You Will REGRET This if You Don't Try | Take Your Shot

Should I pursue my idea? So I got a great question from one of my YouTube viewers— love you guys— Pioneer, who wrote in to say, great video, I have a little question about invention ideas. So my career path is being an environmental engineer. I've already done my degree, I'm passionate about it, I plan on doing it full-time for the immediate years to come. However, I also have a few invention ideas that I'm passionate about, I believe are high quality, would add some serious value. However, these are completely outside my field. My question is, is it worth to pursue these or just leave them in the idea stage? I'd like to add that the main goal of the invention is not just to make money. Rather, I'm seeking the satisfaction of taking one of my ideas, making it a reality through hard work. If money is there at the end, so be it, but I could really care less. It's more about accomplishment than income. So this is a fantastic question and one that I know a lot of entrepreneurs face, and I can't tell you what to do, what decision to go for, but I can give you a framework to make your decision easier. Okay, first of all, I love your approach. You're doing it for the right reasons. You have an idea, you're passionate about it, you're not doing it just trying to make money, you're trying to do it to have the sense of accomplishment and making people's lives better. And that's why you start a business. What I would consider is, if you don't do this idea now, will you regret it? Will you regret it? Will you look back on your life? You fast forward to when you're 70 years old, you look back on your life. Will you regret saying, you know what, I really wish I had tried that invention idea instead of just going for my job? That's what I would look at, and hopefully that answers your question. This is something that I went through when I was in university. All through high school, I wanted to be an investment banker. It was in my yearbook, I was gonna be a VP at a major investment bank, and I thought I was gonna be an investment banker. And when I was in university, I got offers to work with Merrill Lynch and McKinsey Consulting. McKinsey Consulting was a huge strategic consulting firm, the number one in their field, and Merrill Lynch is a huge investment bank. And they would fly me around the world, and, you know, $80,000 to $100,000 starting salary, awesome opportunity. And meantime, I had started my business and I was making $300 a month, not able to survive, like just struggling along. And I looked at it and I had to make a decision, like, what do I do with my life? Do I go take this job that I thought I always wanted, or do I run this business that doesn't seem to be going anywhere? And what helped make the decision easier was I didn't want to look back on my life and live in regret and wonder, what if I had tried this company a little bit more and given it my all? And that made the decision easier. And I said, you know what, I can always go back. I can try it for a year. I can always go back and do this thing again, get the job again. That job will still be there in a year. I can always go find another job too if my business doesn't work out. But I won't regret turning that down, but I'll regret not having tried my own business. And that made the decision a lot easier for me, and I never went back and got a job, and I'm so grateful that I didn't. This idea of regret minimization came from Jeff Bezos, and when he started Amazon.com— I've told this story a few times— but he was the youngest ever VP at a major firm, and he left to start Amazon.com to sell books online at a time when online was nothing, and everybody thought it was crazy. Like, Jeff, what are you doing? You're the youngest ever VP at this company. Why would you leave to start this .com business that nobody cares about, nobody knows anything about? And his answer was, I didn't want to live with regret. He had to try it out because he knew that would haunt him for the rest of his life. And when you talk to people who— you see videos of people who are talking about, you know, they're on their deathbed, they're looking back on their life, and you never see people regret taking their shot, right? You see people, they look back on their lives and they said they wish they took more chances. And so I don't want that to be me. If I want something, if I'm excited by something, I want to be able to go up and take my shot, even if I'm afraid to do it. So I would apply that framework to you. When you're 70, you look back on your life, will you regret not having tried these ideas? If you're like, nah, whatever, like, if it works, it works. If not, I don't care, then, then you have your answer. Don't worry about it. Go do your job, you're passionate about it. You're golden. But if you look back and you think, man, I really— that was a great idea, I really wish I gave it a shot because I could always go back and get another job, then do it. Do it so when you fast forward your life, you don't have any regrets. Believe. For those of you watching, I'd love to hear your stories. How did you make a decision between one option and another option, maybe the safe option and the risky option. What advice would you have to give? Please leave it in the comments below so other people can be inspired by your story as well. You guys like this video, thumbs up below, click on my face, subscribe to the channel. Thank you so much, I'll see you soon.