I ignored everything about building an ACTUAL business.
I wanted to have my own business SO BADLY, that I ended up in a partnership and in a business area that I should NOT have been at all. My own Tragic Kingdom.
For context, and brief background: I have a computer science degree and loads of tech experience, from hands on coding to CTO management. I had worked for companies in various capacities all my working career, but I had a burning drive to have my own business doing… something.
I love dreaming and strategizing and implementing business ideas for my employers, but I wanted to do something for ME!
For years I struggled to find that something. One day, that something found me. Or so I thought.
The person I found was a big talker, and I thought I could manage him enough to get the fledgling startup off the ground, in spite of the chaos he brought (along with the regular chaos that comes with a startup).
Dear reader, it took me a few months to realize I was in a legal partnership with the embodiment of all talk and no action.
I was in charge of the tech side, but found myself driving to customer acquisition and fundraising conversations and all the other business stuff that needs to happen, on top of.. you know.. actually building a functioning product.
I was burnt out after a few short months of trying to get this off the ground, and felt terrible that my ‘one chance’ at business was dead. Much like Elisabeth Holmes, I wanted my own company so badly, but apparently not badly enough.
I learnt that knowing myself was the critical piece missing to my corporations development.
My advice: Don’t ignore the obvious on the path to your goals.
If you get so laser focused on a goal, you’ll miss out on a whole bunch of stuff that could lead to your eventual success. Sounds super easy, but is actually kinda hard.
This lesson may seem obvious, but in my case it was not. I ignored many warning signs, the main one being — how I felt about the situation. I felt awful all the time when dealing with this business, the idea or it, and even my cofounder. This bad feeling started to manifest itself as an actual, physical, pain in my shoulder.
The worst that could happen on your path to ignoring the obvious would be to end up like Ms Holmes. AKA: with a crappy product that doesn’t do what you’re promising your investors that it does, and potentially impacting someones health.
Conversely, if you heed this warning, and make sure you build some measure of personal growth and accountability into your system, you will undoubtably be running a business that is well aligned with who you are, thusly avoiding my fate of a pricey lawyer bill to extract myself from the corporate articles.
How do you build this into your work, on the way to business success?
Build your inner map.
Know what your body is telling you. Our thinking brain only does so much by way of warning signals, but our bodies are finely tuned to danger.
You can build this knowing by meditating, working on your physical fitness and taking time for regular reflections and personal check-ins by way of journaling or another artistic and creative endeavour.
Read the prevailing winds.
Having a good outer viewpoint of all the stuff thats going on outside of what you can influence is critically important, for business and team building. If I was better aware of my cofounders personality traits, and how those features would have been negatively impactful to the company — I may have very well walked away unscathed, instead of having a pain in my shoulder and an extra 15 pounds from stress eating.
Keep track of what is happening outside of your influence by learning to anticipate change (read a lot!), learning to read people (I strongly recommend a course on NeuroLinguistic Programming), and by getting some really good trusted advisors on your side that tell you the truth of situations.
Build what you were born to do.
Keep tabs on your business and make sure it’s giving you some level of joy and satisfaction. Like the Steve Jobs quote: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
(It is fitting that I put a quote from Jobs into an article which title references a character who wanted to be like him, no?)
Some people might think that they need to do great and grandiose things to have a life well lived, but I think that keeping track of your priorities and what is really and truly important has more value. Build the life that you were born to live.
Don’t make the mistake that myself and Elizabeth Holmes made. We both made the GOAL the ultimate prize. I’ve learnt my lesson (and I didn’t even have to go to trial!) that it is the journey and the path you take that matters the most.
Building a business doesn’t have a best before date, and with each day, I learn something more about myself and the process of creating something out of nothing, to sell to people for money. If you’ve read this far, this is my wish for you too.
XO,
C,
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