Example Of Paradigm Shift Essay

For the longest time, I believed in a fairly whole-hearted approach to the American Dream – if you worked hard enough, that was enough to get you to succeed. I very much valued hard work over education; my father, who was my role model all throughout my childhood, managed to build a business from the ground up, all without getting a college education. All my life, learning from my father, I figured that school would not really give me the tools I needed to succeed – he was able to make a business work with no education, after all, so why should I need to do that? These beliefs stemmed from an overall attitude in life that good fortune came to those who worked for it; I saw so many of my friends going to college and getting degrees that I felt would not help them in life. They were studying English, theatre, art history and the like – industries that would not lead them to good careers. I was never all that interested in fine arts or math, nor did I want to be a jack of all trades. All I wanted to learn was about business, and I was of the opinion that I could just get that from cold, hard experience like my father did. However, after my paradigm shift, these values changed; after I experienced failure at conducting business as an uninformed novice, I understood the value of education. Before the shift, I believed you were just meant to jump into whatever you want to do in life and figure it out along the way; because of my experiences, I learned that actions have consequences, and it is better to be financially and intellectually prepared for them instead of just trusting that everything will work out.
These beliefs before my shift had a huge influence on the way I acted and the choices I made. First of all, as previously mentioned, I chose not to attend college; this was a move meant to help me avoid tying up so much of my money and time in an academic pursuit I thought would not help me in the long run. Attempting to follow in the footsteps of my father, a successful entrepreneur without any college education, I chose to forego college and start my own business – EV1 Media – without any capital. Taking out loans and hustling investors, I attempted to get the business off the ground; however, I was unable to convince investors due to my lack of business acumen and experience, and my idea for a business quickly slipped away. Because all I wanted to do was make money and start a business, I did not want to go through all the other effort it would take to build up to that point; instead I wanted to just jump right in and try starting that business. My attitude was very impatient; I felt as though action was the only necessary and valid action, instead of taking any introspection and adjusting my methods. No matter what investor I went to, or what small business entrepreneur group I consulted and joined, I would always be turned down because I perpetually took the same approach every time.
When I started failing, I came up with all manner of rationalizations for the contradictions I was experiencing. Because I felt that hard work and sheer determination was the key to success, these failures were simply meant to be tests of that determination. I believed that failure was just something successful people encountered from time to time, and it was a matter of finding the right investor to be receptive to my idea. I did not stop to think about the flaws in my approach, or the gaps in my experience or knowledge that might be leading to these failures; I just thought that success was just around the corner, and I just had to keep going. I also believed in the sunk cost fallacy – since I had already done so much and put all of this time and energy into this idea, it was basically too late to back out. I thought that it would have been a waste of all that time if I stopped then. However, after my paradigm shift I was able to make sense of this terrible rationalization; me sticking with it just because I had already dug my heels into this idea was a mistake, and was only going to lead to more wasted time.
My paradigm crisis emerged when I received my final rejection letter from a grant I had applied to for the business I wanted to start. It was the latest of many that I had received, which was incredibly demoralizing. I was at my lowest in terms of my own self-esteem and doubt. I thought something was wrong with me; the beliefs and attitudes that I was living by should have worked, and so my failure made absolutely no sense to me. My father had been able to pull this off on his own, without any help or education – why couldn’t I do it? I would ask myself. However, I started asking myself questions about what I was doing wrong; I started to think back at every rejected grant, every turned-down offer from an investor or organization, and asked myself what I did to make things different. I came to the realization that I had not actually changed my behavior; I just kept throwing myself at the same wall, without the knowhow to actually succeed, believing I was entitled to success just because I was going for it. This was incredibly short-sighted, I came to realize, and I was soon at a crossroads in the development of my ethical and conceptual beliefs and attitudes.
As these failures kept happening over and over again, I started to notice an inconsistency in my attitudes; if I truly did not need school and knowledge, why was I continually failing? I did not believe my idea was bad, but I was also short-sighted and did not think through the logistics of my efforts. I simply thought that ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way,’ not considering that sheer will and determination is not enough – I also needed to be skilled and knowledgeable in what I was doing. I began to realize just how important education was to my success; I could not just assume that I knew what I was doing, I had to learn from others. Furthermore, many of my peers were not just benefiting from the objective knowledge about business and the world they were gaining from a higher education, they were able to network and make connections with others as a result of their relationships in school, something I did not anticipate. These things made me begin to understand the role education plays in a successful entrepreneur and well-rounded human being.
Once I recognized the flaws in my beliefs and attitudes, I took steps to move beyond it. I chose to halt my efforts, at least for the time being, and take a good long look at my approach. Looking inside myself at my priorities, I noted a certain impatience that led to my jumping ahead too soon; I didn’t want to go through the effort of learning and getting educated in the business world beforehand. My mistaken assumption was that I was the same as my father, and that the business world today was the same as when he formed his business. Times change, and the world changes with it; I could not expect the circumstances and chances to be the same now as they were then. This was my first and biggest mistake; I learned to stop being so stubborn and learn to accept help and advice from others.
With this paradigm shift, I learned to adjust my behaviors. I started to heavily research and consider all of my options before making a decision, especially with such importance. I made the choice to go back to school, as I recognized I would need an education in order to succeed in business. While I still value the tenets of hard work and determination, I now believe that tempering it with a little caution and preparation can make all the difference in the world. No man is an island, I came to learn; I would need the help of others to get myself educated and learn how best to speak to investors and other businessmen. More importantly than all that, I realized that I needed to know myself much better, particularly when making decisions – instead of rushing into things expecting a result, I need to take inventory of who I am, what I know, and how I can use it to my advantage. These things and more allow me to take a much more enlightened approach to my life and work.