I had dreams, lots of them. But they were unachievable, because I spent almost my entire twenties playing catch-up. I had to learn all the things I didn’t learn before. I’m perfectly aware of the need to take risks, but talents are not something you’re just born with. They have to be honed & developed. Yet they CANT be developed unless you had the good fortune to be home-schooled, or realized early enough how pointless school is and opted out. If you don’t realize that soon enough, by the time you’re in your twenties it’s almost too late.

I did not make a series of “safe” decisions, because I did not make any “decisions” at all until the time I needed to hone my talents had passed me by. Everything in my life was mapped out for me. Life just isn’t the way you describe it in this post. Most parents are fearful & timid and project their fears onto their children. They don’t have confidence & will make their lack of confidence in their child clear. The only thing that makes them confident about their child’s abilities is As on a report card: but if a child is compliant and gets lots of A’s, chances are they’ve already sacrificed their own interests and hobbies and talents to comply with other people’s wishes. The very time needed to find out what you’re good at, and “hone them to razor sharpness,” is completely monopolized in youth. I never had the opportunity to find out what I was truly good at, and neither did most people I know. If I’d been home-schooled, or if I’d dropped out of school, it would’ve been different.

People are not miracle workers. They cannot just magically discover what they’re good at unless they have some time to themselves. But to take that time is usually a trade-off resulting in poor marks in school, the very thing that throws most parents into a panic (at least, my parents were that way: extremely over-controlling and over-protective – only it didn’t seem that way to them because their friends are the same way). Most people are never given that time. Most kids today are even more over-controlled, having every waking hour restricted and constricted, than they were in my day. Their parents, teachers, and all the adults in their lives are control freaks. Remarkable people may have been ordinary in most ways, but in one way at least – the chance for self-discovery granted to them – they were extraordinary.

a really good wake up call for those who are down.
now a days you only need gut and determinations to succeed.
from the internet alone there are countless business opportunities available online.(advertising, call centers, administrative assistant, among others)
and there are tools, programs available to aid you in the pursuit of your goals.

one that i personally like is the advertising tool glyphius 2008. a statistical program that aids you in the creation of tag phrases and headlines. even art ends advertising now a days are being challenge by programs that are at par or even at times better than the skill that is naturally embedded.

I subscribe to a lot of blogs via RSS. This article is one of only about 5 that I have ’starred’ in google reader. But, re-reading it today, I think I prefer your comment on Josh’s page @ http://personalmba.com/observations/there-are-no-magic-businesspeople/#comment-4015

Especially:

”
If you focus your energy on getting good grades and getting a good job, that is probably what you will get.

If you focus your energy on becoming an entrepreneur that is probably what you will get.

If you focus your energy on drinking and doing dope, well I think you know where that will lead.

If focus your time trying to get something for nothing…

I think you get the point.

Successful people do the things they need to do to get what they want and they do them habitually. There is nothing which makes them inherently different than anyone else, they just make different choices.
“