Business
The belief that you can only build where you happen to live is false. The only reason you cannot do something is that you have not learned how yet.
A lot of people feel trapped in the idea that they cannot move toward any market other than the local one they already live in. It is a false idea, promoted probably by thinking algorithms picked up in school, or on social media, or from friends. And I will say something that sounds strange: we should stop listening to friends and family, in general, when it comes to business advice, and advice in general about taking more open paths than the ones that already exist. We should follow our own path, set aside what mother, father, family, sister, brother say about how we cannot, or how it is only possible here, or any other limitation, and ignore it.
That sounds harsh, so let me explain why it is not. It is not that your family is stupid or that they wish you ill. It is that when someone gives you advice, they answer through their own thinking algorithms, imagining how they would put their energy into it, not how you would put yours. When you tell me your dream and I advise you, I am mostly telling you what I could not do through me, not what you cannot do through you. Family and friends love you, which makes it worse, not better, because their advice is shaped by their fear of you getting hurt, and fear is the last thing you want authoring your strategy. The love is real. The advice is still filtered through a mind that is not yours and a fear that is about them.
When you have a dream, a vision, when you want to do something, the next logical step, and this is itself an interesting thing, is always to think about the next logical step. If there is one thinking algorithm I would recommend, it is that. Think about the next logical step. Fine, I have a vision of expanding, I want to build a business outside my country. What is the next logical step? Look for similar examples. If I cannot find similar examples, understand how a business is built in that country. Then understand what disadvantages I have from being here, but be careful, because fear will show up right here. Those disadvantages may look bigger than they are, only because I do not have enough knowledge of that field. The more I learn about a field, the more I realize how much can be done in it, and the decisions I make will naturally lead me toward greater openness and greater progress in that field, in that vision.
The next-logical-step algorithm is powerful precisely because it defeats overwhelm, which is what actually stops people. The full picture of building a business in another country is terrifying, because you are trying to hold the entire mountain in your mind at once. But you never have to. You only ever have to see the next step, and the next step is almost always small and knowable, find a similar example, understand how businesses are built there, learn one thing about the market. Overwhelm comes from trying to solve the whole thing in your head before acting. The next-step algorithm dissolves it by reducing an impossible mountain to a single, doable move, and then another, and then another.
For me it started with a chance encounter. I came across a group of people who were already in a market. That was the similar example. And seeing that it could be done, without anyone telling me it could not, I knew it could. There were certainly people, I vaguely remember, who said it could not be done. And all I could tell them was, but I am already doing this, so clearly it can. And yet they kept saying it could not. That is the whole thing in miniature. When you have someone who tells you it cannot be done, it is usually because they do not have a counterexample, they are not living that experience, and they have no similar company to point to, so they come to believe it cannot be done. As long as we have no reference point in the brain, it will be very hard for us to accept something as possible.
So think for a second about why we even ask whether we can build a business in another country. It is a blockage. It is a repetitive algorithm that shows up in other scenarios too, a blocking algorithm that tells us we are limited by certain conditions. Which is false. The greatest discoveries in the world were made above the it cannot be done. Or rather, by ignoring the it cannot be done, and trying, and trying, and trying. It is not easy. I was not convinced from the start that I would succeed, even after seeing that others could. On the contrary, I had many fears. At times I believed I would not make it. But the desire and determination stayed high. And there is another blocking algorithm hiding here: we form stories in our minds. We believe that if we think right now it cannot be done, then we will never be able to think differently, and so we have already ruined all our chances. False. The mind is controllable. The mind is changeable. The mind is directable, and you, consciously, can steer it in a chosen direction, in this case toward building an international business.
That the mind is directable is the most important sentence in all of this, so do not skim it. Most people treat their current beliefs as permanent facts about themselves. I am not the kind of person who could do this. I do not think that way. But a belief is just an algorithm currently running, and algorithms can be changed, deliberately, by feeding the mind new information and new reference points. The fact that you cannot imagine building abroad today says nothing about whether you will be able to imagine it in six months, after you have gathered examples and learned the terrain. You are not stuck with the mind you have right now. You can direct it, and directing it toward the possibility is the actual first move.
Of course, limitations can appear. Language, for example. It is good to have some command of English before building a business in the States. But I did not say you must have it, especially given translation tools and everything else. There are companies, founders, who expand into countries like Brazil or China without speaking the language and still manage there. You do need a base, though, to understand a bit of context. You need to understand the culture of the place. It is very important to understand the local culture, even if not at a researcher's level, but enough to have an idea of what drives those people to buy, or what they want, what kind of experiences they desire. Whatever country you want to connect to, wherever you want to expand, it could be Europe. And in our digital era, you can build a business anywhere.
Think about America differently. Despite everything it has gone through lately, it is still a country of enormous possibility. It has infrastructure far more automated than many countries, where everything you want is available at every step. If you need to sell supplements, there are suppliers who can provide that without you ever setting foot in a lab or a factory. If you want to sell gadgets, all you need to do is order them online. Not even from China, there are plenty of factories in America. If you want to produce something there, you can produce it. You do not need to go visit. At some point it would be good, once your business grows and you want to befriend those people, because you need to know they are there for you if you need more products, or need to understand certain substrates about the products they sell, or other references about the customer. But you can start without any of that.
So building a business, whether in the United States, in Europe, or in any other country, comes down to stepping out of the comfort zone and changing the blocking algorithm that says we cannot. The only reason we cannot is that we have not learned how yet. And that is it. Then we realize we can do a little more, and a little more, and a little more, until we succeed. We need to learn how. It is a very simple process that people do not understand, out of fear. When we do not know something, if we want to, the next step is to find more information. After we have found more information, refine it. And after we have refined it, experiment. And the more experiments we run, the more our chances of success grow. There is no black and white in business or in life. It is all a matter of maximizing the chances of success.
I want to be fair about advice from people who have actually done things, because it is not all noise. What successful people, or people who have been through certain things, can genuinely help with is reducing your chances of failure, or reducing the chance you set off on a harder path. If an experienced person says it cannot be done, ask why, and based on their answers, re-analyze the situation and understand whether it truly cannot. Maybe you have a vision, an idea, a dream, and it cannot be done one way, but it can be done another. But be careful whose no you are absorbing. The people who say it cannot be done are very often the ones who have not done it. And those who have done something have not done exactly that thing. Even a successful person telling you no may simply not have your vision, may not fully understand what you want, and, putting themselves in your shoes, is really telling you what they could not do through themselves, not what you cannot do through you.
The reference point is so important that I would go out of my way to manufacture one if I did not have it. If you cannot find a company exactly like the one you want to build, find the closest thing, and get close enough to see that real people, not superhumans, are making it work. Your brain refuses to fully believe in what it has no example of, so your job is to feed it an example, any example, that proves the category is possible. Once the brain has that single reference point, the it cannot be done algorithm loses its grip, and the question quietly changes from whether it is possible to how you specifically will do it. That is the whole shift, and it hinges on one concrete example your mind can point to.
So do not let a borrowed no become your ceiling. Feeling trapped in your country, or your city, or your circumstances, is not a fact about the world. It is a blocking algorithm running in your head, and the mind that runs it is controllable, changeable, directable. Find the reference point, the person or company already doing the thing, so your brain will accept that it is possible. Take the next logical step, then the one after that. Learn the culture enough to understand what people want. And treat the whole thing as a process of gathering information, refining it, and experimenting, over and over, to maximize your chances. The only real reason you cannot is that you have not learned how yet. So go learn how.