At my high school graduation, the chosen speaker, I’ve forgotten who it was, told us the “Bill Gates 11 Rules They Don’t Teach You In School”. Oddly enough, those aren’t from Bill Gates at all and are actually from the book “Dumbing Down our Kids” by educator Charles Sykes, but still they are pretty inspirational for future employees. You can read the original version of these rules here.

Now, as many of you know, I’m not a future employee. I’m not a future anything. When I graduated highschool, I was and still am running my own business working 80 hours/week and loving every minute. Also, I wasn’t going to college because I figured out VERY early that you can’t teach entrepreneurship in school. You’ve got to learn it on your own. Thus, these rules really didn’t apply to me, and the chances are, they don’t apply to many of you either. Most of readership of this site are young entrepreneurs who want to start their own businesses, and thus, these rules may seem to go right over your head. Thus, I rewrote them. Still with some of the same life lessons as the original, but this time, I put my own entrepreneurial twist on it. Here it is. My version of “Bill Gates 11 Rules They Don’t Teach You In School” but for young entrepreneurs.

RULE 1

Life is not fair – get used to it.

RULE  2:

You have to accomplish things BEFORE people will allow you to feel good about yourself.

RULE 3:

You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school unless you EARN it.

RULE 4:

Don’t get a boss; you’ll hate it.

RULE 5:

Sometimes you have to admit failure and let things go. Your idea isn’t always perfect.

RULE 6:

When things get tough, there are ALWAYS opportunities out there to be taken; you just need to go out and seize them.

RULE 7:

If you mess up, it’s not someone else’s fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes and failures, learn from them.

RULE 8:

Hire the best, listen to them, learn from them, and let them explore their ideas.

RULE 9:

Stay dedicated, stay passionate, stay foolish.

RULE 10:

You have to DO things to get results. Start doing.

And there you have it. My 10 rules, not 11, that they don’t teach young entrepreneurs in high school or even college. Like I said, you cannot teach entrepreneurship in college. That, however, is an entirely different article all in itself.

I encourage you that if you are an entrepreneur, young or old, to take these rules, print them off from this GoogleDoc, and put it in a place where you will see it everyday. For me, that is over my desk, for you it might be on your desk, your refrigerator, it doesn’t matter where, but put it somewhere that you will see it everyday. I read this to myself every morning, and it gets me motivated and ready to get things done. I hope it will do the same for you.