It both alarms and confuses me that there are so many successful entrepreneurs who dared to drop out of college. At my graduation from the University of Denver three weeks ago, our speaker was Roger Birnbaum, an entertainment business legend and co-founder of Spyglass Entertainment.
Technically, the moral of the story was go for the gold because even when you have no idea what you’re doing, stuff will probably work out.In hindsight Roger now has all of these pearls of wisdom to share, but when he was my age, he had already dropped out of DU and moved to New York to make his career happen.
At 22 years old, he had joined the ranks of the Renegades: incredible entrepreneurs who decided to chase opportunity instead of conventional education. Noteworthy alumni include Steve Jobs, Rachel Ray, and Mark Zuckerburg.
Don’t get me wrong. I value my college education and recognize how privileged I am. But what am I supposed to think when I now work for a successful company created by two college drop outs?
It’s a quandary. My takeaways from these insanely successful luminaries:
- Check out to check in: I obviously missed the boat on dropping out of undergrad (probably for the better), but I took time off from college to teach and work in Western Kenya through an Orbis Institute Fellowship. It was a time of immense personal growth and memories I will never forget. Dropping out doesn’t have to mean completely pulling the plug. It can be taking on a weird hobby, interacting with a different social community, or even hanging out in different places. TED, for example, was made for people who wanted to get out of their intellectual comfort zone. Basically check out for a period of time and then once you return to your old world, you will be rejuvenated and ready to tackle new challenges.
- Soft landing: Wouldn’t it be great if we could all drop everything to engineer our brilliant ideas while living off Roman Noodles in our family’s 8 passenger minivan? It’s not always possibly to put your life on hold to pursue your passions. I wish more people were honest about this reality. One way to combat this is to find some sort of security (whether it’s a job that pays the bills or a way of meeting other existing commitments) and start prototyping in your spare time. This is probably the biggest difference between us and our renegade idols. We’re so quick to glamourize the entrepreneurs who put it all on the line that we don’t value the ordinary dude across the street perfecting his own beer in his basement or the friend who has a photography business on the side. If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur and you want a few resources, check out the Rocky Mountain Microfinance Institute and the Greater Good Academy for trainings and start up loans. Let’s give it up for the average American who keeps on trucking while pursuing his or her dreams.
- Listen to your obsessions: Sometimes we shoot down our ideas because we think they’re insignificant, but even the lamest idea can generate a buzz-worthy Tumbler or has a place on a shelf at Target. Ok, just kidding. But seriously. When did thoughts become commodities? An emerging field called design thinking that was pioneered by IDEO tries to get people to think and brainstorm out loud by associating their ideas with visual images. Everyone has ideas that no force of gravity will shake out of their heads. Become an expert in something you love (you probably already are) and share your ideas out loud. Map them out visually and see what happens. The Human Centered Design Toolkit is a great open source resource on IDEO’s website.
We can all use a little validation for taking that shot in the dark, that stab at a crazy idea, that tiny step towards starting something of our own. If we glean inspiration from unconventional entrepreneurs, we may end up creating our own class of renegades. They might not make Academy Award winning movies about our lives and people might not know really intimate details about how we enjoy our coffee, but we’ll definitely be doing things differently and hopefully creating opportunity where it hadn’t existed before.
Isn’t that the role of any entrepreneur?
