As you know from this blog, I spend a lot of time writing from my head. Startup, this. Venture capital, that. But comparatively little from my heart. This blog, Cup of Zhou, is not going to be the next Stratechery. Or a 20-minute VC. Or a Not Boring. For each one of the afore-mentioned, I have a tremendous respect for. Ben at Stratechery, Harry at 20VC, and Packy at Not Boring all do something I can not. And they do it really, really well. This blog is just nothing more and nothing less than me. It’s not a publicity stunt. And sure as hell, a terrible branding platform. In fact, I’m willing to shoot myself in the foot again and again, as long as I can be true to myself here.
Four people last week reached out to me. Two founders. A friend from college. And another from high school. They told me that life was tough. Things weren’t working out. And rejection sucks. They’re right. Whether your goal is to change the world or have an enduring marriage, life is rarely easy. You’re going to get that left hook more often than you’d like. And rejection fucking sucks. To those who said it gets better over time, it doesn’t. At least for me. You may get desensitized to each blow, but there will always be jabs and uppercuts that will sting more than the rest.
While I find comfort in writing my thoughts here, most people don’t have a safe space to be candid. As COVID is slowing its pace, at least in the Bay where we’ve reached a level of herd immunity, a while back, I decided to start a new series of in-person dinners where people will feel safe being vulnerable.
In hopes that this will help those hosting such circles outside of the Bay, here’s what I learned.
With both online and offline, I played around with a combination of social experiments and social observations. The former, I would lead and guide conversation through centering exercises and intentional “stage time.” The latter of which I would bring everyone together, but spend less time steering the conversation. Both were structured and all attendees were informed of the ground rules, theme for the night, and homework, oftentimes a personal story to share with the group, necessary to bring thoughtful conversation to the table.
Eyes are the windows to the soul
In group settings, shyer attendees would allocate more of their eye contact when speaking towards people they were familiar with. And given that I bring strangers (to each other) together, shyer attendees make eye contact with me – the one person they do know – more often than with others. But as they find more comfort in their fellow attendees, they slowly allocate more attention to them.
I often found that the best remedy for this was in two parts:
Make eye contact with them while speaking,
Mention their name intentionally a few more times than I do with other more confident guests, and
Once they sustain eye contact with you when you’re openly speaking to them, redirect their attention to another attendee by then mentioning an adjacent topic that the other attendee brought up, and making eye contact with the other attendee.
Give people a path to retreat for them to stay.
Vulnerability and true authenticity is tough. For some people, it’s easier to do with strangers. For others, it’s much harder to open up to people who you’ve never met before. Nevertheless, I like to err on the side of caution. Even after I send out personal invites to each person via DM or text, where I give them the context of what they’re about to embark on, I still preface the email that includes all the details, specifically the ground rules of authenticity, open-mindedness, and candor, with: Are you willing to be vulnerable?
Then right below that question:
If your answer is “no“, I completely understand, and I won’t force you to come. Just let me know if you’re opting out, as I need an updated headcount for our reservation.
But if it’s “yes“, … [read on]
And in that same email, everyone is BCC’ed. The guest list on the calendar invite is also not visible to each guest.
Guests have multiple opportunities to opt-out. And they should if they’re uncomfortable with the setting, since the people who do come are the ones who will truly find value in having a vulnerability circle.
Being time sensitive doesn’t matter
I initially thought that people really cared that each session was going to last 2 hours and everyone only had 15 minutes of “stage time”. And the implicit promise that I would be cognizant of everyone’s times mattered. And while it still does to a reasonable degree, it hasn’t seemed to be a priority for folks especially in my social observations. The only times it does matter are:
The energy in the conversation is waning and people start noticing hot silence, as opposed to cold silence.
Borrowing the terminology of “hot” and “cold” from Jerry Colonna, hot silence is what most people deem as awkward silence. A silence where people intentionally seek to fill the void. On the other hand, cold silence is where people are comfortable with or seek comfort in the absence of speech. Either that it lets ideas and thoughts ruminate or there is a space for tranquility that one might find calming.
Someone has another commitment right after the event.
People who don’t enjoy the conversations, topics, or people.
Luckily, this last one has yet to happen since I curate each person who comes to these circles myself. But, given how many more circles I will host in the future, it’s something I’m aware might happen.
Conversely, many of the ongoing conversations former attendees are still having with each other have come from circles that have gone overtime. This is something I’ll continue to have my pulse on to see if anything deviates from this thesis.
In closing
These vulnerability circles are only the first of many more to come. And of course, future circles will come in different variations. The ones I have planned for early next year thematically revolve around the absence and the dulling of particular senses, in order to heighten other ones. And you betcha I’ll have much more to write about then.
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
After an investor’s recommendation recently, I stumbled on this question in an article in The Atlantic about the Grant Study. An incredible 80-year long longitudinal study following 268 Harvard-educated men and how they developed as adults. While most of the Grant Study men remain anonymous, some have publicly identified themselves, like Ben Bradlee and President John F. Kennedy. Simply put, it was history’s longest study on happiness. There were some fascinating discoveries in that study so far, like the six factors that acted leading indicators to healthy aging:
Physical activity,
A mature adaptive lifestyle to cope with ups and downs,
Little use of alcohol,
No smoking,
Stable marriage, and
Maintaining a normal weight.
I highly recommend reading George Vaillant’s Aging Well. If you’re short on time, Robert Waldinger’s TED talk. But I digress.
Despite always preaching to others that they should ask for help when they need it, I’m a terrible practitioner of my own advice. Sometimes I find it incredibly hard to ask for help from others. In situations I should be the expert in. In moments when I don’t think my problems are as big as others’. And in times when I don’t know what I want. While I hate to admit it, it’s often a problem attributed to my ego. And sometimes, unwittingly.
If you had to live your life over again, what problem would you have sought help for and whom would you have gone to?
The reason I love this question so much is that in asking it, we suspend our ego. It’s often easier to open up about the “[potholes] in the rearview mirror” than “[open] up about the potholes ahead” to use the words of Jeff Wald. It’s easier to answer What were you scared of as a child? than What are you scared of today?. I find it easier to:
Reflect on what I should have asked for help in.
Understand why I should have asked for help sooner in an empirical situation.
Then use those first principles to inform me when I should ask for help now.
Your mileage may very much vary. But nevertheless, over the past week, I found it to be an interesting thought exercise to go through. At the very minimum, something to journal on.
The DGQ series is a series dedicated to my process of question discovery and execution. When curiosity is the why, DGQ is the how. It’s an inside scoop of what goes on in my noggin’. My hope is that it offers some illumination to you, my readers, so you can tackle the world and build relationships with my best tools at your disposal. It also happens to stand for damn good questions, or dumb and garbled questions. I’ll let you decide which it falls under.
Subscribe to more of my shenaniganery. Warning: Not all of it will be worth the subscription. But hey, it’s free. But even if you don’t, you can always come back at your own pace.
One of the greatest blessings I have today is that friends often introduce me to their incredible friends. Two weeks ago, one of my good college friends introduced me to a friend he made down in LA. Sam. A brilliant aspiring fund manager. Cut her teeth with driving impact at non-profits. But above all else, her ability to host dinners with strangers caught my eye and ear. Since I’m a big fan of sharing my learnings from hosting brunches with strangers and socialexperiments. In a short span of a week, we became fast friends. Expectedly, I had to ask Sam how she brought strangers closer together at her dinners.
Last week we jumped on another call where she walked me through her process. “David, it’s easier to show you than to tell you. Are you open to being vulnerable?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about your life philosophy.” She asked me what influenced the life purpose I have today. Over the next half an hour, we dove into the depths.
The first third was populated by a politician’s answer. I wasted zero calories jumping into my upbringing and why that has influenced the person I am today. Unwittingly then, but in hindsight clarity now, they were all narratives I’ve rehearsed before – intentionally and unintentionally. After all, they were the cookie cutter responses I’d give to cookie cutter questions most people asked.
Yet, after each of my narratives, there would be a brief pause. What lasted only mere seconds felt like eternity for me. In those moments, she was a woman of few words. Comfortable with silence, she would occasionally beckon, “Tell me more.” On the other hand, I was impatient to fill the void. The emptiness was unsettling. I felt like a circus monkey forced to perform and that the audience’s claps and laughs was the only representation of my self-worth. But that was all in my head.
“Tell me more.”
I filled the next third with stories I’ve told before but not in a while. A reminder to myself that I am more than the person who existed in just the last two years. That I’ve had 23 other years than I somehow left in the attic collecting dust. That I am not a function of my job title or the people I surround myself with currently. But rather the accretion of everything before as well. Where the first third was sharing the mold I now fit in, the second third of our conversation was sharing why seemingly disparate events and relationships in the past fit the mold I had just shared. In sum, I was still making sense of things.
“Tell me more.”
I was ill-equipped to deal with the last third. I was no longer armed with the stories I had rehearsed throughout the 25 years I’ve been alive. Analogously, I was someone who just learned what exponents and derivatives were. When my 5-year old cousin asked the fifth “why”, I didn’t have an answer for her. Not like I did with the first four.
In this case, she asked the third “why”. And I was already at a loss for words. I was lost between doubt and anxiety, between shock and curiosity. But it was in the last ten minutes when I finally dropped my guard. My guard where everything had to make sense. My guard against the fear of uncertainty, not just for the future, but for my past.
A few moments of silence passed. Once again, long, but not nearly as uncomfortable as in the beginning.
At the end of our conversation, she left me to wrestle with my own uncertainty. But with the offer to dive even deeper the next time. And I was left with my own turmoiled mind, unable to find the words outside of sweeping generalizations to express what I felt and how I felt it. While I was grasping for the Merriam-Webster to make sense of my inner entropy, she sent me the below wheel. Something she relies on, to this day, to keep her emotional vocabulary from atrophying. In being able to identify her emotions, she is better set to understand them.
As I’m writing this blogpost, her words “true vulnerability is messy” still ring in my head. And it’s in those moments we build trust and bond with each other. And also with ourselves.
The purpose of this exercise and with vulnerability is not to have more answers than questions. Bur rather more questions than answers. And the ability to ask more.
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
In writing this blog, one of the greatest illusions I seemingly end up creating is that I know a lot. At least that’s what a handful of readers and friends have told me over the years. Truth is I don’t. And more often than not, I am learning and/or refining my thoughts as I am writing.
I’m gonna be honest. The script for this essay was going to be entirely different. In fact, I had exactly six hundred and eleven words written on another introduction to this piece. But in the past few weeks, I hit another seemingly insurmountable roadblock. Catalyzed by a conversation with a mentor who said: “David, you’ve confused movement with progress.” And she was right. The more I thought about it, the clearer it became. Snowballing upon itself until I realized how far I’ve gone when I mistook a compliment for an insult.
The more I read my previous intro, the more it sounded like total BS. Something someone would write never having experienced true self-doubt. I was my own harshest critic.
The irony of it all was that as I was interviewing other incredible individuals for the purpose of this blogpost, I felt I needed their advice below more than anyone else. In a way, I’m glad that some friends needed more time to collect and share their thoughts. In sum, this piece took me two months to put together. And every day, every minute, and every second was worth it.
As I’m writing this piece, I’m somehow reminded of a line Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love, said in a 2016 interview with On Being, “Creative living is choosing the path of curiosity over the path of fear.”
The process
In concepting this essay, I spent more time than I’d like to admit beating myself up to get to the “right” phrasing of the question. And each time I thought I got closer to the “right” question, a day later, I would find myself second-guessing if people might even bother responding to a “lazy” question. A low-hanging fruit, so to speak. And the fallacy with a low-hanging fruit is that they’ve most likely been asked the same by others. Probably to the point of fatigue, paired with an eye roll. But the thing is… with the topic of self-doubt, it’s not a topic most people are comfortable sharing, much less in public. And equally so, are rarely asked a question on this topic. The flip side of the coin is that they too are less likely to answer such a question. In the end, I settled with a question I came up with two weeks prior.
Speaking on self-doubt, 25% of the people I reached out to in my existing network didn’t have time to respond. Another 20% refused within 24 hours. And another 20% agreed initially, but ended up refusing some time after the initial exchange.
In reaching out, I used a similar framework as I shared in my cold email template.
TL;DR: I’m writing a blogpost on self-doubt, and you were one of the first people I thought of in having been candid enough to share your life journey. What are some of the personal narratives, questions, or comments you find yourself regressing to when you’re filled with self-doubt?
The longer version: Recently, after sharing my own internal conflict (here and here), I had a number of friends and readers reach out to share their own struggles. With almost half of them mentioning at one point in time that “I wish I were like [insert role model’s name] because s/he seems to have it all down.”
But people, like you, are just as human and as real as the next person over. So, in my effort to use my humble platform to humanize the world around us, I thought you’d be one of the best to answer this question!
What are some of the personal narratives, questions, or comments you find yourself regressing to when you’re filled with self-doubt?
Because I also plan to share your answer in the form of a blog post, similar to a study I did last year, where I asked [names redacted] and some other great folks! By default, I will abstract your name from what you share. In this case, I will cite you as “[title]”. That said, if you’re open to me using your real name or would like a different “title”, please do let me know. If you’re curious as to why my default is not to include your name, this is why.
And I know your candor will help many more, like me, who are going, have gone, and will go through difficult times. So, thank you. I have nothing short of my deepest gratitude for not only your candor, your time, but also your willingness to share your thoughts with the amazing people in this world.
Warmest, David
My only ask
My only ask is that you stay open-minded as you read the below memoirs. For context, this has been the blogpost that I’ve gotten the greatest percentage and number of “No’s” from. In the forms of:
“This is not something I’m ready to share at this point in my life.”
“I’ve been too busy. Sorry.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ll have time to get to this.”
“I don’t think now is a good time for me to be involved unfortunately.”
It isn’t easy to share what each of my amazing friends have shared below. Some of which stories may never see the light of day without their courage. And I hope you let their authentic voice shine as much as, if not with more respect that you have given me all this time. On behalf of everyone here, thank you. Thank you for giving all of us the platform to share our most vulnerable selves.
Unless otherwise specified with their first and last name, the below names, listed in alphabetical order, are pseudonyms to respect the courage it took each and every one of them to share what they did: Andrei, Annie, Elijah, Harry, Liam, Lucas, Mateo, Mya, Stephanie, Zack
The question
What are some of the personal narratives, questions, or comments you find yourself regressing to when you’re filled with self-doubt?
“I have a rather conversational style of writing. I suspect it’s the product of some natural proclivities and the sheer joy that comes from clacking a keyboard.
“We live in a world where every action has the potential to be a performance. Performances, by their very nature, are meant to be judged—are they memorable? Funny? Heart-wrenching? All of us, whether we like it or not, are constantly on stage and constantly judged. Personally, I get stage fright, and don’t recall being consulted before I signed up for this part.
“My own vintage of self-doubt stems from being judged poorly by someone I need something from. I’m in a position of vulnerability, they’re in a position of power. An old turn of phrase from the Bible, later memorialized forever in A Knight’s Tale, captures what my psyche so desperately tries to avoid: “You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting.” The external “they think I’m lacking” becomes the internal “I’m not good enough,” and by then I’m well stuck in the swamp of self-doubt.
“For me it’s the idea of being rejected, rather than rejection itself, that causes self-doubt to metastasize. As the CEO of a venture-backed startup, this is not ideal.
“Two months back I had a bad panic attack. Wave after wave of self-doubt assailed me for hours after the attack subsided. Just yesterday, I had the minor upwellings of another one. Both were caused by pitches I knew I bombed (ironically, both investors ended up investing). In a perfect world, one in which I am preternaturally confident, the opinion of others shouldn’t stir feelings of self-doubt. In the real world, I care very much what others think of me.
“It’s easy to build stories in our mind to validate self-doubt, especially in the early days of a company when you don’t have a ton of evidence to beat back the self-doubt. I’m still not sure what the evolutionary advantage is to this pattern, to play devil’s advocate against ourselves, but it’s real nonetheless. We all do it. And the cleverer the mind, the more insidious the arguments.
“When this happens, my mind runs to something my dad used to say: ‘What you think about me is none of my business.‘ If I ever get a tattoo, it will be these 10 words. There’s something comforting, almost even glib, that enables me to turn the corner more quickly than I normally would. It’s a well-trodden path that leads me back to positivity, outcome independence, and abundance mentality.
“Self-doubt is inevitable. So rather than trying to avoid it, focus on leaving it behind.”
Of course, I couldn’t help but include Taylor’s afterword as well.
“Unintentionally mirrored after one of my favorite writers, John Gierach. John muses on life’s richest veins and uses fly fishing as his vessel.”
A blessing in disguise
“Self-doubt may feel painful at first sight… but in essence it’s a real blessing… because it helps balance one’s ego + falling for believing in their own shit! If you are trying to learn new things and explore uncharted territories… it’s inevitable to have self doubt. It’s almost like having a sense of danger when you are venturing in extreme sports let’s say.”
– Andrei, Managing Director at a VC Firm with 10+ Funds
Lily pads
“When I start feeling self-doubt, my mind immediately regresses to ‘lily pads’ or landing places of past memories where I feel like I could have done something better. I start to overthink everything I wish I could have done differently in past roles or interactions, and get paralyzed with fear that I will have the same regrets in the future based on the next choices I make and actions I take.
“Here’s a few questions I regress to:
How did I trick someone into believing I was the right person for this job?
Will I ever be able to match the level of success I had with a previous project or was that the ultimate cap of my success?
Do other people perceive a mistake I made in the past with the same level of intensity? Are they as fixated on it or was it something that barely registered for them?
“The things that have helped:
I think through the advice I would give a friend, and then I try to be as gentle with myself (which is a hard thing to do).
I remember that the best wins in life come from taking risks, and assure myself that if I don’t feel some doubt, then I am not pushing myself to grow.
I keep a folder of compliments and nice feedback I have received, and I go back and read through a few threads to remind myself I have been able to get through things successfully in the past.”
– Annie, Head of PR
I followed up with Annie after, if she could shed some more color on what advice she gives to herself, as well as an example of a compliment she finds herself revisiting when she finds herself wrestling with self-doubt. And here’s what she shared:
On self-advice,
“Look at your success over weeks or months, rather than by the hour. A single day may not feel like you’ve achieved everything you set out to do or landed a milestone, but if you can Zoom out, you are doing it right.”
On compliments,
“In response to a tough email I once sent, an executive privately emailed me to compliment my professionalism and how I had organized my thoughts. That compliment resonated because I had put hours of thought into that response even though it was only a few paragraphs long, and it meant a lot to me to have someone validate my thought process and my output. When I am doubting myself and worried my instincts are off, I go back to that email. I also try to put it into action and go out of my way to compliment people now in similar situations, because I know how much of a difference a one-line compliment can make.”
An old friend
“Self-doubt (SD) is especially bad when I’m starting a new project. My first company was deeply personal and mission-driven but required a lot of upfront capital (like most of my savings). I was always pretty good at hyping myself up to start the project but then the flashbacks would come. I begin to think of my mom and the 14hr shifts she’s worked since 2002. I had been working towards affording her an early retirement at the time and SD reminded me that it could all go away in a second.
“One wrong move and I would revert our family back to poverty.
“It would be on me.
“These thoughts left me sleepless, and also [made me] lose excitement in other parts of my life too. It sucked but having gone through it, I now consider SD a friend. Not a friend I’d want to hang out with all the time but an old friend with good intention and zero sugar coat.
“I can be a reckless person at times and can trust SD to be there to remind me that I have a lot to fucking lose.
“It reminds me to be very careful and to hustle like I have everything to lose.
“Whatever causes SD’s intervention these days, I realize it must be really fucking important to me and worth a second thought.”
– Mya, Forbes 30 Under 30 Founder
When you lose
“Say I lose my biggest client and I start to be overwhelmed with self doubt, my go to thoughts / comments / narratives are:
Am I delusional about my abilities? Maybe I’m actually an idiot with an ego? Imposter
What if I had done this, done that. Every little time I wasn’t perfect becomes a possible moment that will come back to ruin me
I’ve always been unlucky and luck seems to be a big part of success, so maybe I’m doomed no matter what
“But then there’s also a deeper narrative:
Maybe I just don’t ACTUALLY want this. I just think I want this. And my soul just isn’t in it and therefore I will fail. I’m not self aware enough
We all die. Nothing matters… especially me and what I’m doing.
A lot of successful people seem miserable. Is this a rat race? Am i setting myself up to fail on what really matters
Overall inability to identify a reason for why I am doing something and why I am the one that can do it”
– Elijah, Venture-backed founder
Self-compassion
“When I think about narratives, I try to go back to the psychology of ‘self talk’–especially when it comes to reducing ‘negative self talk’. Through time, self awareness and an emphasis on reducing self criticism, has helped me to become less doubtful. The question of ‘Why are you doing this?’, if done with self compassion can be a great way to maintain focus and inspire creativity.
“In terms of negative self talk day to day, I try to look at things through the constructive criticism lens, rather than the self critic. The former allows for more creativity. Life can be a challenge, and patience with the process helps me to embrace more self confidence.”
– Zack, General Partner at Venture Firm/Podcast Host
When Zack shared this, I couldn’t help but recall Jack Kornfield‘s line, “If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”
What’s next
“Great question.
“I wish I could be of specific help but I do not do ‘self doubt.’
“I have had many many many challenges and course changes in my life, but each one of them created a new path. There are times when I am disappointed that my path doesn’t go in the direction.
“I had originally predicted or hoped for, but I can’t remember ever feeling self doubt. That’s because I always know I will discover the way forward that does work for me in the moment. I tend to focus more on the ‘what to do next’ rather than the ‘why something happened.’ I tend to be very stoic in my assessment and dealings with challenges. I don’t like feeling bad so I tend to create plans pretty quickly to move through whatever challenges I have.
“I do my best to recognize progress and change and do my best to adjust to it as fast as possible in order to minimize discomfort. I also tend not to think of things as either good or bad… just events that happen. The only thing I know I have control of is my response to change. I can’t control much… including the tempo of change. I tend to not look backward as to ‘why’ things happen and focus on ‘what’ I may have done to cause them as well as ‘what’ I am going to do next. In essence, I don’t feel like a victim ever… I own the events and challenges I face and do my best to strategize how to move through them.
“One easy example is this past year. My business model of being an in-person speaker got turned off like a light switch. I then just kept moving and building relationships. I believe the choice we have is to either keep up with the tempo of change in the world or not.
“Another example is happening right now. This past year I began walking a great deal and listening to audible books, taking notes and creating content. It was very enjoyable. I injured my hip a few weeks ago and it has totally disrupted my routine. I am working as quickly as possible to create new routines and healthy habits to continue to live what I believe is my purpose. It sucks that things change, but that is inevitable :)”
– Liam, Former FBI, Author
Personal suffering as a proxy
When talking about mental health, Max Nussenbaum, Program Director @OnDeck Writer Fellowship, always comes to mind. When I pinged him for answers, he gave me the opportunity to quote some of his amazingly candid essays.
“I wrote two pieces on this, one about being a startup founder and the other about being a writer.”
Both of the above pieces I highly recommend. But here are a few of Max’s thoughts that resonated with me the most. Even then, this snapshot will not do the nuance he describes justice:
“Since I didn’t know how to prove to myself that I belonged where I was, I turned to the only method I could come up with: treating my personal suffering as a proxy. The rest of my life becoming less and less put together must have meant that I was throwing more and more of myself into the company, and therefore that no one—least of all me—could question my commitment or whether I was cut out for this. And so I partied too much and foreclosed any real connection with the people I was dating and just generally reveled in everything around me being a bit of a mess.”
“A lot of this was fun, but I was stressed and anxious all the time; there was both a euphoria and a terror in feeling like my life was moving so fast that the whole thing threatened to go off the rails at any moment. I would look around and think to myself, this must be what really living is all about. And whenever I felt like an imposter as a founder, I’d use the corresponding messiness of my personal life as proof that I was giving the company my all.
“Of course, none of this made any logical sense, and none of it made us more successful. A stable relationship almost certainly would have been a support system that helped me be a better founder; at the very least, it’s hard to do good work when you were out till 4 a.m. doing drugs with strangers the night before. But that’s the thing: I wasn’t optimizing for actually making my company successful. I was optimizing for assuaging my own insecurities.”
Doing your best
“In short, I have a simple approach for when self-doubt could come in – in that, as long as you believe you are doing the best you can, getting support from others to help get through the situation, and striving to continually improve, then what is meant to be, will be. If it doesn’t happen, then it wasn’t meant to happen and something that’s better suited for you will come along in due time.
“While it might be short term disappointment, either turn it into a driving force to do better and achieve what you were originally trying to do, but knowing limits, putting in a plan for constant improvement and being satisfied with the achievements as long as you can internally reflect and know you did your best.”
– Mateo, Head of International at a post-Series B startup
Your best days are ahead
“I grew up in a poor, uneducated family, and have for a long time felt like I didn’t quite fit in. To them, my curiosity and intellectual pursuits are deemed futile and a pipe dream. It has also been met with ridicule and mockery. As much as I pretend that it doesn’t affect me, ultimately the people in your family have so much influence on our sense of self worth. It wasn’t until moving out here in 2013, that I felt like I found my family and my tribe. That narrative still bounces around in my head from time to time, but I have worked really hard through therapy and conversations with mentors to eradicate a good majority of it.
“I guess imposter syndrome, is the widely used term for this condition. For folks like us, that may be more deeply rooted and takes more effort to overcome. Am I smart enough to do this? Do I know enough? Am I experienced enough? I’m not educated like my colleagues. I didn’t go to Stanford, Cal, or MIT. What am I doing here?
“There’s only so much one can tell oneself to overcome these deeply rooted self doubts, ‘you got this’ ‘you belong here’.
“I have found that working through it is a journey that involves creating new habits and forming new narratives. Turning the negative self talk into, ‘this is part of the process’ ‘your beginner’s mind is an asset’ ‘I’m not my highly educated colleagues, but my game and perspective is unique’.
“Growing up in South Carolina in my family, so many of the things the could have been cultivated weren’t, and that’s fine. I feel like my best days are ahead of me, and I’ll take that.”
– Harry, Senior Design Leader at a Fortune 100 company
The war between results and doubt
“Whenever I go a month or more without a sale, the doubt starts to creep in. The only thing that pushes the doubt away is a successful sale. I am better at dealing with it now because I have been through so many cycles and ups and downs, but I have never truly figured out how to eliminate the doubt (or better channel/repurpose that negative energy) that creeps in whenever I have a little capacity to do more work.”
– Lucas, Managing Director at an Executive Search Firm
Would she say the same for a man?
As if the world gave me the sign to take this leap of faith to write this blogpost, the first person I reached out to was Stephanie. I happened to catch her right at the moment she had been rejected after an interview for a senior position at a firm.
“I was honest about my career and life. Next time I could speak differently but I know with my resume and the time off I took that I would get the questions I received.
“I just hated the comment she made. She was very complimentary but then used this word that made me wonder, ‘Hmm would she say this about a man with my same career path?’
“The interviewer commented to my friend that I was smart but ‘too whimsical’ for the role they are hiring for. It made me question my whole career path for a second. By the way, I had never been called ‘whimsical’ before… that’s a word used for fairies.
“I try not to overstress myself and that’s why my personality is more chillax, but I take myself very seriously at work.
“Questions I ask myself and messages I give myself when I have doubt:
‘Am I doing the right thing with my life?’
‘What can I do to help others understand why I am taking this direction?’
‘How can I be my number one fan?’
‘Be compassionate with yourself.’
‘Focus on your mental health during this time of self doubt.’
(when someone rejects me)”
– Stephanie, Female co-founder of a hedge fund and advisor to multiple companies
Dreaming and falling
“From my own experience the question of self-doubt sneaks in way too often in almost any entrepreneurial quest. It can happen that you have self-doubt 101 times a day about some totally banal things such as ‘can I name myself a CEO and put it on my LinkedIn profile if I just founded a business’.
“For me personally, those ‘light’ self-doubt questions are categorized more as decisions. Same as with food, just make up your mind on what you want to have for lunch and stick to your decision whether it tastes or it doesn’t taste good. And of course, if it did not taste well enough, make sure that you have learned the lesson for the next time.
“The real heavy self-doubt comes to surface when:
A. You are selling a dream, a vision or an idea, and B. When things are falling apart.
>> A.
“In situation (a), it can often happen when you don’t have enough pieces of tangible evidence, data points, intelligence, etc. to prove your point of view to yourself and others. People will say – your idea sucks, this is impossible, you don’t have the skillset, your team is not good enough, the market does not exit, etc.
“To ‘survive’ these situations and be able to thrive no matter the negative comments and feedback (which often can come from some of the most influential and successful investors and entrepreneurs), I always make sure that before I go out there selling my vision, I truly believe in my idea/dream and that I have done enough homework to personally assure that there is a decent chance for it to come to life. I bulletproof it for myself first before I take that and test it with the world.
“Moving forward with selling the dream, during the conversations I tend to come back to the narratives of others who did something great in the past and proved others wrong.
“As Nelson Mandela would say, ‘It always seems impossible until it’s done.’
“I read so many inspirational stories of successful innovators, scientists, philosophers, artists, sport athletes, and entrepreneurs. And I don’t hesitate to bring those examples up in a conversation to show that someone has done it before even though at the beginning no one recognized their potential or the potential of their idea.
>> B.
“For situation (b) when your project is failing, sometimes it is totally out of your hands (and that is sort of an easier scenario,) but sometimes you do tend to question yourself if you could have done something differently. You start developing self-doubt in your managerial and entrepreneurial competence. Especially when you read so many headlines about the success of other entrepreneurs that raised 100s of millions or exited their companies at some mind-boggling valuations.
“In those moments, I do two things:
I rationalize by going back in the past and rewinding all the small achievements we made along the way. While doing that, I express deep gratitude for every single small step I made. As an example, we never raised from a Tier 1 VC but we met a lot of them and with some, we had multiple rounds of conversations. I am deeply grateful for even hearing back from them, for every moment they took to review my deck and learn more about our project. Success is the path and the process itself, not the final outcome. And that is what I remind myself of, in case the self-doubt comes to surface.
I ask myself if I did put in my perfect effort because that is all I could have done. As Sam Altman said, one needs a great idea, a great product, a great team, and great execution. Even if you have all four of these you may still fail. The outcome is something like idea x product x execution x team x luck, where luck is a random number between zero and ten thousand. Knowing that at the end of the day we are only in control of our thoughts, intentions, and reactions I end up asking myself – am I a satisfied with my input and work and did I do my best and put in the perfect effort? And the answer to that question brings me to a rationale that is beyond self-doubt and is actually the basic building block of self-confidence. This really helps to turn doubt into a strength!”
I know that not every story will resonate. Some may never resonate. Some will grow on you over time. Others will find meaning into your life when you least expect them to. My purpose for starting this blogpost is to freeze these stories and life lessons in amber for when you find yourself needing them the most. Life’s not easy. Neither is it meant to be. But hopefully, you’ll find comfort knowing you are not alone.
At the end of the day, all advice is autobiographical. Or as Kevin Kelly, co-founder of WIRED magazine, once wrote, “Advice like these are not laws. They are like hats. If one doesn’t fit, try another.” What you’ve read above are the advice, stories, autobiographies. Anecdotes that hopefully shed more light into the elements of humanity many of us, including myself, have been scared to talk about.
A good buddy of mine made me watch a movie recently. It couldn’t have been more timely. He told me nothing more than this one line from that movie:
“We are all the unreliable narrators of each other’s stories.”
So I watched it. I won’t tell you the name of the movie or what it’s about, but if you use the above quote in your search query, you’ll find it. And if you’re like me, and so many others, who struggle with identity and your place in the world – either now or in the past, it’ll change the way you see the world and the people around you.
Thank you Taylor, Max, Janko and everyone else who made this piece possible!
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
They were part of the defining score of years that brought the sport into the limelight. To most, most of the above names carry little gravity, outside of Phelps. But to me, they were the names that had me huddled around the TV. Watching the prelims. The semis. And of course the finals. They were the names that inspired me to be better.
As Ervin said, “We are the oldest of the fastest and the fastest of the oldest. We are men between worlds.”
But as they came back for one last curtain call this Olympic Trials, I couldn’t help but recall their influence on me in some of my most formative years. Whether I need that extra push for the most challenging project in my life to date or that shoulder to lean on when I am at my worst, there’s one race I cannot help but think about.
Just like when a Yahoo! exec told the Reddit co-founders that they were a “rounding error” and the team subsequently decided to frame it on their office wall as motivation, in 2008, the US Olympic 4×100 freestyle relay team faced a similar dilemma. Despite having Phelps on the relay team, they weren’t the crowd favorites. The French were. They – the American team – were the underdogs.
In fact, that 2008, French team boasted some of the fastest sprinters in the history of the sport. Alain Bernard who had just won his gold in the 100 meter freestyle. And Amaury Leveaux who had taken the silver in the 50 meter freestyle. And besides Lezak who tied for bronze in the 100 meter freestyle, none of the others on the US team had medaled for a short-distance freestyle event that Olympics.
Pound for pound, the US relay team had to deliver not only their best, but beat their best. To have a chance at beating the French team. So for motivation, they read Bernard’s comment in the papers over and over. “The Americans? We’re going to smash them. That’s what we came here for.”
Phelps leads the race, giving his team a slight lead over France. Weber-Gale holds that lead for the Americans. Jones, the slowest and the third leg of the team, yet still punching every inch of his worth, gives the lead back to France. And Bernard, the world champion in the 100 free, against Lezak for the US, gets a strong lead for a race and a length he is already the best in the world at. Lezak trails behind by over half a body length at the flip. 50% done of the last leg of the race.
I remember sitting in front of the television screen, screaming and hoping my voice would reach the Water Cube in Beijing. “C’mon… c’mon! C’mon!!” Lezak, at 32, one of the oldest competitors in the pool that year, pulled together what could only be described as sheer willpower. Those last 50 meters… seemed to have been the longest 23 seconds of my life. A breath for every second that passed. A breath for every second Lezak pulled closer to Bernard. And in the last ten seconds, minus the sound of the TV, the room was silent. As some people might say, you could hear the sound of a pin drop. It did. With a margin of eight hundredths of a second.
One of the tightest and most inspiring races in all of history. If you ask me, the greatest. And the race I watch time and time again when I am at my worst.
You have to see it for yourself to really believe the excitement.
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
I have this conception of a personal Hall of Fame. For every piece of content, individual, and or experience in my life that has drastically changed the way I live or the way I think about life. Upon entrance, I find myself facing three large corridors – each adorned with text in Garamond font, framed in the corpse of a giant oak tree. In the corridor to the left, it’s the “Content Hall”. Arguably, the most competitive of the three halls to get into.
I only meet so many individuals in my life. I would say somewhere on the magnitude of tens of thousands. To pick tens of individuals among 10,000 is a 0.1-0.2% chance of induction.
The same is true for experiences. Excluding my daily habits of sleeping, eating, and others that have become second nature, there are very few extraordinary experiences among the ordinary. And in pursuing something extraordinary over a prolonged duration, that something extraordinary becomes ordinary to you. So, over time, you end up regressing into a step-wise function of finding the extraordinary in the extraordinary. To choose from a select few of these extraordinary in the extraordinary experiences at various learning curve spurts leaves an even smaller sample size.
Yet the same can’t be said for content. We consume a plethora of content on a daily basis. From obvious content drops, like YouTube, books, shows, and podcasts, to the non-obvious, such as emails, conversations, street signs, and opportunities that make you pause in the buzz of daily life. With tons of constant inputs from multi-directional sources, picking the handful that has altered your life’s course has a far lower acceptance rate than being struck by lightning.
For me, one of the greatest pieces that exists in my “Content Hall” is The Tail End by Tim Urban. There are a multitude of great anecdotes in it, but my favorite of which is, by the time we turn 18 years old, we’d already have spent at least 90% of our time with our parents.
Presidents
Say I live to 90 years old. In my lifetime, I get to see 22 US presidential terms. 22 presidents max, but many presidents hold office for two terms rather than just one term. There’ve been 46 presidents in the history of the United States so far. 21 of which served two terms. For ease of calculation, there’s about a 50% chance that any president will hold office for two terms. That’s 16 presidents, give or take, throughout my entire life. I’ve lived through Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and now Joe Biden. That’s 5, and only 11 more to go. Of course there’s the chance of early impeachment. But let’s assume everyone serves their full term.
I’m 25 now. So, I’ve already seen almost a third of the presidents I will see in my lifetime.
Summer vacations
If I live till 90, I have another 65 summers to go. 65 summer vacations left.
If I settle down by 35, I have 10 more summer vacations left – entirely free from constraints and in my prime. I can go skydiving and play extreme sports, without having to worry about seeing the chiropractor. And I imagine, like many others out there, I have more than 10 summer vacation spots I want to hit, excluding the ones I want to have repeat visits to. I already wish I had more time.
Times I’m wrong
In preparing for this essay, for the past week, I tracked the number of times I realized I was wrong. Racking the numbers up each day for seven days. From getting the weather wrong to forgetting what I thought we had for leftovers to being one digit off on my recollection of industry metrics during a meeting, I make on average two small mistakes a day. Extrapolating that to the rest of my life, I have almost 47,500 more small mistakes left to make. I’ve never felt more human than I do now.
Of course, the above number doesn’t include all the times I’ve realized I was wrong after the fact, which I imagine accounts for a mountain of imperfections in its own right. Enough to rival the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Idea journals
Many of you reading this blog are no stranger to my idea journals. I go through a journal every four months. I have almost 200 more idea journals to go through, assuming I keep at the pace I’m going at now. 195, to be exact. Oh wow, I really need to invest in some shelf space in my future homes. Enough for over 20,000 pages and all hardcover leather-bound journals.
Breakdowns
Each time I conquer a mental breakdown I think I’d be more resilient. In many ways, I am right. In many more, I am still unprepared for what is to come. Just as the sun rises, I too will cognitively readjust to my stress levels. While I wouldn’t describe my breakdowns to be on regular intervals, on average, it seems to happen once every five years. At least a major one, discounting all the smaller frustrating moments I come across. That’s 18 total, and 13 more mental shifts I won’t be ready for no matter how much I prepare.
In closing
All the above calculations were in the scope of 90 years old. But the awesome part is if I live past 90, every day will be icing on the cake. It’ll be better bang for my buck!
The point of this mental shift isn’t to be 100% accurate (’cause I know I’ve made quite a few generalizations). But rather reframe how we choose to live our lives.
In comparison with the hundreds of thousands of years the human species has lived, we are mere century inhabitants. And in the whole history of Earth, if we were to count on a 24-hour clock where the formation of Earth began at time 00:00:00, humans have lived just over a minute. We have short lives. Maybe that’ll change some time in our lifetime, with technology, CRISPR, or some sci-fi derivation.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t live fulfilling lives. Or as Garry Tanputs it, most people are “short term optimists” and “long term pessimists” and end up picking smaller problems to tackle. Rather, we gotta be “short term pessimists” and “long term optimists.” We have short lives, but let’s live a life where our impact lasts beyond our physical lifespan.
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
“Ego is about who is right. Truth is about what is right.” – Mike Maples Jr.
I distinctly remember reading this soundbite on page 64 years ago in Tim Ferriss‘ then-new book, Tribe of Mentors. With the recent string of world events over the past few months, I’m reminded once again of this line. It’s strange to think that our most available mentors come in the form of books. Yet, every time I realize this fact, I seem to stumble upon another Eureka moment.
I was a passively-rebellious kid growing up. Though not often, there were times I would swing left when my parents said right. High school, on the other hand, did not make it any easier for my parents. As if puberty was not enough, in high school speech and debate, I learned to play the devil’s advocate on nearly everything. Frankly, it didn’t matter if they were right or not. And in more times than I am willing to admit, I found myself in trouble for not heeding my parents’ advice. Physically. But more often, emotionally. I was just emotionally antagonistic to my own wellbeing. Something I was unwilling to admit for quite a while.
We live in an era where many debates have spiraled down the path of: “If I’m right, you’re wrong” or “If I’m wrong, you’re right.” But most issues – and I might even be as bold as to say, all issues – are not nearly as binary. Debates have become arguments rather than conversations. We fail to realize great constructive conversations are never zero sum. Socratic discussions lead to nuance and a spectrum of colors that are dimensionally vast. Many of us have chosen what is the easiest for us to swallow in that moment. That soundbites resonate more than 3-hour debate. We’ve turned our attention towards ephemeral efficiency rather than robust literacy. At the same time, we need to balance complexity with simplicity. Sometimes, matters aren’t as complicated as we make them out to be. Other times, they are and possibly more so.
Someone I deeply respect once told me. “The quality of your words are determined not by what comes out of your mouth, but by how much reaches another person’s ears.” Oddly enough, we fail to use our senses in the proportions nature gave to us. Two ears. One mouth. Yet, we often act as if we have two mouths and one ear. And I am not immune to that fact.
Over the years, due to the accumulation of scar tissue, I’ve learned to abstract who from what they are saying. When I hear advice, opinions or even facts from someone I am emotionally aloof or antagonistic with, I ask myself, if someone I deeply respect said the exact same thing, would I still be as averse as I am now?
If still so, why? What are my underlying assumptions to oppose such a claim?
Similarly, if someone I deeply respect (even blindly so) says something I agree with too quickly, would this piece of advice hold the same gravitas if it came from someone with little social capital?
Of course, the above is much easier when my inner weather isn’t hormonally turbulent. But when it is, I breathe deeply thrice. And ask myself the question again. And if still turbulent, then I repeat until I’m ready to face my own ego.
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
I’ve been a long time fan of Naval Ravikant, so when he went on Clubhouse recently to share his thoughts, despite not having an iPhone (I know ?), I had to find a way to tune in. While Clubhouse is designed to be the ephemeral demystification of the broader world, there are a rarified few conversations I believe are and should be evergreen. Naval’s happens to be one of them. Whether Clubhouse itself compiles these knowledge banks or through some third-party service, we already have listeners and Clubhouse users recording these conversations. A temporary hack that paves the way for a broader solution.
Over the weekend, I found Naval’s definition of purpose to be one of the best I’ve heard to date:
“You have to live up to your own moral code. Your life is an eternal single-player game. You’re not competing against anybody else; you’re competing against yourself. You set your own desires and your goals. You have your own perspective. You have your own morality. And you have to live up to it.
“There is no standard meaning or purpose. If there was a single purpose or meaning for all of us, then we’d all be slaves to that single purpose. We’d all be robots – every one of us fighting each other in conflict to get to that one purpose. And there’s not even a single purpose for you necessarily, other than the one that you create. So, you get to create your meaning and purpose. You get to craft your own story here. […]
“It is a race, but you’re just running against yourself. You pick the finish line; you pick the goal line; you pick the meaning; you pick the purpose. So you can pick a meaning or purpose that is antithetical to happiness, or one that aligns with it.”
A month ago, my friend and I watched Pixar’s Soul. In it, the writers illustrated a powerful lesson on life’s inspiration. As Jerry enlightens Joe, that distilling your whole life into a singular purpose is “so basic”, Joe enlightens Soul 22, “your spark isn’t your purpose. The last box fills in when you’re ready to come live.” To live means to enjoy and savor every minute, every second, the entire 24-hour day, all 365 days of the year, and every year we are alive and breathing. Not just, and I’m generalizing here, the 40-100-hour workweeks. Joy and purpose, after all, was never meant to measured as a unit of time alone.
Many of us live life looking for our purpose in life – a singular destination. A singular raison d’être. We compartmentalize our entire lives into self-prescribed labels. In high school, it was either by our grades or our extracurriculars. In college, by our majors. In our adult life, by our job title. I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m willing to bet that most, if not all people, are more robust than just their full-time roles make them out to be. Just like I’m more than a VC Scout. That’s why I’m so fascinated by polymaths in our society.
In opening our minds to a world beyond a single degree of freedom, we give ourselves more surface area to find inspiration and happiness. As Tim Ferriss once said, “It is not that beauty is hard to find; it’s that it is easy to overlook.”
Equally so, his rhetoric on passion is equally as provocative. Or specifically, the relationship between your passion/obsession (more on obsession here and here) and domain expertise. The latter, as Naval calls it, “specific knowledge”:
“How do you gain specific knowledge? It’s almost a catch 22. Specific knowledge is built up by you through your passions. So, when they say follow your passion, it’s kind of what they mean. It doesn’t always lead to money, but it can. Because if you’re obsessive about something and learning it for your own genuine intellectual curiosity – not to get a degree, not to make money, not to impress your friends – you’re going to end being better at it than anybody else. So, I really believe that you should only read and engage in activities that you genuinely enjoy. And you should cultivate your intellectual obsessions without any goal that you may be surprised when you look back and connect the dots later that one of them developed into a goal. One of the hallmarks of specific knowledge is that it will feel like play to you, but it will look like work to others. So, anything that fits that model, you should develop. […]
“You get what you want out of life. You just have to want it badly enough. If it’s your all-consuming desire, you will get it. You will create the path to the destination no matter what it takes.”
Naval’s encyclopedic answers asked underscored once again a question I ask myself when I am the most lost:
What would I do if, at the end of the day, I would be only one applauding myself?
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
As I’m gearing up for a few projects, I spent the last few weeks pondering on a number of questions. And to stress test those questions, I spent the greater half of that time asking the people around me. But in the process of doing so, I found 10 of the above questions sponsored the most self-inquiry within myself and others.
The Questions
Elad Gil, legendary angel investor, said in an interview late last year that “every startup needs to have a single miracle… If your startup needs zero miracles to work, it probably isn’t a defensible startup. If your startup needs multiple miracles, it probably isn’t going to work.” Was there a defining miracle, when preparation met opportunity, that got you to where you are today?
Similarly: Life is some percent skill and effort and some percent of luck. How much has luck contributed to get you to where you are today?
In 2005, a Yahoo! Exec once told the Alexis Ohanian, founder of Reddit, that they were a “rounding error” which Alexis then framed on the company wall as motivation. Have there been chapters of your life that were defined by strong opposition – externally or internally – and your ambition to prove them wrong?
Pat Riley, Hall of Famer basketball coach, wrote in his book, The Winner Within, “You don’t wanna be the best at what you do; you wanna be the only one who does what you do.” What skills, experience, or mental models do you have where you are the only person – or in extremely rarified air – who can do what you do?
Quoting Jerry Colonna in his book Reboot, how are you complicit in creating the conditions you say you don’t want?
Norman Vincent Peale, author of the bestseller, The Power of Positive Thinking, once said, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” Entrepreneurs are people who pursue impossible odds and enjoy the journey of shooting for the moon to become world-class athletes. Telling them no is like telling a 7-year old they can’t become an NBA All-Star. Odds are they’re not going to succeed, but the process of pursuing that goal makes it worthwhile. And in doing so, they become a stronger, more resilient individual than never trying to pursue it in the first place. In your life, what have you done or would you do regardless of the outcome of the pursuit?
Andy Rachleff, founder of Wealthfront and Benchmark, once said in an interview: “If we’re batting a thousand or close to a thousand, we’ve done a really poor job.” If your probability of success is really high, the likelihood of a big win is extremely low. To win and not just focus on not losing, you have to take big risks. And as per the definition of risk, you’re more likely to fail. Have you had a failure in your life that contributed the most to where you are today?
On the same token, have there been alleged setbacks turned out to be a blessings in disguise? Or, were there “misfortunes” that turned out to be fortunes?
Let’s say life is a game blackjack. If the first card you drew represents your journey prior to 2020 – face up – and the second card exemplifies your life from 2020 till now – face down, which two cards did you draw? And would you continue “hitting” knowing the hand you’re dealt?
I saw in a Quora thread once, “When you are happy you enjoy the music, but when you are sad you understand the lyrics.” When you were in your lowest of lows, were there words, phrases, or lessons that had profoundly new meaning to them?
Desmond Tutu, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, once said, “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.” So, to borrow his words, what are the common themes between moments you’ve given up your humanity, either individually or collectively?
What is the narrative that you find most compelling when your inner weather is the most turbulent?
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
I’ve written 102 essays on this blog in the past year, plus some change, spending an average of 1-2 hours per piece and a range from 30 minutes to 2 weeks. An average of 1,200 words per post. While not mutually exclusive, over half of which were on startup topics. One in three described the venture capital landscape. 36 (excluding #0) #unfiltered blog posts, where I share my raw, unfiltered thoughts about anything and everything. 16 on mental health. A surprising 13 on cold emails and its respective ecosystem. And my first public book review. Some didn’t age well, like The Marketplace of Startups. Some will stay evergreen.
25% of my blog posts I started writing at least 48 hours before the publish date. 1 in every 3 (-ish) of the afore-mentioned, I rewrote because I didn’t like the flow. For every 2 essays I wrote, 1 of which I had to wrestle deeply with the thought of imperfection. In effect, half of my essays were a practice to overcome my own mental stigma of “writer’s block.” Yet after over a year of writing, I realize that I’ve become prouder of my writing than when I started.
So, as the year is transitioning into the next, I thought I’d take some time to reflect on my growth 100 (+2) posts after starting this blog. Let’s call them superlatives.
Top 10 most popular
Ranked by total views per post, the 10 posts readers visit the most.
My Cold Email “Template” – My friends have asked me for years what I write in my cold emails, and now, what and how I write my cold outreaches are available for your toolkit.
10 Letters of Thanks to 10 People who Changed my Life – Every holiday season I write thank you letters to the people I deeply respect. It’s one of the best times of the year to reconnect. These are the letters I wrote in 2019. Here are also some I wrote this year for more context.
The Marketplace of Startups – While many of the remarks on this blog post are now obsolete, largely incited by the 2020 Black Swan event – COVID, the two questions at the end of the blog post are the two I still like to ask founders today.
Personal favorites
While not every one of these got the limelight I had hoped, each of these are ones I felt great pride in being able to write on.
Three Types of Mentors – I’ve always had multiple mentors in my life – all of which fell in three categories: peer, tactical, and veteran/strategic mentorship.
I had been wrestling with how vulnerable I can allow myself to be in the public space. Writing this post was frightening, but I’m glad I did. It cascaded into deeper conversations with my friends, colleagues and readers, but also inspired more blog posts after this about mental health.
I first started this blog with the intention of chronicling my own learnings in the amazing world of venture. While I couldn’t guarantee it would be helpful to every individual reading my humble meandering, I could, at least, guarantee what I write has been or continues to be instructive for me.
Within the first month it had evolved into an FAQ and a means to provide value to as many founders as I can when one day the number of people I want to help exceed my available bandwidth. Wishful thinking at the time, but a cause that inspired me forward. After the first six months, with the introduction of the #unfiltered series, I began to write to think – a way to flush out simple, unrefined ideas to more robust concepts. While I’ll forever be a work in progress, I began to make new dendrite connections that never existed before. In a way, I was and am still chronicling my own journey in hopes that it will continue to guide people beyond my immediate sphere of influence.
Thank you, each and every one of you, for accompanying me on this journey we took yesterday and the one we’ll take tomorrow. And I hope this cognitive passport will continue to serve as your cup o’ Zhou (/joe/) weekly.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
