Not a lot of people take advantage of that opportunity of being different. A lot of kids that are highly touted coming out of high school, like, doing the traditional thing and going to the blue bloods and all that, but I was always different growing up.
You do your own thing and you see if you survive.
I've got to literally write my own ticket.
I got the 'I don't want the normal job' bug. At home, we have countless career advisors who would tell us to work in department stores and stay below the bar and not overreach our grasp. I didn't believe any of them.
When you leave here today and commence the next stage of your life, you can follow someone else's script, try to make choices that will make other people happy, avoid discomfort, do what is expected, and copy the status quo. Or you can look at all that you have accomplished today and use it as fuel to venture forth and write your own story. If you do, amazing things will take shape.
It's often said that if doing something was easy, everyone would be doing it. I think that's particularly true when you're trying to make your mark or architect your own career. There's often not a path to follow.
In business or in life, don't follow the wagon tracks too closely.
Experiencing difficult things, even as a very young kid, means you grow up quickly. I think that enables everyone to choose their own path and not just accept the one others have taken before you, and I went my own way.
Do not go with the flow. Be the flow.
Every single person, pretty much, is taught what they're supposed to do: go to school, get a job, find someone to love, get married, have kids, raise the kids, and then die. Nobody questions that. What if you want to do something different?
Nothing that I've done has been conventional. I didn't go with a major label, I didn't sign up with the bigwig management that basically has everyone but doesn't have time for anyone. I didn't win 'Idol' - I was seventh. I don't do anything how everybody else does it.
The river is constantly turning and bending and you never know where it's going to go and where you'll wind up. Following the bend in the river and staying on your own path means that you are on the right track. Don't let anyone deter you from that.
If you have no road map, you have to create your own.
The vast majority of kids in my school went on to college. That's just what you did. And I remember feeling like, 'No, I'm not doing that.' The idea that college was next, that it was a given, meant it was of no interest to me. So I didn't go.
Kept looking for something to be in with. Follow someone's blueprint. But you have to be on your own.
