Pain and Torture

This isn’t the way our lives are supposed to be going.

How often do you start your morning with this phrase? Somewhere else processes are better, businesses are healthier, and dollar bills are greener.

Self-doubt can actually help spot strong early-stage business founders. Especially if you see that on top of being paranoid, they are self-taught workaholics. Fit the description?

Don’t worry about your wrong turns. Take me as an example. I’m only 33, and I did a ton of them already. It’s called experience. Hitting the rake on your own is the only painful way to make fast progress. Fuhgeddaboudit!

Building startups is your personal P.T. lesson. Pain and Torture. But you picked this path because you didn’t want a 9-to-5. Your startup became your hobby. Maybe even the reason you have fewer friends now. Not because you hate people, but because you’re obsessed with the thing you’re making.

I talk with a lot of folks like you. Early stage founders. They all endure the same chaos. Some will win. Some will fail. All of them feel like something is wrong.

But nothing is.

Every hit of the rake is a directional marker. Stop overthinking the path! There is only the next decision, the next attempt, the next lesson that hurts enough to make you better.

So keep stacking small wins. And if you ever need to talk to someone, send me an email.

P.S. Somewhat wildly inspired by Stephen King’s book “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft”