Growing up, our parents tell us that the only way for us to succeed is to go to a fine school, get really good grades and find a 9—5 job that pays the bills. There’s a sad reality that this is how most people see success nowadays. But if you look at things in a different perspective, those who really earn millions (or billions) had different stories to tell. When you read their stories, you come across how most of them didn’t even finish college (but in no way am I encouraging you to stop going to school).
Take it from the guys behind the Australian company, Appster. With an aim to be the world’s first ideas company, Josiah Humphrey and Mark McDonald left school to pursue their dream and work towards it. With only $3000, they started their venture. Fast forward to 2016, they hire more than 300 people and are on the track of becoming a $100 million company this 2018. This just goes to show that there’s no one way to success. Everybody has a different success story.
Josiah and Mark Source: Forbes
As engineering students, you may expect that becoming an engineer will immediately help you earn a lot. Unfortunately, there are lessons engineering schools didn’t teach us about working on our goals and dreams. These may be the important lessons Mark and Josiah learned along their journey outside the rooms of an educational institution.
Step outside your comfort zone.
It’s never easy to leave school while the rest of your peers study for an exam. But if there’s one thing about success that not everyone is comfortable to do, it’s not playing it safe. To be able to grow as an adult, an engineer and a person, you always have to step outside your comfort zone and figure out how to achieve your goals in life and work on it.
Pursue your dream.
In a society where other people will kill your dream, you have to do whatever it takes to pursue it. Not everyone has the same dream. So if you find yourself thinking that you want to be the kind of engineer who’s not stuck in a boring corporate office, you have to do what you think will make you happy.
Work really, really hard.
When Josiah started working for his own company, he said, “I like to think of it this way; if someone works a standard 40-hour week, and I work 100 hours a week, I can theoretically do 2.5 years of work versus their 1 year of work. What might take someone 10 years to do, could be done by me in 4 years or less with the right focus.” Like what most say, hard work beats talent every day of the week.
Never stop learning.
Even when you’ve graduated from school or did what Mark and Josiah have done in pursuing their goals, you must always keep your mind open to new lessons you can learn everyday. Focus on the things that interest you and keep yourself up to day with everything that’s going on around you. It helps a lot.
Have a vision.
Mark and Josiah always follow their company’s vision: “Build a Development Hub for the Greatest Ideas and Innovations in the World.” So whatever they decide on for their business, they always choose the one that helps achieve their vision.
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