Fooled by our own narrative: I’ve come to the firm realisation that as humans we possess a wonderful ability to convince ourselves of just about anything. Surrounding ourselves by certain people, consuming selected media and regurgitating the subsequent ideas out loud is a perfect cocktail for wedding ourselves to particular narratives.
For me, this narrative has been about wanting to start a company. This post is my exploration of as to what extent that desire is built on solid foundations.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Mark Twain
After leaving University in the summer of 2019, I was fortunate to be able to spend many months travelling, reading and thinking. Over these ~six months I dived into a world of content rich in psychology, learning, philosophy, health and mental models. One common thread I began to observe in the people I was reading about or listening to was how they had built communities or organisations around their interests. This, combined with the sensation of risk, adventure and ambition that were present during this period, began to crystallise this idea of starting my own venture.
Over the following two years working in management consulting, I’ve repeatedly announced to people my intention to “leave to start my own thing”, so much so that it now feels like a non-negotiable truth. However, given how easy it is to not question what we think we believe, as well as the scale of commitment required to successfully build a company, I needed to interrogate further.
My go-to answers of why I want to start a business, the ones I have been telling people for the last 2 years:
- I have a high-risk appetite and want to capitalise on this, especially given the asymmetrical upside
- I know I get a lot of fulfilment out of creating and building
- I love the idea of designing a tiny corner of the universe exactly how I want it to be
These reasons are all true, but I also know on a deeper level that they may not be the full story.
I used the following 5 thought experiments as a means of testing my motivations to better understand if going down this route genuinely makes sense …
- Would I still do this if nobody else would know? [Removes the ego bias]
- If money, time and ability were no constraint, what would I spend my time doing? [Removes the resource bias]
- If I could go back to my 18-year-old self, what would I recommend him to pursue? [Removes the sunken-cost bias]
- If I was looking back as an 80-year old, what would I hope to have achieved in my professional life? [Removes the short-term thinking bias]
- If the rest of the world was frozen for 2 years, what would I spend this time doing? [Removes the urgency bias]
I won’t go into my detailed responses to all of these questions, but the net result of this exercise was confirmation that, based on the information I have available to me today, this path makes sense provided that I build something in a way that is an extension of who I am (i.e., ensuring strong alignment with my values and interests). The logical argument leading to this was:
- Like many people, a large part of my motivation for starting something comes from the potential financial freedom that a win in the startup world can offer.
- For many people, building a business may not be the most reliable or efficient means of getting to this point (i.e., a safer route could be to remain in my corporate role, drastically minimise outgoings, and invest wisely for ~10 years)
- However, when I really think about what I would do in a world of no professional constraints, my answer invariably contains: learning, travelling, building things in areas I’m passionate about that improve people’s lives, more inner work and reflection, and spending time with great people…
- Call me an idealist, but I would like to think that there is a world in which I can create an organisation today that supports this way of living… i.e., (a) Building in an area that I’m passionate about that improves lives (b) Creating a culture that encourages travel (i.e., remote-first company), learning, mindfulness etc. (C) Finding and working with great people who I love spending time with.
Of course, it is undeniable that building a business is one of the toughest endeavours one can undertake and will inevitably be coupled with high levels of compromise for non-insignificant amounts of time. All I’m saying is, I feel like there is a way I can do this and still genuinely enjoy the process.
Side note: One person who’s philosophies on business and life really resonate with me is Derek Sivers. As a musician, Derek noticed the challenge for independent artists in generating income from their music and so built his company CD Baby to support them. He subsequently sold the business for just over $20m, giving the vast majority of it to a charity he set up to support musicians. Derek now spends his time working on interesting projects, writing, creating, reflecting, learning languages and generally just aligning his life with his intrinsic motivations and curiosity. I like his story and outlook on the world. He strikes me as someone who has managed to avoid getting caught up in all the external noise and has had his own agenda from day 1. See his book Anything you want: 40 lessons for a new kind of entrepreneur for more info on Derek’s journey and perspectives on business creation.
The gut: He who knows me best. The second thing I should mention that came out of this exercise was acknowledgement for the very strong gut feeling I have about going down this path. If I was to attempt to pin-point the origin, I would say it is some combination of deeply engrained values related to work-ethic, adventure, ambition and risk. If I take intuition as the guiding force, then the answer feels pretty clear.
Stillness & Scale 