Reasons Why Your @$$ is BROKE: You Have a Plan B

“Don’t spend your time focusing on a Plan B. Having a Plan B leaves doubt that your Plan A will work. Forming a Plan B requires effort, time, and energy that can be used to help solidify your Plan A. So if your Plan A does happen to fail, just make yourself another Plan A.” – Steve Harvey

I found this quote on my friend’s FaceBook wall, and placed it on my own because I found it to be quite true. The people who tend to be most successful and – more importantly – rich, are those that had a goal, stuck to it no matter what, and were eventually able to see their vision come to life.

Most importantly, they were able to succeed because of another very important fact: they believed in what they were trying to do so much that they didn’t try to create any other options for themselves. In other words, they didn’t formulate a “Plan B.”

Ah yes, the infamous “Plan B.” The one our loving (and BROKE) parents, friends and relatives tell us to have in the event that we aren’t able to make happen the things we really want to do.

“I want to be an actor,” you say? “That’s great,” they’ll reply – “…but make sure you get a degree in architecture just in case the acting thing doesn’t work out!”

“I want to be a photographer,” you say? “How wonderful,” they’ll reply – “…but you may want to get a degree in business so you can get a REAL job in case the whole ‘photo’ thing doesn’t work out.”

“I want to be a lawyer,” you might even say? “How ambitious,” they’ll reply – “…but no one in our family’s ever even made it all the way through college. Why not get a degree in teaching just in case the bar proves to be too hard for you?”

The sad part is, most people will listen to this advice, and with good reason: it’s coming from people they love, who also “allegedly” love them, so it must be worth listening to, right?

WRONG. DEAD WRONG.

Before I even got into college, I knew I wanted to do something in entertainment, though at the time I didn’t know exactly what. I decided to pursue a degree in theatre.

The result? I got to go to school for 5 years NOT wanting to tell people what my major was. Why? Because every time I told somebody, I received the same comments over and over:

“That’s great… but shouldn’t you major in something else in case the ‘acting’ thing doesn’t work out?

Then, when I got out of college, rather than go and try to get a “real” job, I took on small theatre jobs and serving jobs. Again, I did NOT like telling people what I did because the comments I’d get back were the same:

“Didn’t you go to college? Shouldn’t you be doing something BETTER than what you’re doing?”
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Unbeknown-st to those people, though, what I was doing was something they were NOT doing: I was working my Plan A, which was to work in entertainment.

Because I was a theatre major, it allowed me to work on my creative writing skills, act in plays, and get a sense of the behind-the-scenes work it took to put on a decent production. And now what do I do? I direct, I edit, and I write.

And as for my jobs? I always sought out jobs I’d be able to easily get away from. Why? Because if an opportunity came along that would be profitable and/or get me to the next step of my Plan A, I wanted to be able to quit instead of being bound by a contract to work at a company or something like that.

Meanwhile, when I wasn’t at those jobs, I’d be at home making music videos, writing songs, writing books, and improving upon various aspects of my craft. And the result? When I finally DID have something make an impact, I was able to meet people who were interested in helping me develop my other projects. Now I’m in a position where all the stuff I was doing in the quest to be successful off my Plan A is about to pay off.
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In looking back on my college days, though, I see many people that, unlike me, decided to formulate a “Plan B.” Some of them acted right along side me on stage – heck, some of them were WAY better than me when it came to acting – and they, too, had dreams of making it in the biz.

But… well, if you’ve got friends and relatives, you know how the rest of the story goes: they get home and start talking about their dreams of moving to NYC or Cali, and here come the nay-sayers…

“But California/NYC is too expensive! You need to save up money – in the meantime, you should fall back on your ‘Plan B’ in case you never get out there…”

The problem with having a Plan B – as Steve Harvey said – is that you have to put what I call “wasted energy” into formulating it. In other words, the amount of energy you would use to focus on developing a solid Plan A now has to be split in two so that a Plan B can be formulated.

Unfortunately, because neither plan is able to receive your full attention, both of them end up being half-assed success attempts.

More importantly, having a Plan B practically guarantees that you’ll never make as much money as you could make had you simply focused on a Plan A.

Why? Because, no matter what profits may come from your Plan B, you’ll never be nearly as happy – or as rich – as you would have been had you worked your Plan A.

Some of you may read that and say, “But Aaron, that’s not true. Even if I don’t end up working my Plan A, I can still be successful off my Plan B.”

And I’m not here to say you can’t be. I’m just saying, you won’t be AS happy, and therefore will not be as successful. If you’re truly happy about what you’re doing, you put more effort into it to see that you reach the maximum success.

If you’re only marginally happy about it, or just doing it because everyone else wants you to, you may be happy for a while, but (a) it won’t last, and (b) you won’t feel motivated to make the Plan B success continue to work after a while.

“But Aaron,” you might say, “what if you’re trying to work your Plan A, and something happens to where you can’t complete your vision?”

Yeah yeah yeah, I get it. For example, you want to join the NBA, but you’re too short, or are bound to a wheelchair. How can you achieve your goal with those obstacles in place?

The answer is not – I repeat, NOT – to make a Plan B, but to MODIFY your Plan A. Who’s to say you couldn’t start a basketball league for players under 5-foot-5, or participate in wheelchair basketball, and make both of those leagues as popular as the NBA?

The “core” of the dream – playing basketball – would still be there, and you’d still be doing it. More importantly, someone might see your passion for doing these things despite your “obstacles,” and pay you big money for it. You might think that sounds crazy, but stuff like that happens all the time (u just gotta pay more attention).

Bottom line: if you’re splitting your focus between a Plan A and a Plan B, you will NEVER be rich (or as rich as you could be). Always be working your Plan A. Even if what you’re doing right now isn’t what you really want to be doing, use it as a stepping stone to further your Plan A.

And, if you ARE currently working a Plan A and a Plan B, decide which one you have more of a passion for, and figure out a way to mesh them into one plan. You may not think so now, but you will be a lot happier and more driven once you have a single, well-focused goal – and a lot richer, too

-Aaron P. Taylor