Startup Serenity

Where you are going is a lot more important than what you're doing to get there.

And for that reason, we elaborate a lot on this concept called Startup Serenity.

As you build your company, as you grow your company, as you build a team, and do all the fun stuff that comes with building a company, it's really important to know where you're going.

If you fall victim to prescriptions, which is, I need to do this to get somewhere else - you will forever be doing things, and you're never going to get somewhere else.

If you have a really clearly defined goal it will help you get to where you want to go, but where you want to go is not actually the goal, where you want to go is past the goal.

And so that's why it's massively important to identify what your ideal state in life is going to be. And your ideal state in life is not going to be like champagne and, and limos and jets, or success with your startup. Your ideal life is going to be the time you spend for the next, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years, and what you're going to do, and how you're going to feel while you do it. So with that in mind, you're probably rushing around a lot right now like all of us are, we're overworking, highly productive kinds of people - that's what people that start companies are - but if you don't have that sense of peace, a sense of, I want to say gratitude but sounds too cheesy - a sense of commitment to getting somewhere, it's going to be almost impossible to live a good life and impossible to live a great life.

I want you to live a great life. I want you to be highly productive, and yeah work like crazy, when you have to, cause there are times where you need to really dig in, but most of your life should be at a place of 1) where you feel really alive - so you're excited and exhilarated by challenges and 2) you're comfortable, happy and safe.

That's what Startups Serenity is - it's the idea that you do not have to be this crazy go, go, go hyperactive kind of person to build a company - you can actually slowly, systematically, methodically go towards your goal with the calmness that only the most committed people have.

If you're ambitious, if you're going after something bigger and bigger and bigger all the time - you're actually not committed. What you're doing is investing all of your energy and your ambition outside of yourself, on something that's external, versus focusing on taking care of yourself. Taking care of yourself, focusing on yourself, is going to get you where your ambition is, and that's what commitment is.

So, this is a really roundabout way of saying, when you sit down and you build your company you also need to sit down and build your life; because your life will feed your company and your company will feed your life. And if you only focus on one, it's going to kill the other.

There are a lot of people who preach that you need have a work-life balance. I don't believe in that whatsoever. You need to integrate both your work and life and they need to become one thing. Otherwise, you will feel fractured, you will cut corners, and you will sacrifice one for the other.

So Startup Serenity is where you want to live if you want to have a committed life, a great life, and also just know that it's possible to feel really good every day, regardless of what's happening around you.

If you have that end state in mind, then you will develop systems to handle massive amounts of stress- and that's what you really want to do as you're building a company- you want a system that can handle massive amounts of stress, not be the most productive. Because if it can handle a massive amount of stress, you'll be significantly, exponentially, more productive than what you think you can be right now.

That's our approach for building companies and startups, and it's been amazing to see it be put into practice. We have founders literally adding millions in months, which I did not think would be possible, once they switch their thinking to, "Hey, it is possible for me to feel great every day, it's actually a good thing for me to feel great every day, and I need to take care of the vehicle that's going to get me to my end state" versus chasing some sort of end state and putting things in between getting to that end state.

So, all of that being said, where you are going is a lot more significant than what you are doing to get there. The entire experience is a lot more significant than a sum of tiny, singular events.