I’ve been getting asked for a lot of career / personal advice lately. Running a startup or being part of a startup team (whether as a technology company, traditional company or investor) is a huge challenge and leads to a lot of self reflection like “why am I doing this”, “why is this so hard” or “why is everyone else I speak to doing better than I am”. Often well meaning people will give you the advice you want to hear, rather than the advice that you need to hear because they see you working really hard and don’t want to burst your bubble. Often, that advice doesn’t actually fix your problem it just keeps you doing the same thing for a little while longer. It doesn’t make you any happier or more successful it just keeps you going which means well meaning advice compounds your problem and lead to even bigger issues in the future. After working with and learning from so many incredible investors, entrepreneurs and friends in the startup space and seeing people who have become wildly successful I observed some trends which generally run counter to a lot of common wisdom. I decided to write seven of them down here and bust some common myths which often cause people to be really dissatisfied with not being able to “live up to expectations”. In summary, living with purpose, and pursuing whatever you are doing with passion (whatever it may be, work, family, art or other) is largely the only thing you need to worry about. Once you work out what drives you and what you want to do – everything else seems pretty logical. That’s the only question you really need to ask!
MYTH 1: EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE WORK LIFE BALANCE IN ORDER TO BE HAPPY AND SUCCESSFUL
ACTUAL OBSERVATION: NO ONE SUCCESSFUL TALKS ABOUT WORK LIFE BALANCE, THEY TALK ABOUT DOING WHAT YOU LOVE, WHETHER THAT IS WORK, LIFE, FAMILY OR OTHER. THERE IS NO BALANCE, THERE IS CHOICE AND CONSEQUENCES.
This is actually the biggest one people have asked me what is the optimum balance between work, family, friends etc. I think the concept of work / life balance is inherently stupid because it is supposed to be this magical proportion that maximises your career while allowing you to have a life outside of that. I think chasing it is also stupid because you are always going to be dissatisfied with why is X not going better. Like Sheryl Sandberg and many other very successful business people say the first step in dealing with balance is identifying you can’t be the best at everything. Want to play bass guitar 2 hours a day, great, go do it, but that’s 2 hours you are sacrificing with your family or your business. At the end of the day solving work / life balance is about personal choice and then committing 100% passionately. Only spend 3 hours with your best friend every two weeks? Then makes those 3 hours count. Equally choosing to have a $10m business rather than a $100m business but spending less time on the road in sales meetings is a very valid and admirable choice if you want to be home for dinner with your family. At the end of the day successful people realise that the only person who can make the choice is yourself – and those choices (read sacrifices) have consequences as to your level of “success”. Most people use other people’s idea of success to benchmark against what they personally want to do and end up inherently dissatisfied. If you want to sit at home on a Saturday night and read a book, do so and be happy you learnt something. You don’t want to hang around people that call you a loser and make you feel bad that you aren’t out partying. If you would rather be out partying, go party (within moderation) and don’t feel bad about leaving your business behind for a few hours. Everyone should try and do one thing that betters themselves or learn one new thing a day.
MYTH 2: THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES IN YOUR CAREER / BUSINESS ARE THOSE FROM THE CAREER OR BUSINESS ITSELF
ACTUAL OBSERVATION: THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES ARE PERSONAL CHALLENGES, BEING YOUR OWN MENTAL RESILIENCE, AND YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY, EMPLOYEES AND DEPENDING ON YOUR LEVEL OF SUCCESS (THE PUBLIC / MEDIA)
If you actually ask most successful entrepreneurs about what the hardest part of the business is generally no one says the things you might think like “sales”. Most successful people are confident in their ability to deliver the business once they have some sort of momentum or if they have delivered some sort of success in another field. The things which keep them up at night are actually more like “what happens if I close down division X and Bob who works for me just got his mortgage” or “We are getting much more traction in Product 2 which was supposed to be an add-on product, should we give up on our core product and start again” or “my parents were very disappointed I cancelled on dinner today and seems really angry but I don’t think I achieved very much in that hour so I probably should have gone”. Contrary to most people, successful founders believe they can control their destiny in business – they probably were coming first in school, or selling newspapers at 14 or coding apps at 16. They know they can work at things and deliver results. The part which stresses them most are “random” variables – and that’s usually people. That’s also one of the least things which founders are prepared for i.e when you miss your mum’s birthday or when you come home after a 16 hour day and have to help your friend deal with their personal issues. Those are actually the things which founders feel they can’t control and therefore cause them to have the most stress. I don’t think there is a real solution than acknowledging this and having low expectations about the level of certainty you can have about personal issues. Again one of the big common themes you’ll hear founders talk about is how they wished they’d started working on themselves much earlier in their journey – most of the challenges are in our heads.
MYTH 3: EVERYONE DESERVES TO BE LIKED, APPRECIATED AND SUCCESSFUL
ACTUAL OBSERVATION: THOSE WHO DO THINGS WHICH APPRECIATIVE OTHERS AND INSPIRE SUCCESS GET LIKED, APPRECIATION AND SUCCESS. IF YOU DON’T DO ANY OF THOSE THINGS, YOU SHOULDN’T EXPECT ANY
This is more of a life lesson but I’ve found that if you know someone that doesn’t get one with one or two people that’s normal. But if you know someone that is constantly in fights with their boss, their family, their friends etc it’s not that everyone is always wrong – it’s them. One of the things that I’ve observed of the really successful people i.e people that have changed their community, the world or their industry is that self made people are not jerks, they give back to others and they have a strong sense of integrity. Just as you don’t want to hang out with someone that always tells you how stupid your business is, you can’t expect to be appreciated if you don’t try to add value to others. If three of your founding team have walked out and you don’t know why it’s time to reflect on yourself and your mindset. If you can’t act with common courtesy or respect towards others the problem is you, not the world, no matter how much you pay someone. Loyalty is a two way street.
As a personal note here I’ve found that every time I’ve met someone who I looked up to in real life, yes they all seem amazing but they also seem really human. They have the same problems as us, their dog is sick and they are short on sleep and they wonder if they could have bought their last flight at a cheaper price if they waited a week.
MYTH 4: EVERYONE THAT YOU START YOUR JOURNEY WITH CAN COME ALONG FOR THE RIDE AND WILL COME ON BOARD ONCE YOU ARE SUCCESSFUL
ACTUAL OBSERVATION: THERE WILL BE A SIGNIFICANT NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO CANNOT COME ALONG FOR THE RIDE NO MATTER HOW SUCCESSFUL YOU ARE. THAT’S JUST HOW THEY ARE, AND GREAT PEOPLE HAVE LEARNT TO ACCEPT THEM FOR THAT, OR MOVE ON AND FIND NEW PEOPLE TO INTERACT WITH
Doing anything worthwhile is hard. You don’t need more negativity in your life. In Australia it still seems to be a bit of a black word to tell people at a barbecue you started a business – a bit like “oh when are you going to stop that and come back to your job”. Most people think that as soon as they become successful this is going to change and everyone will love them. Ironically, its probably the reverse. Their friends start asking them for money, people ask them for favours because they think they can afford it, your family still asks you why you don’t spend enough time with them now you are successful. Just as it’s widely accepted that the team who scales your business from 5 to 50 people is highly unlikely to be the same team from 50 to 500 people – you are unlikely to be able to bring everyone who you know today on the journey with you tomorrow. It’s like the reason we aren’t all friends with our primary school friends, people grow, they move on, they go in different directions. Successful people have realised that’s life and have given up trying to “convert” people that aren’t moving in the same direction. There are obviously people you can’t abandon, like if your parents hate your business you can’t cut them out but the biggest pain point i’ve seen is the “failed help” mantra. Stop trying to help people who don’t want help and choose to be around people that inspire you and your life will get a lot less complicated. One of the most common frustrations of successful people I have heard is the inability to get people they care about to expand their horizons and want more for their life. Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean other people are open to doing it – and that’s fine. Appreciate them for who they are or move on.
MYTH 5: IF I JUST HAD THAT EXTRA CONTRACT/OPPORTUNITY/FUNDING ROUND/ MORE SUPPORT FROM FRIENDS, FAMILY OR PARTNERS/ LUCKY BREAK, THEN MY LIFE AND MY BUSINESS WOULD BE SERIOUSLY BETTER
ACTUAL OBSERVATION: IT WOULDN’T. IF YOU GO TO TWENTY MEETINGS AND GET A NO, THEN THERE’S PROBABLY A REASON FOR THAT. SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE RECOGNISE WHERE THEY NEED TO IMPROVE AND THAT IMPROVEMENT DRIVES SUCCESS
I think the keyword here is personal responsibility. In today’s world where you can start a website in 2 minutes or an online store in ten minutes – we can only blame ourselves if we don’t achieve what we want to – technology is the great enabler of the 20th century. This is actually the worst advice that well meaning people give you when you are struggling in your life “just keep going and it will all get better”. Successful people realise it won’t. If you want different results you have to have to do different things to other people. They realise that hope is not a strategy and no one is magically going to walk in and tell them here I’ve solved your capital problem or here’s a million dollar. Relying on lucky breaks or for things to fall your way actually makes you unhappy not happy and unsuccessful not successful. If you want something, go get it. You often see new founders make is relying on their friends or family for advice on how to make their life better. This is fine for simple things like “do you like this “logo”, but I’d strongly encourage you to branch out to people who are successful entrepreneurs in your field for big things like “should I do an MBA”. If you have been coughing for 7 days, you go to the doctor, you don’t just keep googling coughs on reddit and asking your mother.
Another related point is that I think many people assume you magically reach a point one day where you know the answers to a lot of things so it’s worth “giving X a go” in the hope of getting some new insight about what you might like to do or something better that improves your life. I find 100% of change starts internally not externally, I think most problems can be readily solved by finding what you are passionate about and then discarding everything that is not in line with that passion.
MYTH 6: WORKING HARDER IS DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO SUCCESS
ACTUAL OBSERVATION: SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE DON’T WORK 10% HARDER THAN OTHERS AND GET 10% MORE SUCCESS. THEY WORK 400% MORE THAN OTHERS AND GET 100X MORE SUCCESS. SUCCESS IS EXPONENTIAL NOT LINEAR.
I think one thing I’ve seen is that there is no jam in the fast lane. If you told everyone that if you had to work 80+ hours a week for 8 years to definitely (which is not true) make a startup a success and get an exit you could walk around to any school and 95% of people would say no thank you. In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the non-linear scale of success. It’s why working say 9-6pm doesn’t make you significantly more successful than working 9-5pm. Top athletes, business people, actors or top anything work multiples harder than the average person. It’s why Elon keeps a bed in his office or Kobe shot thousands of jump shots a week. To most really successful people it’s a passion not a job or profession. They get paid to do what they would be doing anyway. Conversely if you think you are working too hard and missing out on things that are important to you eg family or friends then working 20% less is likely to lead to a reduction of >20% in output. Like Myth 1, this is all about choice, there is no right answer and everyone should do what feels right to them. I’ve personally seen two of my best friends who are founders work a full day on the day of their wedding by getting up super early in the morning. It’s pretty hard for their competitors to beat that sort of passion and that’s why they are successful. The also related point here is that really successful people seem to have a great sense of what they are good at and what they are not good at and then focus 110% on being exceptional at what they are good at rather than quite good at everything. Yes we can all start learning to play the ukulele today, but if you’ve never played an instrument before you are unlikely to be a good professional ukulele player.
MYTH 7: BEING SUCCESSFUL IS SUPER GLAMOROUS AND REWARDS PEOPLE WITH WHATEVER THEY WANT AND THE FREEDOM TO DO SO. DELAYED GRATIFICATION IS THE ROAD TO SUCCESS
ACTUAL OBSERVATION: MOST PEOPLE THINK OF SUCCESS AS MONEY / TRAVELLING / HOUSES AROUND THE WORLD ETC BUT FOR PEOPLE THAT BECOME REALLY SUCCESSFUL THAT IS A BYPRODUCT NOT A PASSION. SOMEONE THAT GETS INTO STARTUPS BECAUSE THEIR PASSION IS TRAVELLING AND THEY WANT TO SEE THE WORLD GENERALLY DOESN’T HAVE THE MINDSET TO TAKE THEIR STARTUP BIG. CONVERSELY SOMEONE THAT HAS A PASSION FOR CODING THAT MAKES A BIG EXIT FROM SELLING THEIR COMPANY CAN TRAVEL ANYWHERE THEY WANT BUT GENERALLY HAS NO DESIRE TO DO SO. IF YOU HAVE A BURNING PASSION TO DO SOMETHING NOW, YOU SHOULD DO IT NOW, DON’T WORRY ABOUT WHAT ANYONE ELSE TELLS YOU TO DO.
This is also one of the biggest and most satisfaction destroying myths. My parents used to tell me that “you can work hard now and enjoy things later” and promote delayed gratification. I think the reality is that you just have different priorities and different challenges if you are successful and you get no more time or opportunities to do the things you want to do. The more successful you are the less rather than more likely you will get to take that 1 year backpacking trip to Italy that you dreamed of – things just get in the way and there is too much opportunity cost to not capitalise on all the hard work and sacrifices you have made. I consistently have heard very successful 100m+ founders say take that trip after uni, move to Japan for work or go do that MBA abroad because you will never get to do it again. When you’ve just sold your business most founders plan to take a year off but often get caught back in within months or weeks because they’ve just seen an opportunity that no one else is tackling. That’s just how successful people are, they are always looking for the next challenge – something always comes up over the horizon when you aren’t looking. I think the actual “truth” part of this statement is that if you aren’t a person that isn’t following your passion and/or trying to build success, spending a lot of your time and money on instant gratification (and a cycle of always taking holidays instead of saving for a house for example) is going to be really negative for you. So I don’t mean that, I mean like bucket list desires. Like if you’ve known since you were 10 that you wanted to live in Paris, go live in Paris. Don’t wait for the right time, start your business in Paris, move your business to Paris – you’ll find a way. Funnily enough, most of the really incredible people I know have no strong desire to do any of these things, they just get a kick our of working out big issues and adding value – so maybe it’s a self solving problem. People that value things like private jets, luxury cars etc generally aren’t that successful and never get to own them and for the people that are very successful – it’s just another thing that gets you from A to B and so they don’t really care either way. Life’s ironic like that.