Firefighters run into a burning building with the optimism that they'll get out. Founders run into a burning building and decide they are going to stay there for the next decade.
So how do we maintain our optimism when we know this thing's going to be burning down everywhere for a long time?
One of the many traits that define good Founders is our ability to sustainably live in a world that actually doesn't exist. While we're bleeding cash, turning over staff, and struggling just to get a product out the door, we still see the final, successful product just over the horizon.
How is being completely delusional our greatest tool for success?
### We Actually Did Start the Fire
Yep, startups are pretty much a burning building until they aren't. But what's crazy about this is that we are the ones who started this fire (sorry, Billy Joel, it was our fault). The chaos we created, and now live in, was our own making that came from a silly idea that we could make the world into something beautiful.
But... right now it's kind of just a giant mess. And that's normal.
As Founders, we have to come to the understanding that everything being chaotic isn't a one-off. This is the process. It's not like anyone launches a startup and just can't believe how well everything falls into place. Every startup goes through total chaos, but it's how the Founder manages that chaos that changes everything.
### Where Does Our Optimism Come from?
No normal, reasonable, sane person would be wildly optimistic in the face of so much adversity. But Founders have never been accused of being any of those things. What makes us unique is our ability to manufacture optimism. Let me say that again — we manufacture optimism from thin air, not from the way rational people do it through the reflection of positive, observable events.
Anyone who thinks that Founder optimism stems from just so many things going right, powered by relentless high fives and "Let's Goooo!" moments that it's impossible to think otherwise, has clearly never worked at a startup.
Our optimism comes from two things. It comes from our ability to see a world that doesn't exist as if it already does, and our ability to extract 100x more value out of every tiny win we see. It's a vision of the future combined with an exaggeration of the present, and it's pretty friggin' powerful when used properly.
### Is Our Optimism... Honest?
Optimism ceases to be honest when you know for certain what the answer is. If an employee asks, "Are we getting paid on Friday?" and we know for certain there is no money in the account, saying "Yes" isn't optimism — that's straight-up lying.
But our problem is that we rarely know the answer for certain. We live a life brokering on the chance that things may go our way, watching those odds shift and stack differently like some sort of stock ticker in our minds.
On June 6, 1944, the day of the Normandy invasion, over 156,000 American, British, and Canadian young men stormed that beach. Most knew they would never make it, but their victory came from the optimism that they might. Their commanders knew that there would be a heavy toll, but they knew that those brave souls, when armed with an overwhelming amount of courage and optimism, could fundamentally change the world.
(As an aside, I'm writing this on Veterans Day in the United States, so let this be a nod to all of the brave men and women who provide the freedoms we are so grateful for — thank you for your service).
### Optimism is the Required Tool to Win
We have to realize that our optimism is specifically what drives victory. And that optimism comes directly from us. That "delusion" in other people's minds is the "grand plan" in our minds. Our ability to see that dream when no one else can, and to get up every day and pursue it at the expense of everything we have, is what creates victory.
We can't rely on others to provide it for us, and we certainly can't wait until "everything is going our way" for our optimism to spawn itself.
Instead, we're going to wake up tomorrow, no matter what things look like, and say "Hell yeah, we're about to change the world!" and attack that goal with all the ferocity we can muster. We create that energy, no one else. That's what Founders do.
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