“Success in life is directly proportional to one’s immunity to ridicule and rejection.”  – Robert Kiyosaki

Growing up in Oklahoma, I saw many oil booms and busts. During one of the oil busts, a friend of my Dad’s was laid off from his executive job and spent several months looking for work. Over breakfast one morning with his friends, he was fretting how he was having a hard time paying bills and was afraid he might even lose his house. One of his friends sitting around the table – a business owner – leaned forward and said, “Paul, there’s no reason to lose your house. Meet me tomorrow morning at my house and I will help you find work.”

The next morning, Paul arrived at his business-owner friend’s house. The friend was already standing outside next to his truck that was filled with buckets, sponges, squeegees, towels, a vacuum cleaner (or a “Hoover” if you are in the UK) – everything you would need to wash cars. “Hop in,” the friend said to Paul.

They drove one street over. The friend told Paul, “Follow me.” He walked up to the first house, knocked on the door, and said, “Hi, I’m Dave. This is Paul. In the middle of this recession none of us have time to wash our cars. But you still have to keep your best foot forward, so Paul and I would be glad to wash your cars for $10 a car.”

And so it went. For the next 13 hours.

At the end of the day, Paul had $250 in his pocket. Dave walked over, put his arm around Paul, and said, “My friend, all work is honorable. If you did this every day, you would be able to pay your mortgage. You can always create a job for yourself.”

Within the next year, Paul used this experience to start a successful direct-to-consumer business. And when I heard this story, I used it’s example as motivation to start a DTC business as well.

When we allow what others might think to cage us into a reality that is smaller than we are, the harm is not just psychological. It is quantitative. We don’t take the risk to start that business. We don’t write that book. And economists like me can track that reality in our GDP.

We don’t own ourselves when we believe and behave like that. We give ourselves and our futures away. Usually to people we don’t even like.

It works better when we train ourselves to not want their approval.

“Success in life is directly proportional to one’s immunity to ridicule and rejection.”  – Robert Kiyosaki