- Maybe you're still in college.
Maybe you're about to graduate.
The other day, I got an email actually from a fan asking me,
"Dan, I'm about to graduate.
"What should I do after college?"
That's what inspired me to make this particular video.
You see, Confucius said,
"at 15, I set my heart upon learning.
"At 30, I know where I stood.
"At 40, I have no doubts.
"And at 50, I know my life's purpose."
So you might think you're supposed to have your career path,
your whole life figured out
the minute you graduate from college.
That is simply not the case.
You are still young.
What I'd like to share with you is what I've learned
when I was a little bit younger.
Now, I never graduated from university.
I dropped out of college
and went into entrepreneurship, went into business.
I didn't have a degree, but I never stopped learning.
I think one of the biggest misconceptions
college graduates have is
they think the minute they graduate, their learning stops.
That is simply not the case.
Formal education gets you a job.
Self-education gets you success.
It's what you learn after college that counts.
Now we're talking about real-world experience,
not just that piece of paper.
So does that mean that by the time you graduate
you don't read another book?
No, your learning is just getting started.
Whatever you've learned in college,
that's just your foundation.
That's some basic fundamental knowledge of how things work.
And some of that information is outdated anyway
by the time you're going into the real world,
you're going into the job world.
Guess what? You're learning a whole new set of skills.
So whatever you know in the past
actually doesn't count so much.
What is very critical is developing the ability to learn,
to read more, to absorb more information.
So don't think by the time you are done, you're not done.
That's your starting point.
That's where now you're going to read those books.
Now you're going to take those courses.
Now you're going to get some on-the-job skill sets.
Another thing I want to share with you is be humble.
Knowing you don't know shit.
- What are you?
- An idiot sandwich.
- I know what that was like.
In my early twenties, I thought I was the hot shit.
I thought I was smarter.
Don't tell me what to do.
I looked at other people.
I could out-work them.
I could out-think them.
- No, no, no!
- And now looking back,
in my early twenties, it is laughable.
I didn't know shit compared to what I know today.
And I still look at what I do and what I know,
I still don't know that much.
The more you know, the more you know that you don't know.
So the more you learn,
the more that you know you need to learn.
One of the things that changed my life
was being able to find my mentor in my early twenties,
someone who took me under his wings and guided me
and taught me how life actually works.
So after you graduate,
one of the biggest piece of advice
and tips I could give you is to work with,
work for, become an apprentice of,
learn from someone that you admire and respect
because that few years,
if you pay attention and you observe,
will set the foundation for many years to come.
Now, I found that person and my mentor changed my life.
Another thing that may be stopping you,
that maybe you're confused with what exactly is your path?
It is okay.
You are young.
You don't have to figure this all out
by the time you graduate.
What I would recommend
if you don't know exactly what you want,
figure out what you don't want,
figure out what are some of the subjects that,
you know what, that's not my thing.
I don't want to get into debt.
I have no interest in debt.
That would help you to narrow down
exactly what career path that you should choose.
So what you want to do
is to try a bunch of different things.
Try a bunch of different industries.
Work for different companies.
Work with different people.
Then very quickly, you will find out, hey, you know what,
I kind of have more interest in these types of things
or in this industry.
Then when you find that industry,
when you find that career path,
what I would recommend is you go deep.
You master that thing.
You pick that one thing and you say
I'm going to be world class at this thing.
I'm going to be outstanding with this thing,
not average, not good,
fuck good, outstanding with this thing.
You could do that,
you will have a very, very successful life.
It doesn't matter what kind of career that you choose.
Simple advice. They work.
They worked for me.
They worked for the students that I teach.
So don't get overwhelmed.
I know it could really be scary after college,
what you should do.
Fail forward, fail fast, pick an industry,
go deep, master, and you'll do just fine.