In this video, Jeff Hoffman, the founder of Priceline.com, tells a remarkable tale of how in the space of 24 hours, his entrepreneurial spirit was crushed and then re-ignited.
Upon leaving his corporate job, the person who was the smartest guy in the company and had been his role model, shot him down. He listed three reasons why he would fail in business:
1. He didn’t have focus
2. He had no patience
3. He had no respect for the rules
Crushed, he went home and flicked on the tv. He watched a professional golfer trying to show a professional baseball player how to play golf. In the end, the exasperated golfer said “You swing like you’re swing a baseball bat.” You can probably work out the epiphany that Hoffman had at that point.
By the next day he’d found a mentor, who showed how those perceived weaknesses in corporate life, were in fact the key things that would make him a remarkable entrepreneur.
