• Home
  • My Favorite Topics
    • Blogging
    • Business
    • Career
    • Cars
    • Consulting
    • Epic Life Quest
    • Iceland
    • Marketing
    • Presenting
    • Productivity
  • My Life Quest
    • Future Achievements
  • About Me
  • My Recent Photos

I failed psychology. I didn’t show up.

8 years ago
business, motivation, time management
5 Comments

I liked the teacher. I loved the subject. A hot girl sat in front of me. Hell, I even got straight A’s during the semesters.

How do you even get 57 absent days? Are there even that many days in one school year?
Let the record show that I got an A in physical education.

But I skipped class 57 times.

I’m not sure how many school days are in tenth grade, but 57 seems like a pretty high percentage, and it was high enough that they failed me.

Up to that point, I didn’t care. The point is that I learned the material, right? Why make me stick around and keep a chair warm when I could read the book, test myself, and move on?

That F was a wake-up call. I gritted my teeth and started showing up every day, whether I knew the material or not. The next semester, I started knocking down A’s again, Denny Love gave me a high-five:

Translation: "Thanks for getting your shit together."
Translation: “Thanks for getting your shit together.”

I kept showing up, and I got a free ride to college courtesy of the National Merit Finalist program.

So I learned to show up, right? Wrong.

Next I went to the University of Houston for the great weather, honors program, and Mexican food. The college rules didn’t have anything about mandatory attendance, so I thought I’d just teach myself through the books and self-study materials like I always had – I’m good at that kind of thing.

Then I took my first set of exams and bombed.

I floundered around for a while trying to figure out the work/life balance thing, but after three semesters, I walked away from the scholarships and just quit. I moved in with my girlfriend and went to back to work in the hospitality industry, where I already knew the ropes from my high school jobs.

I still haven’t learned to show up.

Entrepreneurs talk about “showing up” as waking up every single day and busting your hump to make it happen.

I am not that guy.

If I was graded on entrepreneurship relative to other business builders, I’d have a big red F. (Well, a D maybe – after all, we’re profitable and growing, but just nowhere near the hockey stick chart that startups look for.)

I picture my work as having an on/off switch. When Work = On, I work hard. I show up at the dawn, I bust my hump all day hustling, and I try to maximize the amount of bang I can get out of any given hour worked.

But that switch ain’t on all the time, and mine is off way more than other entrepreneurs. Heck, not just entrepreneurs – I think I take more vacation and work less than any other “working” person that I know. As this publishes, I’m on vacation in Michigan with my wife and our dog.

Take vacations. It doesn’t matter whether you go somewhere or just hang around the house with your loved ones, just make damn sure you use every vacation day that’s available to you. Just know where to draw the line so you don’t fail psychology class.

business, motivation, time management
Previous Post
Jewelbots: Friendship Bracelets that Teach Girls to Code
Next Post
Dufl Review: Easier Way to Pack Clothes for Business Trips

5 Comments. Leave new

  • anon
    July 14, 2015 8:43 am

    I think I take more vacation and work less than any other “working” person that I know.

    That’s fantastic! I find it horrible that most humans must waste 5 of 7 days working. After 8 hours of work you can’t get a lot of fun time in because you are exhausted.

    Despite productivity having increased by 100x in the last 100 years we still work 5/7 days (back then: 6/7). How can that possibly be?!

    Reply
  • Mike Walsh
    July 14, 2015 9:09 am

    I think Brian Moran has you beat on vacations. You can tell him I said that 😉 Actually I’ll tell him I said that and then tell him to read this article. I like where you are going with it Brent. I have that same problem. Maybe that’s why I gravitated to entrepreneurship. And I think I have an on/off switch that favors off also. Yet the one somehow works enough to keep me at that D 😉

    Reply
  • Brian Moran
    July 14, 2015 10:45 am

    Brent and I can thumb wrestle for vacation king. I took about 7.5 weeks last year. Only 3 so far this year so I need to get working. On vacation time that is. 🙂 But seriously… great post and good encouragement for people. Life is genuinely too short to allow work to become your identity and the sole or primary way of finding meaning in life. Most people agree with that in theory; but if you are always working can you fall into the trap where there is no white space and down time in your life to pursue anything else.

    Reply
    • Brent
      July 14, 2015 10:54 am

      I had to go check – 6 so far this year, 8 last year. Woohoo!

      Reply
  • I Failed 13 College Courses.
    June 6, 2017 8:46 am

    […] couple years ago, I mentioned that I failed high school psychology because I didn’t show up to class often enough. In high school, they actually track your […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Fill out this field
Fill out this field
Please enter a valid email address.

Hi. I’m Brent.

That's me, Brent.

I live in Las Vegas, Nevada. I'm on an epic life quest to have fun and make a difference.

I co-founded Brent Ozar Unlimited to help make your SQL Server go faster. I also maintain sp_Blitz® and the open source First Responder Kit repo.

My current car collection includes a 1986 Ferrari 328 GTS, a 1964 Porsche 356, a 1971 VW Type 3 Squareback, and more.

profile for Brent Ozar on Stack Exchange, a network of free, community-driven Q&A sites

© 2021 Brent Ozar, all rights reserved. Privacy Policy

  • Home
  • My Favorite Topics
  • My Life Quest
  • About Me
  • My Recent Photos