Ther are two types of people. The ones who always lead people into the future and the ones who always follow someone into the future. So, are you the follower or the leader?
Leader is the kind of people like mark zuckerberg. When you first meet him, you know that you want to work with people like him. He is charismatic and smart.
Followers are the kind of people who will admire leader like mark zuckerberg. Whenener you look at his videos, your inner self tells you that he is exactly the person who you want to work for.
Leader is rare but follwers are everywhere. Are you born to be a leader or a follower? If you are born to be a follower, can you be a leader? Yes, you can.
There are many kinds of leaders. People who are leaders of countries, people who are leaders of companies, people who are leaders of groups of people. Do you remember when is the last time you lead a group of people?
There are steps that you can do to be leader.
First, get out of your comfort zone. This is an old advice. But, believe it or not. It works. Don't walk the same old path that you use to walk to your work. Be an explorer or a leader. Try new path that might give you surprises. Surprises may be good or bad. But, they help you learn.
Second, voice out. Tell people your discomfort. Announce to the world that what you dislike and what has to be changed. Start a blog and rant like what i am doing now. Express your opinions. Be yourself and be true to what you think.
Third, never try to please everyone. Leader leads a group of people who like him. He never tries to please people who do not like him. He works toward a goal that is shared among his group. The goal is authentic and it will never be able to please everyone. So, pick a goal and please people who like your goal. Ignore those people who dislike your goal! Tell them to fuck themselves.
Fourth, believe in yourself and your goal. Leader will never have any doubt in the goal that he pursues. He advocates it and he always persues people to believe in his goal. He works toward it and leads people to achieve it.
Startup founders are all leaders. They get out if their comfort zone, quit their jobs and start their businesses. They voice out and tell the world why they are unsatisfied with the current problems. They will never try to please everyone who do not believe in them. They try hard to make their current customers happy. They also believe in themselves and their goals. They sell solutions that they believe to their customers. No one can change their minds.
When I first started GraffitiGeo, I was still in school. School is fun. You are given chances to make mistakes. But, I took a semester off and did GraffitiGeo. It wasn't a huge success. But, it put me ahead of a lot of people.
In GraffitiGeo, we believed that long reviews suck. We believed mobile was the future. People did not write long reviews on mobile devices. Short reviews had a lot of advantages. We believed in it and worked toward it.
Ask yourself. Do you want to be a follower or a leader?