A solid team is the key
A few months ago I had the opportunity to travel to Silicon Valley. My objective was to understand the fundamental aspects of said environment, to look at how I can succeed in my field, and then implement that knowledge to my daily routine. I visited many companies and learned from a lot of people that came from different startups. The most amazing thing was that all of them had a similar culture and shared a vision that resonated with me: to advance in your startup, your persona needs to grow in parallel. That discovery has had a huge impact on me because often people believe that you need to try harder and spend as much time as possible working to be successful, but in reality, you need to have an equilibrium to grow in both areas. You need to evolve as a person or elevate your persona, there’s no way around it.
Elevate your passions and take advantage of your work is the best way to express yourself and be happier.
But what exactly does that mean? A very simple example: if you love doing community service for young people in vulnerable situations, you could develop a product/service for that specific group and work every day to achieve it. However, most of the time it doesn’t happen this way. Most people try to create something without knowing their true passion, leading up to possible failure, an empty piggy bank, and wasted efforts.
Although this philosophy became clearer as the days went by, this was not enough for me and my team. We have been on the startup road for 5 years and we are still trying to create a bigger impact on our community. This changed when we visited a biotech-Mexican company named Miroculus, our inspiration to begin the entrepreneurial life. Getting to meet them at Silicon Valley was inspiring.
The word that I would use to define Miroculus is persistence. They have worked with a diverse line of technology and products, and despite the roadblocks that the entrepreneurial life consists of, they never gave up. For 10 years they carried on and attended lots of interviews in the Valley with several investors until they finally got their first investment. While not every startup has the same story, getting to know the Miroculus team in person, I understood that persistence.
Seeing Silicon Valley, the perseverance and the synergy in which the teams work, makes me remember my years as a basketball player. If there is something I learned playing the sport for 18 years, it is the value of teamwork. You can’t get to a championship as an individual. You need to work very hard in your persona to share all your capacity with the team, be confident about your colleagues, and be very persistent in your training. You have to put into practice the skill of resilience.
By yourself, you will not achieve the same as if you work as a team.
For me, a TEAM that empathizes with you, that understands personal and professional growth, that helps you exploit your attributes, and helps pursue your passions, is a team that is successful and worth working with.
All these characteristics and experiences helped me shape and redefine my own goals towards advancing my biotech project. Visiting Silicon Valley helped me understand that it is important to work on my persona, be persistent and patient when it comes to improving my field, and last but not least, that I need a solid team to pursue my dream because if my team supports me, then we can all grow bigger and better.
