February 13th, 2020
Here's a scenario. Last night, I watched this video by the Superhuman founder. Really interesting video about gamification and stuff.
Love learning this kind of thing, but for me, there's a downside.
The way the founder talks about his app is like it's the "holy grail" of startups - all the decisions they made were carefully calculated based on people's psychology and through data.
Don't get me wrong, I think that's really cool, but I watched the video too late at night, because I couldn't sleep thinking about "how I'm doing everything wrong" as a startup founder.
I know that's not necessarily true, but it's what this kind of startup content does to me.
Because after watching the video, I start going down a rabbit hole. I looked at the founder's past and whom he's connected with. VCs, YC, other smart founders, etc, etc.
"VCs never want to talk to me"
"YC rejected me."
"I guess I'm not cut out for this."
"What's wrong with ME? Why can't I be at that level?"
^^ These are all the negative thoughts that start to go through my head, all from a video.
And it's funny because that video was on the Andreesen Horowitz YouTube channel. They are an investor. This video is intended to make them look great and attract more investors, customers, or even an acquisition - to show how brilliant the founder is.
Everything is a journey. You can't expect to know it all, have it all right away. If it was easy to have those things, then everyone would have them.
We just don't see the journey of others because we only see them at one point in time.
Times like these remind me to go back and read the Elon Musk biography, or other biographies. It helps to put the length of the journey in context.
I'm sure the Superhuman founder went/goes through something like this in his life. Maybe earlier in his career. Maybe he feels that way about "bigger" companies than his, or in other areas of his life.
You can't compare yourself to others, so the advice to myself is to mostly STOP WATCHING this kind of thing.
It's hard to completely avoid it though.
Here's a solution of mine. If you ever find yourself feeling jealous of someone's success:
1. Identify that feeling, be OK with it.
2. Reach out to that person, whether DM or email or tweet them or leave a comment on the post.
3. Congratulate them, ask them a question, maybe build some connection.
In my experience, the moment you connect with someone you lose all feelings of jealousy or envy. And who knows what happens after a small connection, and it's much better than staying in your own head.
Love learning this kind of thing, but for me, there's a downside.
The way the founder talks about his app is like it's the "holy grail" of startups - all the decisions they made were carefully calculated based on people's psychology and through data.
Don't get me wrong, I think that's really cool, but I watched the video too late at night, because I couldn't sleep thinking about "how I'm doing everything wrong" as a startup founder.
I know that's not necessarily true, but it's what this kind of startup content does to me.
Because after watching the video, I start going down a rabbit hole. I looked at the founder's past and whom he's connected with. VCs, YC, other smart founders, etc, etc.
"VCs never want to talk to me"
"YC rejected me."
"I guess I'm not cut out for this."
"What's wrong with ME? Why can't I be at that level?"
^^ These are all the negative thoughts that start to go through my head, all from a video.
And it's funny because that video was on the Andreesen Horowitz YouTube channel. They are an investor. This video is intended to make them look great and attract more investors, customers, or even an acquisition - to show how brilliant the founder is.
Everything is a journey. You can't expect to know it all, have it all right away. If it was easy to have those things, then everyone would have them.
We just don't see the journey of others because we only see them at one point in time.
Times like these remind me to go back and read the Elon Musk biography, or other biographies. It helps to put the length of the journey in context.
I'm sure the Superhuman founder went/goes through something like this in his life. Maybe earlier in his career. Maybe he feels that way about "bigger" companies than his, or in other areas of his life.
You can't compare yourself to others, so the advice to myself is to mostly STOP WATCHING this kind of thing.
It's hard to completely avoid it though.
Here's a solution of mine. If you ever find yourself feeling jealous of someone's success:
1. Identify that feeling, be OK with it.
2. Reach out to that person, whether DM or email or tweet them or leave a comment on the post.
3. Congratulate them, ask them a question, maybe build some connection.
In my experience, the moment you connect with someone you lose all feelings of jealousy or envy. And who knows what happens after a small connection, and it's much better than staying in your own head.