1683: [Part 1] Why Good Grades Often Lead To Failed Businesses by Steve Chou of My Wife Quit Her Job

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[00:00:30] This is Optimal Work Daily. Why Good Grades Often Lead To Failed Businesses. Part 1 by Steve Chou of MyWifeQuitHerJob.com Growing up as an Asian American with strict parents, I was expected to get good grades in whatever subject I took. There were no exceptions. And even though I haven't taken a class in decades, the thought of getting a B still sends chills up my spine. In fact, I occasionally have nightmares where I'm taking an exam in a classroom full of nerds and I don't know any of the answers.

[00:01:00] Crazy, right? Now what if I told you that getting good grades was bad for entrepreneurship and that my entire Asian upbringing actually hindered me from starting a successful business? Okay, calm down, crazy tiger parents. I haven't gone off the deep end and please don't revoke my Asian membership card. But I do want you to hear me out. After starting multiple six- and seven-figure businesses while raising two kids, I've come to realize that getting good grades and entrepreneurship don't always mix.

[00:01:27] A personal story. You'll probably find this shocking, but I was a model student in both high school and college. And my parents raised me to believe that getting good grades would take me the distance in life. Quote, Now, for the most part, I still believe these principles hold true. My grades in high school allowed me to get into Stanford, which allowed me to get a great job designing microprocessors where I worked for 17 years before I quit.

[00:01:57] In hindsight, I could very easily have stayed at my day job for another 17 years and lived a cushy corporate lifestyle. Would I have been happy? Probably. Would I have the freedom that I have today? No way. In fact, the freedom piece is the missing ingredient from the prototypical Asian success equation, and it's something that I didn't realize until I had my own kids. Here's the thing. My parents did a great job of raising my brother and I and supported us no matter what profession we decided to pursue, as long as it was a doctor, lawyer, or engineer.

[00:02:26] Note, my brother and I are typical cookie-cutter Asian kids. My brother went to Harvard and Harvard Law and is now a practicing lawyer. I got a BS and MS in electrical engineering from Stanford. We both played piano and a varsity sport in high school. We were on the math team, etc., etc. End note. But growing up, I didn't see them as often as I would have liked, and I was actually closer to my grandma who took care of me during the day while my parents were at their day jobs.

[00:02:52] My mom worked from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and often spent time in the lab on weekends. Likewise, my dad was gone from 9 to 6 Monday through Friday and worked a good number of weekends, too. Don't get me wrong, I fully appreciate the opportunities that my parents opened up for me, but for my kids, I wanted to provide the same level of support that my parents gave me without sacrificing that quality family time. In order to afford my Stanford education while my brother was in Harvard Law School,

[00:03:21] my dad came out of retirement and went back to work full-time. I didn't realize why he took another job until well after I graduated. So, thank you, Dad. I appreciate it. Anyway, I told myself that I would never choose money or work at the expense of getting to know my own children. Entrepreneurship was my solution. Today, my wife and I have the flexibility to be present with our family without worrying about financial constraints. We are not rich, but we're not poor either. My only regret? I wish I started my business sooner.

[00:03:49] And I honestly believe that being raised as a straight-A machine held me back. Anyway, the purpose of today's post is to reflect on specific examples and experiences where getting good grades had a negative impact on my entrepreneurial spirit. Grades prevent you from thinking outside the box. Right now, you're probably wondering where I'm going with this post. After all, how can getting an A possibly hinder you in business? Well, it's not about the grade itself, but the mindset of getting the A that kills you.

[00:04:19] First off, the quest for the A grade often requires you to follow directions and complete assignments in a way that the teacher or professor expects. I once took a software programming class in college where one of the final projects was to design a blackjack game using object-oriented principles. Now, this assignment was actually a great exercise and fun to code, but there were many problems with the way the project was presented to the students.

[00:04:42] Instead of providing high-level objectives and letting the students run with it, the teacher gave us pre-written skeleton code which made the assignment essentially brain-dead. All you had to do was fill in the blanks where the guts of the functions were missing. I wanted to learn how to create this program from the ground up, so I didn't use any of the sample code or frameworks at all. Essentially, I chose to write the program completely from scratch.

[00:05:04] It took me a while, but my blackjack program was excellent if I do say so myself, and my finished product was way beyond the scope of the assignment. When I got my project back, I full-on expected to get an A, but instead I was greeted with an ominous, please see me note. The professor explained to me that while my program worked just fine and fulfilled the objectives of the project, he couldn't give me a good grade because I didn't use his frameworks and pre-written code.

[00:05:30] He called me in to give me another chance, but I had to complete the assignment the same way as everyone else. What could I do? I didn't want a bad grade, so I grudgingly completed the program by just filling in the pre-designated functions. Later on, the teaching assistant commiserated with me and told me that all students had to follow the framework in order to ensure easy and consistent grading. While I can understand the motive, I still find this policy ridiculous to this day.

[00:05:55] The professor effectively prevented me from coding the way I wanted to code and restrained my creativity. To be continued. You just listened to part one of the post titled, Why Good Grades Often Lead to Failed Businesses by Steve Chu of MyWifeQuitHerJob.com And thank you to Steve, and let me tell you a little bit about his story. When his wife became pregnant and she planned to stay home with the baby, they knew that they were going to need a little more income,

[00:06:25] so they started a little online store called Bumblebee Linens. Now in just one year, they were able to replace his wife's salary of $100K per year, and they started MyWifeQuitHerJob to document it all, including income reports. Steve was able to leave his job too, so it's not just his wife who quit her job anymore. He also started the Sellers Summit. You can learn more about that at SellersSummit.com. But that should do it for today. I hope you have a great weekend.

[00:06:51] Thanks, of course, for being a subscriber to the show and being here with me each and every day. And I'll see you back here tomorrow, where we're going to finish up this post and where your optimal life awaits.