Every entrepreneur seems to have a back story. Bigger their achievement, keener we listen to their story hoping to replicate it in our life to achieve such success. This always bothered me. Do they really have such a harsh back story, Or do they fabricate it to get fame? I thought it to be the latter.
I’ve thought company building to be a numbers game. How many users did you onboard this week? What are your revenue numbers? How many years till profitability? How much market share do you have compared to your competitor? Of course, it’s a numbers game at the end of the day, but that is at the end. The beginning and the process is generally a gut decision steering - I realised this in last couple of days through two sets of content.
One - The book
One - this doubt got planted in my while reading the book “Start With Why”. The whole book explains Why of a problem is most important than How or What. Most people try to solve it in the later two, but without a Why you are not gaining good momentum. Though I understood the concept and could relate it to real life, I still wasn’t convinced this could be implemented in smaller teams. This seems to be a company level or country level problem solving.
Two - The trailer
Two - me being interested in mountain climbing, YouTube served me trailer of a National Geographic documentary “Everest: The Other Side”. It’s about a couple who climbed the Mt Everest thorough the North face (which is the hardest to climb the Everest through and is done only by a handful) and ski down same face (which is never done). The trailer goes through the back story of their struggle too. Me, being pessimistic, felt the back story is fabricated to create hype around the documentary. But, as I was watching the trailer, I realised having good stamina and a healthy body is never enough to do such a feat. Your physical strength could take you hardly some portion of the climb. Remaining is climbed through your zeal to do it at all costs. For that zeal to sustain through the whole climb and also through the ski down, you need to have a strong Why.
One + Two = Eureka
That’s the eureka moment. Climbing Mt Everest is a great feat, yes, but many find it just as an entertaining documentary to be watched while eating spaghetti on couch. On its face, the feat doesn’t seem to be contributing a lot to the growth of the society. Yet, it’s a feat the person climbing has to believe in with all his/her might. The person has to believe in a purpose stronger than anything in their life - and that purpose is what documentary is about.
In our corporate life, we could have any number of motives to do the job. Money, fame, comfort, to name a few. It could also be something simple like “My office is close to my house” or “I get free meals in this company”. All these are valid for the person themselves. Such motives will take your far - farther than many, stronger the motive. But, there is a peak to such growth.
However hard you try, that peak is where you struggle. That is where your drawbacks creep up; Could be laziness, spending more money on luxuries, what not. But you are stuck to it. No more height.
Become an incarnation
Having a why changes the equation by a magnitude. You wanting to earn money will get you money. You earn a lot, yes, but you will always see people earn way more than usual - cause you don’t have a why. On the contrary, If you want to earn money, because in your childhood your family couldn’t own a house or buy a car because your father had to keep clearing an older debt and you’ve see your family struggle every night to make ends meet, you become an animal to earn money. Person 1 might stop after 7pm. Person 2 though, with a Why, works through the night, through the weekend, to reach a place of abomination for everyone else, cause they want the number in their bank account rising day in, day out.
Even rich people find their own Why. Bill Gate’s father was fairly rich, owning estates. Gates could’ve bought cars, ate whatever he wanted, travelled wherever he liked all his life. Yet, he found his Why in technology, to become the forefront of it and loved working towards so much that he got ulcers.
I hear people saying it’s not healthy - Of course it isn’t. Olympic athletes aren’t healthy despite looking the fittest. Still we get inspired of them. Every single person we get inspired of had worked through nights and holidays to reach where they are. Reaching such heights takes such a strong Why, you become an incarnation of it; You won’t be a human but closer to either a devil or a god.
In the end, you have to decide where you want to stand. If you want to become Nikhil Kamath, you can’t have eight hour sleeps. You can be inspired of greatness and still create boundaries. But, you can’t complain of not gaining luck while eating popcorn. Successful people were lucky at some point, but they were unlucky too. How do you take the down-phase defines if you will be lucky at some point. If you want to have disproportionate success, start with Why. That Why is gained through your past life. Pick any segment of your past life which you want to overcome now. Either it’s being fat all your life, or being dependent on your family, pick it and become an animal - An incarnation of your best self.
References
Start With Why - by Simon Sinek - Importance of Why explained in simple English and relatable stories.
Source Code: My Beginnings - By Bill Gates - This is where I’ve learnt of how he built Microsoft.
Everest: The Other Side - A National Geographic Documentary - A new documentary about how a couple climbs the North face and Skis down the same face for the first time in history.
Nikhil Kamath - To the people who don’t know him