You open Techcrunch or Linkedin and there they are – news flooding you about founders and the many millions they have raised or your ex colleagues landing a comfy and powerful sounding leadership roles. In the meantime you’re feeling stuck, but can’t admit a failure, so you’re keeping your smile on while reaching out to prospects and trying to figure out what the hell you’re doing with your life. Most of them treat you like an unwanted pest and ignore you, or politely decline at best. This freaking rollercoaster of emotions throws you in feelings of despair, braided with joy, because someone agreed to have a chat. A bipolar-like moments on your own wish. You hold on to the remains of hope while you can’t understand what is the secret everybody else knows that you don’t.
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
Steve Jobs
As much as I don’t approve the ruthless leadership style Steve was practicing, he said a smart thing or two. And if my chaotic dots he mentioned do make any sense, it better turns out to be Hirst or Pollock worth paying sh*t.
Butterfly Effect or a Pint Effect?
Years later, that multi million contract you’ve just signed is a chain consequence of a spontaneous decision you had made years ago to go out to a pub, meeting and befriending a person who later introduced you to the right corporate people seeking what you offer. And it all started with one pint.
Looking backward, we like to glorify our decisions and assign a deeper meaning to everything we’ve done (as if we had a clue). Often, we’re just very creative in colouring and adjusting “how it started” story. A lightbulb moment for a product could be a consequence of events that founders’ moms wouldn’t necessarily be proud of. But you won’t read about it in news or hear first hand from the founders. Their PR agency wouldn’t let it. There is too much at stake at this point so they all need to play it cool. Not too controversial, not too boring. Just enough for people to buy the story.
But does it really matter how it started if the result is creating value for others?
I think it matters for the motivation of those who are thinking of making a leap.
That’s why I’ve started the #underblog post series. You won’t see any of these posts until I feel like I’ve “made it” in business. I now publish these letters only to hide them in a drawer, or in a modern context – I publish private blog posts so they have a timestamp and are reflection of how I feel in that exact moment of writing.
Talking about early days struggles from the perspective of someone who has already made it and can show for it is a very different thing from talking about struggles when you’re experiencing them while you’re still fairly unknown. Going through tough times is seen as badge of honour for those with a reputation of success. Not so much for the other group. Few have the courage to say how things really are. To ask for help without fearing to sound desperate.
Everyone likes to hang out with cool, successful guys and brag about being 1st or 2nd connection (Did I mention I’m a 2nd connection to Barack Obama 😉?).
I hope that sooner than later I will be able to uncover #underblog tagged posts, thus adding a bit more reality to a statement so eagerly repeated by those who can afford to do so – that it’s never an overnight success.
Maybe I will never feel that it’s the right time, or maybe I will come to a conclusion that nobody needs to see my documented lows. In any case, putting down on (binary) paper all spectrum of your emotions has known to have a cathartic effect. It helps me, at least. This, and hitting the sh*t out of a punching bag (or the karate equivalent – makiwara).
The (Real) Boys
Recently there has been a trend with the mortars #buildingInPublic – documenting all the progress about their projects, often including numbers in red. Luckily more and more people start looking more human. Vulnerability stops being a taboo and is more praised than in the past.