21 Golden Rules

21 GOLDEN RULES
by Jason Nazar

OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Adapted from a speech made by Photo Credit: slimmer_jimmer via Flickr

Hello, I’m Jason Nazar, the co-founder and CEO of DocStoc, a company that helps small businesses by providing them with documents, videos and articles to help them start and grow their business. Docstoc is one of the 500 most visited websites on the internet, andthere have been over half a billion people in the last 4 years that at some point landed on our website. We raised $4 million for this business, and we’ve been growing. I’m telling you this to emphasize one point: there is nothing distinguishable between me and you. Some of you may even be smarter, more athletic, more clever or more attractive than me. The only unique thing I have to offer are myexperiences, and the lessons they taught me. My three goals in sharing these lessons are: • • Not to bore you, because I know that inspirational discourse can sometimes feel a little tired. Make you feel like your life is a little better than it was before reading this.

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To help you get everything you want out of life. And yes, I actually think that this is possible, but only for some of you.The reason this will only work for about ten percent of you is because only a handful of you will do what I’m about to explain the most successful people in the world do. Only time will tell which of you go on to succeed, but for the moment, many of you are thinking the same things: What’s my life going to be like in five, ten years from now? Am I going find my purpose, my place? What am I eatingfor dinner tonight? Why did I eat that donut this morning? From the smaller to the larger picture, we all wonder similar things, and many of the bigger answers are only found in time. So let me briefly pull you away from your ruminations, and offer a story about how I developed these 21 rules of on my journey to becoming the CEO of Docstoc. Whether or not you’re interested in starting your owncompany, having a great family, doing charity work, traveling the world, building amazing relationships, leading a rich and rewarding life, or simply being rewarded for being rich, I think these lessons will help you out.

1

I’ll See it When I Believe It
The first lesson that I offer is simply this: you’ll see it when you believe it. This is, of course, a reversal on the old adage “I’ll believeit when I see it,” which is how we’re trained to think: when you show people proof, then they will believe it. This is not how great entrepreneurs approach their life. Exceptional people, Exceptional people, no no matter what the endeavor is, believe matter what the endeavor it first, and then they see it. This just means that they’re able to see in their is, believe it first, and mind’s eye, withgreat detail, what then they see it. they want a future experience to be like. They paint a picture in their minds with such specificity, color and richness, that it becomes real. That was how I began my journey, with the feeling that I could manifest the things in my mind into reality. When I was running for student body president at UCSB, I literally walked down to the halls lined with pictures ofstudent presidents and I imagined my face on that wall. And a couple months later, it was.

Perpetual Sense of Urgency
This drives me to my next question, which is a completely serious one: Do you ever feel like you’re meant for really big, incredible things? So big, in fact, that to say it out loud almost feels embarrassing? But why does saying “I want to be the president of the UnitedStates” sound so silly? Somebody’s going to be president, why not me? Why not you? This comes to the second quality that’s always driven me, and that’s a perpetual sense of urgency. I literally wake up every single morning feeling as if there’s a clock of my life that’s ticking down. I feel that every second passing is one less moment I have to work towards the important thing I’m meant to achieve,...