I began carefully contemplating each purchase before I made it. Getting a job and working hard teaches you the value of the dollar, which in return causes you to spend your money more wisely.

2. Ambition Is Addicting

Whenever I put my mind to something, I do it to be the best. I don’t care about consolation prizes or being good enough. I do it because I want to be the greatest.

After getting my first few jobs, I had an overdose of ambition. I quickly found out that ambition can be quite addicting. No matter how many mistakes I made, I wanted to do more. That ambition still has my mind running in circles today.

3. Earning Something Is Way More Satisfying

Early on, I wished that I had parents that would just hand me a million dollars. However, that thought process changed when I received my first paycheck. When I earned my own money, it just felt a lot more satisfying.

You can live off other people for the rest of your life or you can earn it. Living off other people is much easier, but the satisfaction isn’t there.

4. Nothing Is Permanent

Just as quickly as you can have it all, you can lose it all just as easily. I learned that lesson the hard way when working various jobs. I had a job where I was making $20 to $25 an hour in high school.

I thought I was top shit and I ended up losing my job within a few weeks. The shitty part about life is that nothing is ever permanent. You have to continue working hard and making great decisions to keep things moving.

5. You Can Make More Money, But You Can’t Make More Time

I also realized early on from starting my business that time was the best commodity in the world. Most people believe it to be money, but I realized I can always make more money if I really tried.

Time on the other hand is unrecoverable. Once you’ve used up a certain amount of time, you cannot get it back. Focus on making the best of your time, rather than solely focusing on making money.

6. Invest In Yourself

The greatest investment you can make is the one in yourself. When everything is said and done, you are what matters. Friends come and go. Unfortunately, I’ve met way too many people who only care about the money and success. Once that’s gone, they’ll be gone.

However, if you invest in yourself from an early age, you will always be able to support yourself. Brand yourself, educate yourself and take risks to experience things you normally wouldn’t.

7. Hope For The Best, Expect The Worst

With my first company, I remember pitching to a client for a $50,000 project. I had developed a wrong mindset after the meeting. I felt that I had this client locked in because he ended up asking me a lot of questions.

I had this strong belief that I got the project and that was the only ultimatum. 2 weeks later, I got a phone call from him saying that he had awarded the project to my competitor. As you can imagine, I felt horrible. Hope for the best in everything you do, but expect the worst to happen as well.

8. Nothing Worth Having Comes Easily

If you really want something that is worth having, remember that it won’t come easily. If it does, it’s properly not as worthwhile as you thought it was.

This was the hardest lesson I had to come to terms with when I started working hard as an entrepreneur. I wanted to build the next great startup, but it wasn’t easy. However, if you’re persistent and stay committed to your goals, you can achieve the impossible.

9. Don’t Rely On Luck

Everyone at some point wishes for some luck to help them out with something. When I started my first company, I thought that I would eventually get lucky just because I worked hard.

Turns out, the more I relied on luck, the less it showed up. You need to separate luck and hard work in your life. You need to simply work hard without worrying about luck. If luck wants to show up, it’ll show up. If not, you have to continue grinding anyway.

10. No Doesn’t Mean Shit

The word “NO” was definitely a tough thing to deal with early on in my life. I felt rejected and isolated when I received NO’s. However, I quickly realized that NO doesn’t mean shit.

It means that one person at that time doesn’t side with my way of thinking. However, there are still millions of others who may think differently. Not to mention, that individual himself may change his mind in the future. Don’t let NO’s stop you from getting what you want.

Conclusion

In this article, I shared 10 lessons I learned from working for everything I have. Share some things you have learned from hard work in the comments below.

photo credit: mayeesherr. (in West Bengal!) via photopin cc

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