Let it go - Learning at Stanford GSB as an entrepreneur

While there's no HBS type of competition, make no mistake. Stanford GSB does not have the highest GMAT average score among admits for no reason. People are competitive here, just in a slightly different way. Everyone is used to being the first in one or many things and is extremely talented. Like many business school students, they are also extremely conscious of their personal brands in this community.
Students would eat ramen at home and splurge on lavish Vegas trips and world tours. They would flock to everything that helps boost their personal status while flaking at everything else. Like any social environments, gossips, hookups, and competition for attention are eternal topics. It's a hedonist heaven like most business schools, just with better weather!
So why did I learn the opposite - to be myself, to let go, and to really not care what others think - in such an environment? Why did I not work on building a popular, cool, fashionable, cute, lovely, sexy, sporty, or some special image? It's too tiring to live for anyone else.
More importantly, I realized this when I decided to embark on the highly risky career path called "entrepreneurship". I had to get ready to work extremely hard, to live on a budget very different from my PE or hedge fund classmates, and to be ready to completely fail. If I care too much about my image or status, I simply won't even get started down this path because I can't be ready to fail.
Herd mentality is huge at business schools, less so at GSB but still quite prevalent. People often opt for the safe career choices and it can be difficult to go against the majority. when everyone has a fat offer in hand, I admit it can be stressful to continue to toil away at bootstrapping your startup with much uncertainty. I learned to completely forget where I come from - a prestigious business school, in order to not become a slave to my degree but free myself from comparison with anyone else.
Entrepreneurship is an extremely hard but joyful adventure to stretch your capabilities beyond imagination. People do so because they want to CREATE and they yearn FREEDOM, not because of money (at least not for me). As our professor and seasoned entrepreneur Audrey MacLean put it well: Entrepreneurship is an extreme sport. You are constantly hanging on the cliff with one finger gripping the rock and the abyss on the other end.