A Learning a Day

I reflected on a recent remark I heard about our age being the ‘age of chatter.’ Thanks to social media and the fact that every person has a megaphone and an audience (of sorts – depending on the medium), there is an unprecedented amount of talk about what’s going on in the present.

This presents a few challenges to people trying to get stuff done. For example, the start-up founder going through the struggle sees hundreds of reminders about fellow start-up founders who seem to be enjoying fame, glory and an abundance of venture capitalist attention. Some of these guys were his classmates at school and their lives seem ideal. Where did he go wrong?

The difficulty with all this chatter is that it is hard to differentiate between the signal and the noise. Additionally, even if some of these awesome success stories are accurate, they’re only accurate in the short term. The long game is a different matter altogether. However, as human beings, we are, on average, poor at thinking about the long term. So, some of this chatter can chip away at our self-confidence. And, self-confidence is a critical element of long term success.

The solution? MYOB – Mind Your Own Business.

Every person tends to have their own squiggly lined path to wherever they are headed. If they work well and hard, the squiggly lined path can generally be a little less squiggly. But, over time, things work out in one way or the other. And, if they don’t, we tend to learn something valuable – which isn’t a bad outcome. But, it is hard to keep this perspective if we try to process all the chatter around us.

So, it is vital we embrace MYOB. Keep calm, keep focused and keep plugging away. In the long run, good processes lead to good results.

It doesn’t really matter what you want to do – the odds are always crazy. Every time we move forward to accomplish something meaningful, we take on even crazier odds. Think about the entrepreneur who overcame incredible challenges to make a billion dollars. Did she stop then? No, she took on the challenge to do something even more worthwhile with that money.

If the odds of overcoming your next challenge are playing on your mind, just remember Carl Sagan’s note on the magic of this moment –

‘You are alive right this second. That is an amazing thing. When you consider the nearly infinite number of forks in the road that lead to any single person being born, you must be grateful that you’re you at this very second. Think of the enormous number of potential alternate universes where, for example, your great-great-grandparents never meet and you never come to be. Moreover, you have the pleasure of living on a planet where you have evolved to breathe the air, drink the water, and love the warmth of the closest star. You’re connected to the generations through DNA — and, even farther back, to the universe, because every cell in your body was cooked in the hearts of stars. We are star stuff, my dad famously said, and he made me feel that way.’

If the next challenge doesn’t quite work out, the one after that will. The odds will never get easier. But, as Carl Sagan points out, we are “star stuff.”

PS: An easy way to never forget we’re capable of magic – just give someone you like an unexpected hug and thank them for being amazing.

There are many ideas that aren’t taught or discussed enough – personal finance, marriage, relationships, happiness, learning how to learn, and so on. In some way, the focus of this blog is about all these things (some more than others).

One such topic that I try to do justice to is what ex-entrepreneur and a16z venture capitalist Ben Horowitz terms ‘the struggle.’ I see the struggle as life’s way of testing our mental strength. And, mental strength is also one of those topics rarely discussed even if the idea of “grit” is beginning to surface in discussions around leadership and success. Ben describes it well.

The Struggle is when you are surrounded by people and you are all alone. The Struggle has no mercy.

The Struggle is not failure, but it causes failure. Especially if you are weak. Always if you are weak.

Every great entrepreneur from Steve Jobs to Mark Zuckerberg went through The Struggle and struggle they did, so you are not alone. But that does not mean that you will make it. You may not make it. That is why it is The Struggle.

The Struggle is where greatness comes from.

Ben describes it in the context of entrepreneurship. I think it is equally applicable to life. We’re all entrepreneurs and leaders of Me, Inc., after all. And, most of us have experienced the struggle at some point. And, if you’ve ever attempted to take initiative, start something, or ship something, you have definitely experienced the struggle. Once the romance of starting something new goes away, the struggle usually takes over.

The hard part about the struggle is that it is something you almost always have to face yourself. It is our customized mental strength regime – we just don’t know it. Yes, they often tend to be first world problems but that doesn’t make them any less difficult. Problems that test mental strength are often the hardest of them all. Depression and mental illnesses hit human beings regardless of their socioeconomic status.

Ben shares a few ideas in his post that might help. My favorite is “focus on the road.” He says – “When they teach you how to drive a racecar, they tell you to focus on the road when you go around a turn. They tell you that because if you focus on the wall, then you will drive straight into the wall. If you focus on how you might fail, then you will fail. Even if you only have one bullet left in the gun and you have to hit the target, focus on the target. You might not hit it, but you definitely won’t hit if you focus on other things.”

Thanks Ben, for sharing your wisdom. And, here’s to writing and discussing ideas that aren’t discussed enough.

The biggest challenge when things don’t work out is to keep perspective. And, here are 3 ideas that help me keep perspective –

1. Setbacks are as predictable as winters. Every “up” or few “ups” are followed by an inevitable “down.” Setbacks are guaranteed. We don’t always know their exact timings but, after a while, you pick up on the pattern. There’s no point being upset about winter. Put your winter clothes on and get to work!

2. You only need one thing to work out. Setbacks are often a matter of perception. We don’t need every element of our elaborately laid plan to work. Often, we just need one thing to work out – one venture capitalist to sign the term sheet, one opportunity to work on a cool project, etc. Hold out for that one thing.

3. You never know when it is a good day. This is my other favorite. It is hard to tell if a recent bad day was really a bad day. Things have a funny way of working out. And, looking back from a day in the future, a bad day could turn out to be the best thing that happened to you at that time. So, keep plugging away.

This definitely borders on the philosophical but I’ve found all too many times that you don’t get what you want. Instead, you get what you need in the end.

The message? Keep perspective when set backs happen. And, keep plugging away regardless..