The Emotional Rollercoaster of a new Start (Up)
In case you’ve changed careers before, retrospectively you probably realized that this wasn’t a walk in the park — but hopefully totally worth after all. My aunt loves to say,
“magic dwells in each beginning.”
Actually she has been quoting Hermann Hesse’s poem Stufen all along but I simply never realized 🤦♂. Although Hesse was rather about accepting the cycle of life and its inevitable changes, the idea seems very plausible to serve as the motivation to push for change. It’s the carrot you can to dangle in front of you and strive for new experiences.
At the same time, Hesse mentions this demands bravery. We can all agree that a decent amount of discomfort also dwells in each beginning! And so does extra (hard) work. At the new job, it comes in handy if your boss / colleagues / co-founders have time to take you by the hand and show you the ropes. However, the truth usually paints a significantly different picture: Even if there is an on-boarding strategy, in many cases there’s simply no time for a perfect execution or resources available for excessive tour guiding. A lot will depend on your own initiative. You will have to push yourself to get to know people, understand official and inofficial hierarchies, dynamics, cultures, clients, processes, bureaucracy, communication, … the all-new-everything demands effort and takes time.
I’ve encountered that a popular way to jumpstart your activity as a worthy member of your new work is to throw you in at the deep end. Basically teaching you how to swim by making you cope with drowning. The motivation is high, the learning curve is steep. And well, it can put you everywhere on an emotional rollercoaster ride from a bit exciting to absolutely terrifying and everything in between. But hey, every stroll through the threshold around your “ordinary world“ will get you there! #herosjourney. And that’s actually a good thing! What’s important here, is that your boss will make sure to give you trust and the confidence that mistakes are okay, as long as you learn from them and try a different approach #failfast. It’s okay to fall, if you get back to your feet and try again.
Now, the idea of this series is to give you a raw insight into the startup ecosphere and the mindsets of the community. As this is a completely new ecosystem, a new industry, maybe a new world to me, it has already been a quite exciting ride. This story is from the very beginning of my journey, when I found myself in the following panicky situation. After my first week, it seemed that it was time to be sent to my first startup conference. I was asked by my boss to be the ship’s captain at a round table. I didn’t know really what I was supposed to do, but didn’t want to pass on the possibility to learn and prove myself. The chance had to be taken! It turned out that I was introduced as an expert in my field and should lead the discussion on it. Being super new in the job, insights had been limited so far. Suddenly, I was an „expert“. This made me fricking nervous!
So finally, at an extremely hot summer day, we gathered for the pre-event of the conference. Spirit and anticipation were super high! People were meeting and greeting each other like longtime separated family members. When the format of the session was introduced, it suddenly became clear that it will inevitably take place in a few minutes and there was no turning back. This felt like that moment, when you’re all chatty and light hearted while in the queue for a rollercoaster. You’re still on the ground. All good. But then you “suddenly” find yourself in the train at the climb of the lift hill. This is when panic hits you hard! Shit. Is. About. To. Go. Down! You cycle through vicious anxiety circle. It eclipses pretty much in sync with the train reaching the top of the hill. OMGOMGOMG
However, eventually, you will have to completely surrender to the situation. At the top of the hill you will accept that this might have been a bad decision. But hey it’s been made. Relax! It may be really terrible, but most probably, it won’t kill you! You’ll cope with it. And then, as soon as you plunge down, scream at the top of your lungs, it will only keep improving. It’ll shake you, give you additional emotional spikes along the track and a mindboggling rush. It’s bumpy, but basically — after a while — you feel that this is actually not so bad after all. And then you embrace it. This experience will leave you light headed, with a sense of accomplishment and a boost of energy and confidence. And messed up hair.
The lift hill: healthily fake it till you make it
My lift hill was the explanation of the format which ended up with the host asking me to introduce myself and the topic of my table. Here it’s key to not be taken completely and paralyzed by fear, but to accept the situation and embrace it. Time seems to go by slower and a peculiar kind of alertness helps you to improvise and think on your feet. I managed to pitch myself and my topic. Intrigued people came to my table and I lead the discussion. I healthily faked it. What I mean by healthy is that I didn’t go all FYRE festival on the guys, but jumped in with a bit of a confident facade and readiness to improvise to whatever is coming. I’ve encountered that some startup founders do the exact same to jumpstart their business. They start with a (proof of) concept, build and scale as orders come. In the beginning promising much and along the way figuring out how to deliver. They have to stay on that healthy edge, though. If you stick your neck out too far, you might risk to underdeliver — and that will suck for everyone involved! Furthermore, if you completely lose touch and blatantly lie, you might as well even end up in jail. Interestingly, I met the extremely inspiring Marc Weinstein who was working for FYRE on another conference. He put it like this:
“There’s a big difference between knowingly and proactively misleading people versus presenting a story or potential outcome with confidence in your ability to execute.” (Marc Weinstein via whatsapp)
The bumpy ride: Be alert and ask engaging questions
At school they told us there are no stupid questions. Okay, fine! However, there are question that can make you look stupid then! So, you’re better off, not asking blatantly ignorant questions that make you look like an outsider. The people around me were using typical startup jargon I didn’t know back then. If I would have asked for example what „bootstrapping“ was, I would have totally busted my expert status. At the same time, do not be completely afraid to ask questions either. After all, they say: „(s)he who’s asks, leads!“. Sometimes it is decisive how you phrase your inquiry. As the discussion gained more momentum, it became obvious that there were different approaches to how everybody did their part when it came to the management of communities. So there was no absolute right or wrong. This allowed me to ask them for their points of view and how they would tackle their challenges in a broader picture and then we got into the more specific.
Embracing the experience: focus on your strong-suit and improvise
From this point on, it was possible to cross reference and ask for their individual opinions based on the input of the other participants. Now that allowed me to focus on my actual experience and skills: connecting people and creating an inviting space to let them share their knowledge and needs. I turned myself into their host and the facilitator of the discussion, diverting the focus off of myself and onto the discussion. This got my table engaged to a point where it was hard to keep track of their insights on my whiteboard. But luckily, this situation was not completely new anymore. This facilitator-role has been business as usual in my role as a project manager before. In the end I summed up our findings in a quick presentation and was extremely relieved when my colleague gave me a smile and a secret, appreciative nod. The anxiety abruptly evaporated and we cheered with well-deserved beers!
The underlying theme here is to find the sweet spot of your actions. Don’t blatantly go for the extremes, but mildly stray from the moderate in either directions and divert back when needed. There is so much you’re monitoring when you’re in a new situation, that being there and getting out of it alive is already an accomplishment. As you gain experience in your new place, you’ll become calmer and can set higher stakes. Nobody will expect you to have a complete calm poker face on the rollercoaster, but you should throw yourself in at the deep end, join the rollercoaster ride and embrace it!
Key Take aways when thrown in at the deep end
Don’t let anxiety paralyze you
Healthily fake it to make it
Be alert and embrace the ride
Focus on your strong suit and improvise
Enjoy and celebrate the moment of relief
