5 ways to kill your dreams | Bel Pesce

I dedicated the past two years to understanding how people achieve their dreams. When we think about the dreams we have, and the dent we want to leave in the universe, it is striking to see how big of an overlap there is between the dreams that we have, and projects that never happen. (Laughter)

So I'm here to talk to you today about five ways how not to follow your dreams. One: Believe in overnight success. You know the story, right? The tech guy built a mobile app and sold it very fast for a lot of money. You know, the story may seem real, but I bet it's incomplete.

If you go investigate further, the guy has done 30 apps before and he has done a master's on the topic, a PhD. He has been working on the topic for 20 years. This is really interesting. I myself have a story in Brazil that people think is an overnight success. I come from a humble family,

and two weeks before the deadline to apply for MIT, I started the application process. And, voilà! I got in. People may think it's an overnight success, but that only worked because for the 17 years prior to that, I took life and education seriously. Your overnight success story is always a result of everything you've done in your life through that moment.

Two: Believe someone else has the answers for you. Constantly, people want to help out, right? All sorts of people: your family, your friends, your business partners, they all have opinions on which path you should take: "And let me tell you, go through this pipe." But whenever you go inside, there are other ways you have to pick as well.

And you need to make those decisions yourself. No one else has the perfect answers for your life. And you need to keep picking those decisions, right? The pipes are infinite and you're going to bump your head, and it's a part of the process. Three, and it's very subtle but very important: Decide to settle when growth is guaranteed.