Peter Szabo (speaker) recounts his trajectory from an 11-year-old with modest beginnings to making his first million by age 19 after pausing high school. He uses his story to advise caution: rather than immediately quitting school or a job, start a business on the side, practice and fail safely while supported, and only transition full-time once the venture reliably produces income. He contrasts his cautious, stepwise route with accounts of people who quit impulsively and later regretted it.
Chapters
Should you drop out of school to pursue business? Hey, my name is Peter Sable, and if you haven't heard my story, I had the great, amazing privilege to go from an 11 year old broke kid to making my first million dollars by 19 years old as a high school dropout. If you haven't heard the story, it's a little bit crazy, but it happened at around 18, maybe end of my 17th year, I was going to school. I've been in business for many years making decent amounts of money, actually significantly more than my teachers combined. And this is coming from slovakia. People make 5, 600 bucks a month. So I wasn't making that much, but it was a lot considered for these standards. And still I was in school for many years, playing it safe. You know, I had many arguments with my parents, some didn't turn out very well. Were quite painful about me staying in school, right? They were afraid if I quit, you know, it's just not gonna look good. Or what if your business doesn't work out and you're gonna get into all these troubles, right? And I remember at 18 or so I was going to high school and I had this conversation with my mom. I told her, I called her on the phone and I said, hey, look, I can't do this anymore. I'm gonna make you a promise. I'll make a million bucks by the end of the year. Within a year, if I do it, I'll quit high school, I'll never go back. If I don't, then I'll finish high school, get my diploma, heck, I'll even go to college, right? So I made her like an offer she couldn't, you know, couldn't say no to. Kind of like a plateau plumber offer. It kind of sounds weird because I put my school on pause, right? I literally went to the principal after one day and I said, hey, I just can't do this no more. This is, this is not for me. Put my studies on paus and I'll come back in a year. Either continue or. Well, actually, I never came back because I did make the million dollars within a year. So because of this story and my kind of journey with this, a lot of people have asked me, well, should I also quit and pursue my passions, pursue business, etc. And I think a lot of people got this question confused, right? And I don't really blame them because there's also a lot of faith gurus out there preaching and coming at them like, yeah, drop out of school, leave your job, just pay me money. And we got you covered. And that's not quite how these things work, right? Like, success or achieving a certain income goal takes a lot of time. There's many pitfalls, many mistakes you can make. It's not as simple as that. Matter of fact, I had a friend who ended up dropping out of high school as well, because he heard my story, except he had nothing going for him, right? He wasn't working in his business since 11 years old. He kind of just had an idea, just a dream, and. And then it didn't work out within a year and he had to go back. And he came back kind of ashamed, embarrassed. You know, he missed the whole year. The whole class was already in the next year, and he was just miserable, right? And it's like, that's not what I told you to do. Matter of fact, we didn't even have the discussion. And I was like, gosh, like, that's not what I did, right. He thought that he was copying modeling me, but that's not what I did. And that's not what I advise of people that, like, you've got something going for you, secure, stable, just quit it and do something else. I'm not a big fan of that. Again, because it typically takes a bit longer to succeed than you may initially anticipate as a beginner, right? Especially in business. So what I would advise instead is start working on your business if that's what you wish to do on the side, next to your job or next to school, and then put in the effort, put in the work. You know, learn, implement, try, fail, fail while you can. I honestly think that's one of my biggest advantages that I was able to get into business at such a young age with as a teenager, as a kid in school, that I really had nothing else to worry about, right? Even if it didn't work, it'd be fine because I'd be living with my parents, right? So I had a lot of time to just try things, experiment to fail in a safe environment, to not be worried about paying rent at the end of the month. And then that's how over many years, I built up a successful business. And by the time I quit high school, I was already making more money than my teachers combined in the whole year, right? So it was. It made sense. It made mathematical sense for me to leave. So I took it, like, the very safe route. And that's what I would recommend to anybody. Start it on the side while you can. Practice and get good at your craft. And then when you see that it's actually producing income, you can jump into full time and create even more wealth and abundance. Right. But I think in my opinion at least it has to be a step by step process. And anybody, when people are just pushed deep into the water, like quit everything, just do this. I mean, it's not impossible to succeed that way. I just don't think it's the smartest way to do it. That's my two cents. Hope it helps. This is Peter Salvo. Sam.
