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You don’t drown by falling into the river.

You drown by being submerged in it.

Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years.

And for all these years, he wasn’t treated well. Not given decent clothes to weak, food to eat, books to read.

Eventually, he went on to become the president of South Africa and for the swearing in ceremony he invited the jailers as well. The same jailers who hadn’t treated him well.

When asked, why would you invite those who didn’t treat you well, he replied,

“If I didn’t invite them, I would still be in prison”

Such is our mind. It is the biggest prison of all. We can escape or be released from any physical prison, but it is the one in our head that is the hardest to.

And the one that we have to escape from.

Sympathy: I feel sorry for you

Empathy: I can understand what you must be going through

Respect: I admire the way you are handling this

To sympathise, is to start with the basic. You could even lie through it. And when the hard times are over, you do not need to stay with the emotion.

To empathise, is to go to the next level. You can rarely lie about it. And when hard times are over, you would have struck a chord with the person, because you understood them when very few did.

To respect, is be at the highest level. You can lie all you want, but it instantly shows. And when hard times are over, this grows even further. Because you saw the worst of the person and still stayed.

To respect is to empathise. To empathise is to be capable of sympathy.

The lion in the circus is called well-trained.

It has been trained to obey, to follow protocols, to adhere to boundaries, to comply, to surrender.

It has been trained not to think, not to innovate, not to imagine, not to aim big.

Just become the best at what you are asked to do.

The lion in the circus is called well-trained. Not well-educated!

When we say we are lost, what we really are is unaware.

Unaware of the choices in front of us.

Unaware of the details within those choices.

Unaware of the implications of those choices.

Unaware of our own abilities with respect to those choices.

What if the choices we made, were made because we knew everything that there is to know. Because we explored, identified, evaluated all possibilities. Because we asked ourselves, what else is it that I do not know.

As against making choices because we didn’t know any better. Because this was the only choice we knew of. Because there was nothing else to choose.

What if the choices we made were made from a point of awareness, and not ignorance.

History is the most powerful lesson.
It tells us what has happened, why it worked, why it may not work now and what is needed to change.

When we join a new company and do not ask what’s happened before, we ignore history.

When we start a new relationship and do not ask how the earlier ones were, we ignore history.

When we start a new life and do not reflect upon our past to see what happened, we ignore history.

And when we ignore history, we end up creating the same history.

Truths about being a founder that are rarely spoken about. 

A thread…

When was the last time you bought a product or service, because the founder is from IIT, or because the founder hasn’t drawn a salary for the past 6 months, or that the founder is going through depression?

You couldn’t care less! No one cares a fuck about who you are. The market is the market! 
It doesn’t care about who you are, as a founder. Which school you went to. What you have given up to get to this point. 

And that is hard hitting for a lot of people who are used to things working their way because of where they come from in life.

As a founder, you are a celebrity, whether you like it or not. Every word you speak will be analyzed, every action of yours will be reproduced, every standard you allow will set a new standard.
Think of how you speak, how you act and the standards you accept.

Investors are in the business of entering and exiting businesses.
They are not in the business of making your business work.
If entering your business works for them, they will enter. But they will also eventually exit.
They NEED to exit.
That’s the business they are in.

Even a bad team can work in a good market.
But a good team can’t make a bad market work.

The market is (almost) everything.

As a founder, the only time you are called successful is when you take unpopular decisions and they work out.

Taking popular decisions is “easy”. 
And If your decisions don’t work out, then you are as it is good for nothing.

That’s massive odds against you.

Early on, the only hiring technique that works is
Attitude >> Experience >> Education

At some point in your evolution, you will need 
experience >> attitude. 

But… you won’t know when precisely. 

So you will continue to hire for attitude, fuck up, put pressure on yourself to make them work and blame yourself a lot more than you ought to have.

Everyone is fucked! EVERYONE!
But it is only in close quarters that they will admit to it, or you will be able to see it.
Until then, you will drown yourself in self doubt everyday, thinking you are the only fucktard who doesn’t get it, when everyone else around you does.

Your emotional and mental state as a founder has a direct impact on your startup.

People see that you are anxious.
They know when you are depressed.
Don’t pretend to wear red underwear over your pants.
Act human. Be human.
Its ok – no one was born knowing how to be a founder

Entrepreneurship is fucking hard.
The early excitement of building a team, planning a name, launching the first version will fade away.

And insane details that life has, will begin to emerge.
At that point, there is only one thing that will help.
The stories you tell yourself.

Usain Bolt prepares for his race.
And then he runs the race. And wins.
That moment – when he crosses the finish line. That’s etched in history.

Such moments are rare, if at all, when you are a founder.
It is the journey you have to fall in love with. There is no destination!

You will have to layoff people. At some point.
And tell you what – it will be your fucking fault.
Not a pandemic, not your investors, not your customers.
YOUR FAULT.
And that will kill you within, the first time it happens. You will feel like a murderer. An asshole.
And nothing would have prepared you to deal with it.

It will be the first thing you will think of every morning.
Until one day, when it won’t be.

People will come to you with problems.
You’ll think they have come for solutions.
No – they have come with problems.
But you will burden yourself with the search of the solution.
And if you don’t find it, which most likely you won’t, you will knowingly offer a lousy solution.

You will take everything personally.

The stapler not working – your fault.
People leaving – your fault.
Office is far for people – your fault.
You are not growing – your fault.
You will share credit for all the good things.
And kill yourself within for all the things gone wrong.

The world will continue to define success and failure for you
Raised money – success
Forbes list – success
Shut down – failure
Not growing – failure

You will live someone’s life, unless you realize it.
And start living yours.

In the end, keep reminding yourself of why you became a founder in the first place.

You wanted to be happy doing it, feel fulfilled being one, desired peace from it.
Or whatever else was it.

Because that is the only thing the matters.
Fuck the market. Do what is right for you.

When I entered college, being part of the Debating Society was an aspiration. This is where all the cool kids hung out (or so I thought!) and this is where the hottest ideas were endlessly debated.

And I thought that the critical measure of success for a debater was to have a point a view.
A point of view so rigid and firm, that you could defend it till death.

What else would make a good debater? What else could possibly give you the ammunition to take down the opposition in a verbal fight?

And the first lesson I was taught, was

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
– F. Scott Fitzgerald

This changed everything.

It wasn’t what I knew that mattered, or my point of view that was the key to effective communication.
It was my ability to entertain both sides of the house and be able to debate from either.

And that meant detachment.

Detachment from all ideology, all assumption, and all bias.

For, it is the mark of an educated person to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
– Aristotle

Debating taught me how communication isn’t about how well you know what you know. It is about how well you know what the person you are communicating with knows.

You have an army ready to fight. The weapons ready to kill. The preparation ready to show. An opposition that doesn’t intimidate.

Going out to the battle field in such a scenario isn’t exactly an act of courage. There could be nervousness, yes. But courage isn’t the missing piece here.

Now imagine, you have a joke of an army. No weapons. Hardly any preparation. And an opposition that has plenty. Across everything.

Choosing to still go out and fight calls for courage. You may have a choice to submit, to surrender, but if you still chose to ignore that choice and exercise your choice to face the enemy, rest assured courage will be called for.

Courage is not when you face what’s in front of you, while being fully armed.

Courage is when you face what’s in front of you, knowing that you are weaker.

And this may just be that time!

In times of crisis, it is wise to remind oneself that people are not data points on an excel sheet.

They are people.

But then, it is also true that everyone is a data point on someone’s excel sheet.

This simply means that everyone gets a shot at taking the tough decision. Executing excel sheet decisions, or dealing with people.

This also means, in every crisis, true leaders will emerge. And we will all get to see them, as clearly as we would have wanted to.

Leaders think people. Managers think data.