Career Post- Hillel Start up Event

For my third and final post, I will be talking about my experiences at the Hillel Start-Up Fair that I went to last week. I was very excited for this fair because I wish one day to start a company and to be an entrepreneur so I couldn’t wait to talk to CEOs and try to consume as much advice and information as I could possibly digest. The event began with a panel of 6 respective CEO’s answering questions that the moderator had asked them. They talked about their most significant failures and how when looking back what they may have done differently. They articulated on what they thought we the students should be focusing and studying on if we wanted to be successful entrepreneurs. One of the CEOs said something that really resonated with me and which will undoubtedly follow me throughout my professional life. He said that in life people could follow professions that they don’t necessarily enjoy doing, but do them anyway because they would have the highest percent chance to make the most money and to become “successful.” He continued by saying that when he is much older like in his 80’s and looking back on his life, he doesn’t want to look back and see that he was unhappily doing something that he loathed to do just because it may have made him very wealthy or “successful’. He finished by saying that 100 out of 100 times he would rather look back on his life and be happy that he took the risk on something that he loved to do even if he hadn’t had reached his goals or even had failed. After hearing that, I totally agreed. When I look back on my life when I’m older, I’m not going to care about the money and materialistic things, I’m going to want to look back and know that I did something that I loved to do even if I didn’t make as much money or failed. This message is especially important in this field: Startups. When upwards of 80% of startups fail, I know I must go into this field knowing these percentages and realize the likely results, however, I know what’s important to me is doing something that I love to do and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.