School gets this wrong!

Instructed by SAS BAN

🧠 15+ years of entrepreneurial experience — from tech to education and beyond.	🚀 I understand the messy, uncertain, and exhilarating reality of entrepreneurship.	🔄 I am a master of “unlearning” outdated rules — I embrace change as a growth tool.	📚 I am passionate about rethinking how we learn	🌍 I am a real-world practitioner, not just a theorist
🧩 I blend strategic thinking and EQ to solve modern business challenges.	🧭 On a mission to help you build a mindset that thrives in uncertainty.	🎤 Frequent speaker and mentor — known for making complex ideas actionable.	🔥 I bring a no-fluff, real-talk approach to learning.

🚀 Unlearning to Succeed — The Entrepreneur’s Mindset Shift

Welcome to a course designed to flip the script on everything traditional education taught you about success.
If school was about coloring inside the lines, entrepreneurship is about drawing your own map.

In school, we were trained to:

Follow rules without questioning them

Seek the “right” answer and avoid mistakes

Work quietly and independently

Respect authority and wait our turn

Value credentials over contribution

But in the real world of business,
these habits can actually hold you back.

Let's skim through the lessons I learnt from entrepreneurship

which were counter-intuitive to what I learnt in UNI !

1. Failure is Valuable

In most traditional education systems:

	Failure = a low grade	It’s something to be avoided, not embraced
	Mistakes often result in penalties, embarrassment, or labels like “underperforming”	There's a strong focus on getting it right the first time

This creates a fear of failure, making students risk-averse and reluctant to try things outside of their comfort zones.

In Entrepreneurship

	Failure is expected	It’s often a sign that you’re trying something new or ambitious	Every failure contains feedback, and successful entrepreneurs learn to extract value from it
	The faster you fail, the faster you learn what works	Investors often prefer entrepreneurs who’ve failed before — they're seen as battle-tested

Reframing Failure in Business

Instead of "failure = bad", entrepreneurs see:

Failure equals:			PROOF of

In fact, many startups use the term “pivot” to describe the shift that comes after a failure or wrong assumption.

Examples from the Real 🌐

Airbnb was rejected by investors over 100 times.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX had multiple failed rocket launches before its first successful flight.

James Dyson created 5,126 failed prototypes before building the vacuum that made him a billionaire.

These weren't failures in the school sense — they were iterations.

✅ Entrepreneurial Mindset

Treat failure as part of the process, not the end of it.

Replace the question “What if I fail?” with “What can I learn?”

Create a “safe-to-fail” environment in your own projects or startup experiments.

🧭 Final Takeaway: In business, failure is not a detour — it is the path.

2. The Best Idea Doesn’t Win — Execution Does

In school settings

You’re rewarded for having the right answer or a smart idea.

Assignments are often about coming up with a concept, not bringing it to life.

Group projects may emphasize planning over actual doing.

The belief is: if you come up with a great idea, people will notice and success will follow.

This trains students to overvalue ideation and undervalue implementation.

🚀 What Business Teaches

A great idea means nothing if it’s not executed well.

Many successful businesses weren’t the first to come up with the idea — they were the first to deliver it effectively.

Speed, consistency, user feedback, marketing, and operations often matter more than novelty.

Why Execution Wins

Ideas are cheap.
Everyone has them. It’s the person who takes the idea and turns it into a working product that wins.

Execution reveals reality.
Once you start building, you uncover problems, user needs, and market truths.

The market rewards value, not intention.
You get traction when customers experience results, not when you explain potential.

⚔️ Examples of Execution Over Ideas

Wasn’t the first search engine. It just made it better and faster than others.

Wasn’t the first social network. It executed social design and user onboarding better than MySpace or Friendster.

Didn’t invent coffee. It just scaled a well-crafted, consistent brand and experience worldwide.

🛠️ What Execution Involves

✅Building a MVP
✅Talking to real users early
✅Iterating based on feedback
✅Building a reliable team

✅Delivering consistently
✅Fixing problems quickly
✅Shipping over perfection

💡 Real-World Comparison

Imagine two entrepreneurs

A has a groundbreaking AI idea but never builds it.

B has a simple chatbot idea, ships a prototype in 2 weeks, gets users, and improves it weekly.

In 6 months

B has customers, funding, and traction.

A is still “refining” their concept.

Entrepreneurial Mindset

Action creates clarity.

Speed beats perfection.

Execution is a muscle. Build things, test ideas, and ship imperfect versions.

🧭 Final Takeaway: The world doesn’t reward ideas in your head — it rewards ideas that are brought to life.

3. You Don’t Need to Know Everything — You Need to Find the Right People.

School often rewards individual knowledge and independence.

Exams and assignments focus on how well you understand and perform.

Collaboration is sometimes discouraged or considered “cheating”.

The message is:
“Know everything yourself to succeed.”

This leads to the belief that success is based on being a solo expert.

🚀 What Business Teaches

Business is a team sport, not a solo act.	No one builds a company alone — not even Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, or Oprah.
Success often comes from finding people who are better than you in specific areas.	The key is not knowing everything, but knowing who to call when you don’t.

💬 “If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.”
— Unknown

Why This Matters in Entrepreneurship

1.
Speed and scale come from delegation.
Trying to do everything yourself limits growth.

2.
Complex problems need diverse skills.
You need tech, design, sales, operations, legal — all of which one person rarely masters.

3.
Smart founders focus on their "zone of genius"
and find others to fill in the rest.

🛠️ Examples in Action

Steve Jobs wasn’t an engineer — Steve Wozniak was. Jobs focused on vision and marketing.

Elon Musk doesn’t design every part of a rocket — he hires brilliant aerospace engineers.

Oprah Winfrey built an empire by assembling great teams in production, publishing, and branding.

📊 Startup Example

Imagine you’re building a mobile app:

	You’re great at marketing but bad at coding.	In school, that gap might hurt your grade.
In business, you simply partner with a developer.		Your success comes from combining strengths, not mastering all domains.

✅ Entrepreneurial Mindset Shift

Stop asking: “How do I do it all?”	Start asking: “Who can help me do this better?”
		Build a network of freelancers, partners, mentors, and advisors.	Learn to delegate, collaborate, and communicate.

🔁 Real Business Skill

	Hiring the right person is often more valuable than knowing how to do their job.	Recognizing talent, building trust, and creating synergy are core entrepreneurial skills.

Final Takeaway: Entrepreneurship is not a solo knowledge test — it’s a collaborative puzzle where your job is to find and connect the right pieces.

4. Being Different is Better than Being Better

In school, we’re trained to compete on being “better” than others	Higher grades More correct answers Neater handwriting Faster completion time	The system rewards conformity with excellence — being the best at the same game everyone else is playing.

This teaches us to outperform peers by playing the same game,
not by changing the game itself.

🚀 What Business Teaches

In business and entrepreneurship:

Better is subjective, temporary, and hard to maintain.

Being better usually means competing on things like price, speed, or features — which others can easily copy.

Being different, however, creates a category of one.

The market notices, remembers, and pays a premium for what stands out.

💬 “Different is memorable. Better is forgettable.”
— Sally Hogshead, brand expert

Why Being Different Wins

1. Different grabs attention. In crowded markets, sameness is invisible.		2. Different builds brand identity. People remember how you made them feel.
	3.Different reduces competition. You’re not trying to win an existing game — you’re creating your own.

Real-World Examples

Didn’t just make better computers — they made beautiful, human-focused technology.

Didn’t just build a better car — they redefined electric vehicles as desirable.

Didn’t just make a messaging app — they turned workplace communication into a fun, humanized experience.

Didn’t make a better hotel — they created a completely different model of travel and trust.

🏁 Competing on Better vs. Competing on Different

Competing on “Better”
More features
Lower price
Higher specs
Risk of being copied

Competing on “Different”
New approach
Unique value
Memorable experience
Hard to copy identity

🎨 How to Be Different

Branding Sound and look unlike others.		Values Stand for something bold or unexpected.		Design Use aesthetics to surprise or charm users.
Storytelling Share an origin story that sets you apart.			Business Model Break the mold (e.g., subscriptions for socks!).

⚠️ Trap to Avoid

	Trying to be the “best” product in a mature market usually leads to:	Marginal improvements Price wars High costs and low loyalty

Being different builds lasting emotional connections and positioning.

💬 Final Thought: In business,
standing out is more powerful than fitting in with excellence.

5. There’s No Single ‘Right Answer’

In traditional education:

Most questions have only one correct answer.

You’re taught to memorize and reproduce the “right” answer.

Creativity or alternate approaches are often discouraged if they don’t match the expected format.

Grades reinforce the idea that deviation from the standard = wrong.

🧠 This builds a mindset that success is about finding the one correct formula and sticking to it.

🚀 What Business Teaches

In entrepreneurship:

	There are often multiple valid ways to succeed.
	Strategy depends on: Timing (Is the market ready?) Resources (What advantages or constraints do you have?) Audience (Who are you solving for?) Personal strengths (What makes you unique?)
	The “right” path for one founder might be completely wrong for another.

💬 “There are many roads to profitability, product-market fit, or influence — what works for one may not work for another.”

🔍 Real-Life Contradictions

Strategy: High-end, premium devices Outcome: Global brand loyalty	Strategy: Affordable, specs-focused Outcome: Huge market share
Strategy: Direct sales, no ads Outcome: Dominated EV market	Strategy: Mass advertising Outcome: Dominated global beverages
Strategy: Anti-consumerism message Outcome: Loyalty-driven sales

Each company “succeeded” in very different and even contradictory ways.

⚖️ Key Truth

In business, judgment beats correctness.	You must evaluate multiple “good” options and pick what’s best for your goals and constraints.	You learn to make decisions in uncertainty, not just choose the right answer in a quiz.

🧭 Navigating Multiple “Right” Paths

Instead of asking, “What’s the correct answer?”, entrepreneurs ask:

	“What’s the best choice for us right now?”	“What are the trade-offs?”
	“What does the market want from us?”	“What aligns with our values, speed, or resources?”

🔧 Skills That Matter More Than Certainty

	Experimentation Try, measure, adapt.	Pattern recognition Spot trends and signals.
	Context awareness Know when a tactic is right for you.	Risk tolerance No answer is guaranteed, but some are worth trying.

💬 Final Thought: In business, success is not about finding the answer — it’s about finding your answer, making a decision, and adapting fast. There's no universal formula — just a series of smart, informed bets.

6: Asking for Help is a Strength, Not a Weakness.

In most traditional school systems:

Needing help can be seen as a sign of weakness or “not being smart enough.”			The highest praise goes to the self-sufficient top performer who “did it all alone.”
You’re told to work alone on tests and assignments.		Asking for help during a test? That’s called cheating.		Group work is rare or limited, and even then, you're often still graded individually.

🧠 This trains you to believe: “I have to prove I can do it all by myself.”

🚀 What Business & Entrepreneurship Teach

In the real world of business:

Nobody builds anything meaningful alone.	The most successful founders and leaders: - Ask for advice constantly. - Lean on mentors, investors, and advisors. - Hire people smarter than themselves in key areas. - Build networks to open doors they couldn’t on their own.	Entrepreneurship is a team sport. Your ability to ask, learn, collaborate, and delegate determines how fast and far you grow.

💬 “You’re only as powerful as your network. You don’t need to know everything — you need to know who to call.”

🛠 Real-World Examples

Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder, says: “The fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be.”	Elon Musk didn’t build Tesla or SpaceX technology alone — he recruited top scientists and engineers.
Oprah Winfrey regularly credits her mentors for shaping her mindset and path.	Steve Jobs asked Steve Wozniak to help him build Apple’s first computer.

🔁 School vs. Startup Mentality

School Thinking
“Doing it alone shows strength”
“If I ask, I admit I’m weak”
“Only cheaters collaborate”
“Work quietly and individually”

Entrepreneur Thinking
“Getting help shows strategy”
“If I ask, I speed up my learning”
“Smart founders build dream teams”
“Work openly and connect constantly”

💡 Why Asking for Help is a Power Move in Business

	Saves you time and costly mistakes. Exposes you to perspectives you’d never consider alone. Makes people feel valued when you seek their input. Builds trust and connection in your network. Helps you grow faster with less burnout.

🧭 What Help Looks Like in Business

	Talking to potential customers for feedback.	Reaching out to mentors or peer founders.	Hiring freelancers or team members early.
	Asking for introductions from your network.	Joining communities (founder groups, incubators).	Attending events and openly sharing challenges.

🧠 Mindset Shift

	It’s NOT about lacking ability. It’s about optimizing your journey.
	Instead of thinking: > “I’ll look weak if I ask.”
	Think: > “I’ll go further, faster with help.”

💬 Final Thought: In entrepreneurship, the smartest person in the room isn’t the one with all the answers — it’s the one who knows who to ask and when. Asking for help isn’t a weakness.
It’s a shortcut to strength.

7. Money Follows Attention, Not the Other Way Around.

In school, you're typically taught:

"Build something great, and people will come."	Quality, effort, and correctness are what get rewarded.
Marketing, promotion, or “drawing attention” might be seen as showing off or being superficial.	You’re often discouraged from standing out too much — stay humble, keep your head down, and do the work.

🧠 This creates the mindset: “If my product/service is good enough, success will naturally follow.”

🚀 What Business Teaches

In the real world:

A great product that no one knows about is a dead product.	The best-known product often outperforms the best product.	Attention is the currency that precedes money.
	You need visibility, distribution, storytelling, and emotional connection before people even consider your product.	It’s not “build and they will come,” it’s “grab attention and then show them value.”

💬 “Obscurity is a bigger threat to startups than competition.”
— Anonymous founder insight

🔁 Examples of Attention First, Product Second

Brand Attention Strategy > Business Outcome	TESLA Elon Musk tweets, PR buzz, launches > Grew without traditional ad spend	Kylie Cosmetics Leveraged Kylie Jenner’s audience > Sold $600M+ with minimalist product line
Liquid Death Bold branding + viral marketing > Made canned water cool and wildly profitable	MrBeast Burgers YouTube audience turned into customers > Fastest-growing restaurant brand overnight	Supreme Limited drops, hype culture > Turned scarcity and visibility into profit

Each of these brands proved that
attention created demand
— and only then did money follow.

🧭 The Attention Economy

We live in a world where:

	Attention is scarce — the average person sees 10,000+ brand messages per day.	If you don’t stand out, you get ignored.
	People buy not just based on quality, but on: - Trust - Visibility - Identity (how your brand fits into their story)

🔧 How to Capture Attention

1. Clarity Over Complexity Simple, bold messaging wins. Don't bury your brilliance in jargon.	2. Consistency is Magnetic Repetition builds familiarity. Familiarity builds trust.	3. Use Platforms That Scale Attention Social media, YouTube, podcasts, communities, newsletters.
4. Be Worth Talking About If you can't be the best, be the most memorable.	5. Build in Public Share your journey, mistakes, and wins. People love real stories.

💡 Counter-Intuitive Truth

	You can sell a mediocre product with great storytelling, but you can’t sell a great product if no one knows it exists.

That’s not permission to ship junk — it’s a reminder
that value alone doesn’t guarantee discovery.

💬 Final Thought: In business, you’re not just competing for money — you’re competing for attention.

If you want money to flow, earn attention first. Then back it up with substance.

8. Credentials Matter Less Than Results

In school, the system is built around credentials

Your success is measured by your grades, test scores, and degrees.

There’s a strong message: "Get good marks, go to a good college, get a good job."

Authority and credibility are tied to certification — you’re validated by the institution.

🧠 School mindset: “If I have the right diploma or title, I’ll be trusted and successful.”

💼 What Business (and Life) Teaches

In the world of business and entrepreneurship,
credentials take a backseat to results:

Nobody cares where you studied if you can deliver value, grow revenue, or solve problems.

Clients, users, and investors care about outcomes — not your grades, but your ability to create, lead, and ship.

Many successful entrepreneurs (think: Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey) never finished college — but they built empires.

💬 “Your degree might get you in the door — your results decide whether you stay.”

🔄 Credentials vs. Results: A Real Contrast

School World “Did you study marketing?” “What was your GPA?” “What school did you go to?” “Did you pass the test?”	Business World “Can you get me more customers?” “Can you build a product that works?” “What have you shipped, launched, or grown?” “Did your idea survive the market?”

🧪 Real-Life Examples

David Karp, founder of Tumblr: No college degree. Sold Tumblr to Yahoo for $1.1B.

Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx: No MBA, no fashion degree — built a billion-dollar brand with $5,000.

Jan Koum, co-founder of WhatsApp: Grew up poor, dropped out of college — sold WhatsApp to Facebook for $19B.

What do they have in common?
They didn’t wait for credentials to give them permission.
They proved their worth through results.

🔥 Why This Is Empowering

	You don’t need to be “picked” by a university or hiring manager.	You can start building, learning, and growing right now.
	The internet is the new university — your portfolio, GitHub, YouTube channel, or Etsy shop are your new credentials.

“Your best degree today is your ability to learn fast,
adapt quickly, and build something that works.”

📌 Counterintuitive Insight:
A resume might get you the interview — but results are what get you hired, funded, or followed.

🧭 Mindset Shift:

	Instead of: > “I need more certifications before I begin.”	Try: > “I’ll start proving my value now — through projects, performance, and persistence.”

✅ TL;DR

	School says: Your credentials define your potential.	Business shows: Your results define your value.
	Build > Brag. Show, don’t just tell.

9. Discomfort is Part of Growth

In school, you're often encouraged to:

Stick to your strengths — the subjects you're good at.

Avoid failure — wrong answers bring down your grades.

Stay safe — take the class you’ll ace, not the one that’ll stretch you.

The message becomes: > “Master what you know. Minimize mistakes. Play it safe.”

While that may help you earn a better GPA,
it trains you to avoid discomfort
— the very space where growth and innovation happen.

💼 What Business and Entrepreneurship Teach

In the real world — especially in entrepreneurship:

Growth only happens when you stretch beyond your comfort zone.

You deal with risk, rejection, mistakes, and the unknown almost daily.

The best decisions often involve imperfect information and gut instinct.

You grow by doing things that scare you — pitching, building, selling, leading, failing, iterating.

💬 “Comfort is the enemy of progress.”
— P.T. Barnum

💣 Why Discomfort is Actually a Superpower

1. Rejection Makes You Resilient Pitching 100 investors and hearing “no” 99 times? That’s normal. You don’t grow until you learn to keep showing up.	2. Ambiguity Builds Judgment There’s rarely a clear path. You learn to trust yourself by taking messy, unclear action — then adjusting.	3. Risk Trains Courage Hiring your first team, quitting your job, launching without certainty — each leap grows your capacity.	4. Failure Becomes Feedback In school, failing is shameful. In business, failure is how you learn what not to do again.

🧗‍♀️ Think Like This

Starting something new will feel awkward.

Asking for a sale will feel vulnerable.

Publicly launching will feel risky.

Hiring or firing will feel emotionally hard.

But on the other side of that discomfort?
> New levels of capability, confidence, and clarity.

📘 Real-Life Examples

through discomfort.

Took on media gatekeepers, criticism, and controversy — grew because she kept evolving.

Faced massive rejection trying to raise funds for Starbucks. Felt uncomfortable asking again and again — but did it anyway.

Built rockets with no background in aerospace. Constantly works outside comfort zones.

🧠 Mindset Shift

	Instead of: > “This feels unfamiliar — I’m not ready.”	Try: > “This feels unfamiliar — that means I’m growing.”

✅ TL;DR

**School says:** Stay in your zone of excellence.

**Business shows:** Growth only happens in the zone of discomfort.

If it feels scary, awkward, uncertain — you’re likely heading in the right direction.

10. Rules Can Be Bent or Broken

From an early age, school systems emphasize:

Obedience to structure
— rules are made by authorities and should be followed.

Standardized processes
— there’s a “right” way to learn, behave, test, and succeed.

Punishment for deviation
— going against the rules often leads to reprimands or lower grades.

The implicit message is:
> “Play within the lines. Don’t challenge the system. Success is earned by compliance.”

While this fosters order, it discourages creative risk,
questioning norms, and independent thinking
— all traits that fuel real innovation.

💼 What Business and Entrepreneurship Teach

In the real world — especially in business:

Disruption happens when rules are broken.

Innovation often starts by asking, “Why do we even do it this way?”

Many of the world’s biggest companies exist today because someone questioned or defied the “established rules.”

💬

Here, breaking the rules isn’t about chaos
— it’s about challenging assumptions
that no longer serve progress.

🔥 Examples of Rule-Breakers Who Won

Broke hotel industry norms. Who would let strangers sleep in their homes? Now it’s a $100B+ business.

Ignored traditional taxi medallion systems. Faced legal battles, but changed how the world moves.

Defied the auto industry by selling cars online, ditching dealerships, and focusing on electric vehicles when others scoffed.

Broke design, tech, and retail rules repeatedly (no floppy drives, no buttons, no styluses). Users followed.

🧠 Why It’s Counterintuitive

In school: Rule-followers are rewarded with good grades and praise.

In entrepreneurship: Rule-challengers are rewarded with impact, wealth, and influence — if they pull it off.

The world rarely changes by playing it safe.

This doesn’t mean you break ethical laws or disregard respect — it means you challenge defaults, rethink norms,
and create new models.

📌 Important Note

Breaking rules in business must come with responsibility:	- You challenge with intention, not rebellion for rebellion’s sake.	- You test, validate, and adapt — not just throw out the old without a better solution.

✨ The best entrepreneurs aren’t reckless rule-breakers — they’re strategic paradigm-shifters.

🧭 Mindset Shift

	Instead of: “I better follow the proven path.”	Try: “What if the ‘proven path’ is outdated? What if there’s a better way?”

✅ TL;DR

School says: Obey the rules to succeed.

Business shows: Success often comes from rewriting the rules — or tossing the old playbook entirely.

The future belongs to
bold re-thinkers, not passive rule-followers.

In conclusion

	If there’s one truth to remember, it’s this: in entrepreneurship, the “real test” is life itself — and the rules are yours to rewrite. So go ahead, challenge what you've been taught, build bravely, and let the world catch up.
As you’ve seen throughout this course, the world of business and entrepreneurship often runs counter to what we were taught in school.	While school teaches structure, predictability, and obedience, business rewards experimentation, resilience, and creative rule-breaking.	There are no perfect answers — only bold decisions, rapid feedback, and constant adaptation.	Success no longer belongs only to those with the best grades or credentials, but to those who can capture attention, solve real problems, and keep going when things get messy.

made with 💖 by @sasban9