The Death of Someone Else
Saying Goodbye to a Destructive Idea
Biceps burning, feet throbbing, you’re finished hauling boxes from storage three floors below. You let out a heavy sigh of relief upon realizing you have completed the task. Suddenly, your memory recalls an image of one inconspicuously brown, slightly smaller, cardboard box still sitting on the shelf in the corner of the storage closet.
Not knowing what are the contents, you do a quick inventory in your mind about what you have brought to the office. “Ya, I got all the important stuff. Someone else will get it when they close up tonight.”
That faceless spectre, Someone Else.
How many times have you called upon him? How many times was he the one who was supposed to save the day? Big or small, no job is outside Someone Else’s pay grade.
But why are the little things so hard to complete? Those seemingly unimportant things that need to be done?
Is it because we know that we won’t receive great recognition for mundane tasks? Does the insatiable monster that is the average human ego easily win out over our out of shape muscles of willpower? Even when our intentions are true and we want to do what should be done, the devil on our shoulder spews words of comfort on the walls of our conscious mind saying, “Hey man, it can be done tomorrow.”
Or maybe, even when we know it can’t or shouldn’t wait until tomorrow, we try to rationalize it by saying, “That’s not MY job, I’m not paid to do that.”
We’re All Psychos
There is a documented socio-psychological phenomenon called diffusion of responsibility whereby a person is less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction in the presence of a group.
We have all seen this type of thing before. Someone falls in public and instead of immediately checking on the fallen person, everyone looks first at the person on the ground, then they look at other bystanders and wonder why someone else is not helping.
There was a fascinating set of experiments done years ago where people were simply asked to pretend as if they were part of a group and were placed in a situation where they had the chance to help a person in need. By merely pretending, it made them less likely to help the person than those who were asked to imagine themselves being alone.
Read that again! Can you believe this? You’re brain and imagination are powerful enough to trick your behavior on whether or not you should help another human being! Think of what sorts of tricks you brain plays on you when you know taking the lead and addressing the problem discussed in that group email is the right thing to do.
We have to stop allowing problems to be group problems. We need to take responsibility for problems that were not assigned to us. We need to treat them like they would affect us if unsolved, because eventually they will.
Letting It Roll
It doesn’t matter if you’re the founder, the social media guy, or the least experienced developer — if you want your startup or business to succeed, you have to accept that you are the last line of defense between business life and death. You are the last man standing. You are the sole watcher upon the wall.
The world needs more people that are willing to take action and that say, “It’s gotten this far, but it’s not going any further.” Everyone on your team may have already scoffed at a given problem and regarded it as someone else’s problem, but not you. Not today, not ever again.
If you refuse to accept this responsibility, your future is out of your hands. You are basically flipping a coin — a toss up. If you don’t accept that you are the last girl or guy to solve the tough problems, then I hope you have a good plan B.
You are mortgaging your future on the hope that at least one other person on your team is still willing to break their back for the common good. Your hope is that one brave soul has not given up on, “advancing on Chaos and the Dark.”
Invisible Arms
This mentality holds no prejudice as to what it will destroy. Relationships, marriages, partnerships, church groups, community organizations, etc. are all at risk of being weakened or killed by individual members assuming someone else will do the work that needs to be done.
Look around social media. All you see is people pointing fingers and calling each other out. It’s a battle of who is at fault. Even after the problem has exploded, most of us still prefer to assign blame rather than to move on a focus on a solution and plan to rebuild.
It’s like everyone has these invisible guns they carry around. You never know they are there until something goes wrong. Once it does, we look high and low just for ammunition to fire at each other.
Fashion Choices
But please, do not fret. I have the answer to this pandemic problem. It is a simple one. Ready for it? If you want a better world, if you want a better startup, the answer is, “Get used to it.” Get used to not being appreciated, get used to doing the hard work, and get used to cleaning up the messes of other people around you.
It’s all too often that I hear of wannabe Rockstar CEOs who scoff at the prospect of doing any “dirty work” like sending thousands of cold emails, cleaning and taking out the trash of his office, talking to strangers on the street about his business idea, or avoiding having tough conversations simply because he thinks that, “Someone else will do it.”
Often times, the activity that makes them “too busy” is thinking of what outfit they will wear on their fantastical IPO day.
“Should I go with the Zuckerburg hoodie at three-quarter sleeve? Or should I do the Dorsey tailored suit with open collar look?”
There will be no tailored suits in your future if you don’t become a leader who does the work that needs to be done, big or small, ugly or beautiful, painful or pleasant, every single day. At the end of the day ask yourself this, “Do I want my company to succeed or do I want to protect a false image of myself?”
Boxed In
Now imagine yourself back up the stairs, in your new office, unpacking your things, hanging pictures, and organizing your desk. You sit down for a rest and start thinking about that inconspicuously brown, slightly smaller, cardboard box. Let’s face it, the box represents something much greater for each of us.
We can all look back on a time when something went very wrong that we could have prevented. Maybe it was as simple as going back and picking up that box, maybe it was making a difficult choice you knew was right, yet the act would temporarily alienate you from your friends or team. But instead of making the effort and doing what was right, your good intention was corrupted with the ugly attitude that someone else will do it.
Forget CEOs, forget startups, forget everything, and go up the chain until you arrive at humanity. As humans, this is one of the most destructive thoughts we can harbor. Yet, this is the general attitude we have come to accept as normal in our society.
Politicians are supposed to be leaders, yet they whine like little children and point fingers at the other party when something goes wrong. Fortune 500 CEOs job is to manage the largest companies in the world efficiently and honestly. Yet, when the companies share price falls to a 20 year low, they blame it on the Chinese, tax rate hikes, or someone else. And celebrities, they… nevermind.
The Truth Hurts
If you are starting a company, you have no choice but to assume no one else is going to do anything for you. Thinking that a proverbial knight in shining armor will come to slay the mess of problems you face is absurd. It is absurd, irresponsible, and dangerous. The moment you let it creep into your mind, you open yourself to demons of complacency, laziness, and narcissism.
If you can’t stomach this truth, don’t waste your time on founding a startup. There are too many other people doing the same thing as you, with stronger willpower to do the work that needs to be done.
And definitely don’t waste your time applying to any programs at Exosphere. We look for people who want to solve their own problems, AND the problems of the collective.
For those people we find, we will encourage them to follow their own star, help them discover the entrepreneurial mindset, introduce them to true community, give them access to our global network, and we will even give them access to cutting-edge technology, among other things. But the desire to start and to keep going is driven by a flame that has to be set alight from the inside.
But if you think you do have that flame, if you think there is something raging deep inside you that longs for a different, more complete world, maybe Exosphere is for you.
R.I.P. Someone Else
“I know that all of you were saddened to learn this week of the death of one of our church’s most valuable members — Someone Else.
Someone’s passing created a vacancy that will be difficult to fill. Else has been with us for many years, and for every one of those years, Someone did far more than the normal person’s share of the work. Whenever leadership was mentioned, this wonderful person was looked to for inspiration as well as results. Someone Else can work with that group. Whenever there was a job to do, a class to teach, or a meeting to attend, one name was on everyone’s lips, “Let Someone Else do it.” It was common knowledge that Someone Else was among the largest givers in the church. Whenever there was a financial need, everyone just assumed that Someone Else would make up the difference.
Someone Else was a wonderful person, sometimes appearing super-human, but a person can only do so much. Were the truth known, everyone expected too much of Someone Else. Now Someone Else is gone. We wonder what we are going to do. Someone Else left a wonderful example to follow, but who is going to follow it? Who is going to do the things Someone Else did? Remember, we can’t depend on Someone Else anymore.”
-Author Unknown
Next time you think someone else will solve the problems that affect you, remember that Someone Else is no longer with us. He can’t help anymore.
But you have the power and ability to solve it. You can experience a life that is more meaningful, more fulfilling, more connected to others around you, and with greater success. But you have to start by accepting responsibility for the problems around you and taking action to solve them now.
Good things to come,
Luke
