Don’t Have a “Fallback Plan”

My mom, as much as she had my best interests at heart, did me a huge disservice. Chances are good your folks did too.

At least, if you’re an entrepreneur like me, you might believe as I do that the phrase “fallback plan” is the most life-usurping ill-advised phrase our loved ones could ever offer.

As a child, my vision was to become a rock star. I had Mozart-like tendencies as a kid, composing music before I stared Kindergarten. And no, not “Mary Had A Little Lamb” kinds of things. I had compiled an entire album of music in a variety of genres by the time I was in grade school. Talent shows were my platform to share my prowess, and I was even party to an all-girl group a few of us founded in 6th grade that performed an original pop-style tune at our talent show.

We rocked the house. It helped that the house was packed with family, but we all had vocal ability, and being in the gifted program, none of us were dumb as a box of rocks.

By Junior High, I had compiled and submitted to the U.S. copyright office my first collection of compositions. I was looking for music composition or music business programs at my universities of choice, and was taking every opportunity to hone my craft. The singer-songwriter route to stardom ain’t an easy one, and I figured I needed to get started ASAP if I was going to “make it big” some day.

I graduated high school with a couple of fly by night record deals – but it was enough to impress my friends and leave me feeling like I was really going to be somebody. As I prepared for college, and focused in on a music composition degree, my mother “gently coerced” me into considering a degree in music education.

“That way, you’ll have a fall back plan if the rock star thing doesn’t work out for you.”

Arrgh.

It takes a certain kind of person to be a teacher – especially in a public school setting – and I ain’t that kind of person. Too many of my aunts, and even my mother, stood at a whiteboard/chalkboard and tried to maintain order in a classroom full of students that didn’t always want to be there, and even worse didn’t always appreciate the hard work they were putting in for so little pay.

Not my idea of a good time, and certainly not a cushion I’d like to fall back to if things in my dream career didn’t work out.

Now I know what Mom was getting at. She didn’t want to see me trodding home, tail tucked between my legs when Universal Music sent me a rejection letter (they did, sort of). She didn’t want me to get my heart broken or end up drugged out on the road. She didn’t want to see me lose everything to an unscrupulous “manager” or something else like that.

She basically just wanted me to be safe, have a nice comfy job with benefits, put in my 40 hours and go home healthy and happy.

Because to her, SOMETHING was better than nothing.

What she didn’t realize is that, for an entrepreneur, that life isn’t something. It’s more NOTHING than you could possibly imagine.

Or maybe she did.

Mom constantly had her hand in some entrepreneurial endeavor. There was a running commentary in our family about the new business venture my mom had every season: snow plow, antique store, ebay, etc. As a child, I remember staying up all night pressing the “print” button over and over for a document she sold in local stores that charted the winning lottery number trends for the past 10 years.

She was quite an entrepreneur. Yet she never climbed out of the poverty bucket. She was a true “Shin-Ob-ite” as I like to call it. Always being pulled from one money making venture to another. As soon as the income would slow down in one venture, she’d move on to the next.

And therein was the dilemma that shaped her perspective and desire for me to have a fallback plan.

She didn’t want to see me starving, scraping together every penny – picking up pop cans, recycling copper wire, holding endless garage sales – just to keep my kids fed with a roof over their heads. She wanted me to have stability, financial security, peace of mind.

That would be great for someone that actually valued that stuff. Much to my husband’s chagrin, those are lesser priorities for me. Yes, I want to be sure my mortgage is paid, and that the kids won’t starve, but for me, taking a risk is part and parcel to the entrepreneurial life I’ve chosen.

The plan b breaks my heart – it’s a crutch. It keeps so many amazingly talented people from ever living their dreams because of fear.

I filed bankruptcy after my ‘young and stupid days’ in my 20′s. Here’s what I learned: If you go bankrupt, your credit will be in the toilet, but you won’t die. You just have to learn to live on less, and financing (credit, etc) is a little harder for a while. You can survive and come out even stronger on the other side.

I worked as a financial advisor for a while. Here’s what I learned: most people have some kind of financial horror story – student loans, old debts from bad relationships, overspending, secret credit cards – and all of it can be resolved.

I was on welfare for a while. Here’s what I learned: It sucks. The way the system worked in my community made it virtually impossible for you to pull yourself out of the system as long as you were using the system. So I got off welfare, and busted my butt to get the bills paid.

Plan B will hold you back. I never got that music ed degree. I do have a degree in music theory/music history, with a minor in vocal performance and 2 albums to my credit. I toured, recorded, promoted and THEN decided to make a change. I wasn’t a Rock Star, per se, but I did all the things I wanted to do as a rock star – including getting a standing ovation from an arena of screaming fans. I didn’t have to live a rock star lifestyle to live my dreams.

Did I settle for a Plan B? Nope. I changed my vision for my life.

I got the degree I wanted, but I still don’t use it in my daily life. I once read somewhere that about half of the degrees in the U.S. go unused because we end up working in different fields. I wanted to be a musician. I did that (I still do from time to time). Then I decided that having a family would be cool. So I’m doing that now. And as my vision evolves, so will my plan A.

But I will never have a “fallback plan” like my mom envisioned. To me, that’s like chickening out.

No one ever aspires to their “plan B”. That’s the safety net we think we’re putting in place “just in case”. What ends up happening, though, is that we spend so much of our lives focused on laying the safety net that we never actually pursue the dream. “Plan A” becomes a “woulda, coulda, shoulda” in our pile of past regrets, and we often never get back to it.

We need to be a little more fearless, and take risks while we can. Pursue our dreams relentlessly.

I was recently interviewed by a smart and amazingly talented high school student. She aspires to be an author some day and wanted feedback about how I wrote my book, and any suggestions I could give her to help her on her way.

“Start NOW.” I said. “Don’t wait. Write all you can now so that you can get better and better over time.”

She’s creative and tells great stories. She’s also self-conscious, as most teenage girls are. She has no clue how much her life will change in the next few years, and the stories she starts writing now may end up being fuel for some of her best work when she’s older.

To her folks, who I’m sure would prefer she select a “safer” profession, I say: don’t let her have a fallback plan. Let her chase this dream relentlessly. Teach her how to manage the little bit of money she’ll earn along the way. Expose her to other options, but never pressure her to choose safety over her dreams. Encourage her to study and hone her craft and fund it without taking on debt. Help her be the best she can at whatever she ultimately chooses as her career path, and above all, let her know that no matter what she chooses, she is loved just as relentlessly.

Let her stumble. Make her sleep on the couch if she comes back home, and don’t make it too easy for her. If she really wants to chase a dream, she’s got to be up for the run – it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. As long as she finishes the race, she’s won it.

And if she decides she’s not up for the run, that’s fine, too. Then she’s just revising her vision. It’s NOT a fallback plan.

That’s what I would have wanted my folks to do for me.