Mentor Wisdom: "Be patient, it takes 10 years to build a career in anything.” - Naval Ravikant, Founder of AngelList
Mentor Lesson: The ten year rule everyone ignores
Ten years feels like an eternity when you're staring at day one.
But here's the thing nobody talks about: those ten years are gonna pass whether you're building something or not.
You could spend them scrolling through other people's highlight reels. Or complaining about how hard everything is. Or bouncing from shiny object to shiny object hoping one of them works overnight.
Or you could actually pick something and stick with it long enough to get good.
Naval Ravikant said it takes ten years to build a career in anything. Not five. Not two. Ten whole years of showing up, making mistakes, looking silly, and slowly getting better at your thing.
The problem is we live in a world that sells us the opposite story.
We see someone crushing it on social media and assume they woke up like that. We forget about the years they spent in the trenches figuring things out when nobody was watching.
Here's what I mean.
Think about any skill you're decent at right now. Maybe it's cooking, playing a sport, or even just being a good friend. You didn't wake up amazing at it. You got better over time by doing it over and over again.
Building a business works the same way. The difference is most people quit after year one because they expected year ten results.
The good news is you don't need to figure out all ten years right now. You just need to focus on improving week over week. Small improvements stack up faster than you think.
That’s it for now.
Talk soon,
-Chris
P.S. Check this out, I think you’ll like it:
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