What Tom Cruise & Mission Impossible taught me about starting a startup
I never watched Mission Impossible until my wife dragged me to the cinema to switch off from “hacking mode”. I never thought I’ll be inspired by Tom Cruise. Starting a startup is Mission Impossible:
Tom Cruise has no solution to every problem he faces. He always responds with “we’ll figure it out” when asked how he intends to solve the problem, and then jumps in right away
Tom Cruise has no solution to every problem he faces. He always responds with “we’ll figure it out”
He never feels entitled to success or sorry about his situation, even if shit happens or when people are assholes to him. E.g., being so chill when that asshole guy sabotaged his air mask prior to jumping off the plane. No time to feel sorry. Focus on the task at hand
Starting a startup is like having to find and defuse 2 nuclear bombs and deactivate the bombs’ remote control within 1 sec of each other, 100km from each other, no comms with each other, and while having to fight bad guys along the way.
- The lack of a clear solution should not stop your bias for action. Tom Cruise and team only found out how to defuse the nuclear bombs after they flew to Pakistan
- Each person has to somehow trust that the other person will execute and…
