Recently, just before Christmas, I was reminded of a really important decision I made in my life, when I was a teenager. That decision was to Do It For The Story.

Throughout life, you will often find people who will Do It For The Money, as in, people who will base all the decisions they make on a financial outcome. And there is nothing wrong with this at all. Its just alarming how many people base all of their decisions around money. Im not just talking about the big businessman who will go against their heart and their heads to just to make money, but you also get the little guy, who has been credit-crunched to within an inch of their life and wont spend a penny more than is necessary to survive.

I have seen my friends make decisions like these, where they would perhaps sell irreplaceable objects in the hope of making a few extra pounds. That might be good in the short term, but in the long term, you will have to work even harder to get those objects back. If you sold something that was dear to you, would you really be that much Richer?

All this reminded me of when I was 17 years old. I was studying my A-levels at Hind Leys College, and at the time everybody had to study 3 subjects. I decided to be different and take 4 subjects, because I was academically very smart, and I quite liked the challenge. Taking 4 A-levels instead of 3 would not give me any real advantage in life, it would not get me into a better university, it would just mean more homework and extra classes for me.

I took English, Communications, Business Studies and Performing Arts.

After a year, the extra workload was becoming too much for me, and the teachers advised me to drop one of the subjects. They told me I should drop Performing Arts. They said it was the least academically rigorous subject. They knew that I wanted to run a company one day, so I should drop Performing Arts and focus more on Business studies.

Naturally I ignored this advise completely.

I was so completely set on running my own company, becoming a millionaire and living the jet-set businessman lifestyle, that I just knew that I would make it. 100% with or without an A-level in Business studies.

So, in order to become a business man, I had to drop out of business studies.

In fact, I had no choice, because all I could imagine was what a great story it would be to tell in my autobiography, how the boy who dropped out of business studies became a successful business man.

I Did It For The Story.

And its so much fun to be able to tell my story now.

So, the next time you are faced with a dilemma, if you are really sure of yourself, and you really understand the power inside of you, then ask yourself what outcome will tell the best story……

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