It Will Never Be Enough

So I guess the second big thing I’ve learnt while trying to build a company is that no matter how hard you work, no matter how many targets you hit, or how big or significant those targets are, most often than not you’ll have the feeling you could’ve done more.

And odds are your investors will not only probably think the same, but also have no problem in saying so as many times as necessary, and also sometimes use it as a pressure mechanism.

So I guess my second breakthrough moment was when I understood that in order to keep some degree of sanity you ought to accept and acknowledge this feeling as soon as possible. Because experiencing this sort of anxiety is probably inevitable, but instead of thinking just how unfair the world is that does not value your work or your partial accomplishments, you might as well use this endless dissatisfaction to gather how things could’ve been done differently and review your actions for the future.

Enjoying accomplishments is motivating and pleasurable and we definitely ought to allow some space for that in our work, but I believe that having a little flame of dissatisfaction always burning in the background is probably how incremental value is consistently created over time.