Are you a Samurai or a rice picker?

Here’s a great way to kick of the TWiST reviews.  A few weeks ago Calacanis gave an interview to a chump looking Penn State entrepreneur class (note the guy picking at his finger nails through the whole thing), but he retells his story of how he got to where he is today.  As is often the case with entrepreneurs he points to his struggles as the moments that made him successful, but it’s failures like things not going as well as he’d hoped, or in selling to late and not making as much money that were the difficulties Jason ran up against.  Honestly, I think the biggest motivation for Jason (and for many of us out there) is respect, whether it’s self respect or the respect of others, a lot of the drive from deep within is in proving yourself, or putting yourself beyond reproach.

Anyway, it’s more inspirational than informative, but if you need a quick pump up to get excited about creating your own opportunity in life, or a reminder of why you don’t want to sit in a building with 27 bosses above you, it’s because you are a Samaria in a sea of farmers (with all due respect to my farming heritage).

My favorite moments from the interview –

“Spend a year or two at a big company, but then leave and go to a startup.  Work any job for any price and just learn.  If it succeeds great, if it fails even better, you’ll learn more.  But whatever you do, don’t just check out and spend 10-20 years at a big company, because you get a limited number of times in life to do something great.” (paraphrased, but pretty close)

My exact same thought process in doing what I’m doing now, and then

“You have to at least try to be a Samurai at life.”

Even if it’s not necessarily for you, if you’re not cut out for it, if you’re place in life is somewhere besides the front lines, you can at least say you tried.  Nothing more depressing than thinking that you never even looked to see if you had it in you.