How do you hold onto your vision? // PROPAGANDA 010
Hey Team,
Running a startup is an endeavor that is totally crazy-making. In both the best of ways and the worst of ways.
Here’s the simplest description i’ve used for what it’s like:
In year one, pretty much every other hour would swing from “this is amazing!” to “I’m totally screwed.” The highs were super high, and the lows were, “I want to crawl into bed and just lay there.”
In year two, you have a bit more grace time in between the emotions. Rather than every hour, you have the highs and lows just about every other day!
Monday: “I’m going to buy Facebook some day…”
Tuesday: “I’m dead. We’re dead!”
In year three, following this natural progression, I’d say it’s more an every few days thing, and generally the highs aren’t as high, and the lows aren’t as low. I’ve kind of evened out a bit in the middle. You have an understanding that what you’re feeling will pass, that this disaster will ease, and that this is a win, but it’s on to the next.
Part of the reason for experiencing things like this is because, as founders, we have to live in two-camps at the same time.
Camp 1: We have to live in the long term vision. The crazy daydream bubble of making something that is currently only possible in your mind. There’s a thousand impossible-seeming barriers to overcome to get there, BUT you can picture it.
Camp 2: is living in the here and now. You’ve got no cash (or you’re burning cash). You’re way under-prepared, out-gunned, you don’t have enough experience, and this hasn’t been tested at all.
I don’t think you can really get by without simultaneously having both of these mindsets. If you’re too set on long term vision, you’re in a fantasy that’s fun to imagine but you’re not taking the steps today to get where you want to go.
If you’re living too much in the second camp, the here and now, you’re driving hard but you don’t know where you’re driving. You lose excitement and passion, and you’re stuck “in” the business without keeping piece of mind for the transformative, incredible ideas that make people remember your “why.”
I’d guess that all of us have some type of wiring that either puts us more strongly in camp 1 or camp 2. The real masters live smack dab in the middle, but that’s incredibly rare.
So I think one of the best things we can do, is identify which way we tend to skew, and either ;
A. learn to balance that out a bit. Slide a bit more in the other direction on the spectrum.
B. build a team that can help balance across the spectrum.
Which brings us to what I’m really getting at here, how do you keep energy for your business in the midst of these swings? How do you live in the balance and keep excited?
Pushing what I mentioned a bit further, I’d actually even venture to say that, by recognizing which camp you fall into, when you do work related to the skill-set you’re less comfortable in, you’ll find some momentum.
Take me for example. I tend to live in the long term vision. I want to keep new ideas in a bubble from reality, because reality checks can kill good ideas quickly before they’re given the love they deserve. See: All startups that crushed it but were turned down because it was too “unrealistic or dumb.”
Even though I skew towards that, I’ve found that when I’m stuck in a rut, it’s usually the day to day of the business that gives me energy. It’s jumping out of the clouds for a bit and executing. I find that after doing that, I am able to fly even better at the high level vision.
Which camp do you live in? The day to day? The bold impossible vision?
It’s the first step in understanding your role among your team, and where you could use some movement to balance yourself out.
// David @deathtostock
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