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Hey games, this is Nick from California, you actually answered one of my questions a couple weeks ago. So I thought I'd try my luck in call in again because I really need some advice right now. So I've got my
own Nick from Callie live in LA and lift up and down the callee coast, great state. And I don't remember the question but I remember you did call before. So thank you for calling in again and I think I'm going to dig this question. If, if I
To the first minute and kind of know where it's going about an hour ago. I think I'm going to dig this question because it's a question a lot of people's minds
next. And I'm really at the point where I think it should be going ahead and do it full time and leave my other career. But every time I think about it, a lot of Doubt, starts creeping in and honestly, I'm a little scared. So how do you deal as someone who's founded, multiple companies, how do you deal with that fear of failure when I'm about to die?
I've had first in, I kind of think it's the only thing holding you back at this point, but I just I'm seeing all the things that could go wrong. So, any advice would help and hope I just gets her down here. Thanks James. I've really been loving the growth of the show and have been loved watching you on YouTube. So thanks.
All right. See Nick, Nick.
Who fear that is the question. I don't want to get too abstract to begin this, but, you know, the Common Thread between philosophy therapy, religion is how to avoid self-sabotage. Someone smart told me that once.
How to avoid self-sabotage. That's why we're interested in those things. So we go to therapy
or
study philosophy or try to upgrade our mental models on how to view the world. And and when do we when are we most prone to self-sabotage? It's when we are in fear. So in many ways it's all about
this topic of fear within the entrepreneurial route, the other
Reason for this.
I don't know, pregnant pause is because it's just, there's so much. There's so much fear involved in it. I mean, anyone can get excited about something for 90 days. But day, 91 comes around month, 17 comes around. And it's just, you know, that initial enthusiasm or the contrast to that shitty job. You had, you know, that wears off by day, 91 for many people. And then it's just the reality of
Shit, I have to grow a business and in many ways psychologically, it feels like it is, you know, I guess for your in terms of making a living it really does feel life or
death.
And that is that's the heaviest part that is the heaviest part of starting something.
Within that abstract realm. I I love this quote from this from a guy loved reading ramdas who says the great way is easy for for the one who has no preferences
The great way is easy for the one who has no preferences. I swear I'll get off of the abstract side of things to get into Tactical for you. But the great way, the great challenge, the great path, the path to Greatness is easy for the one that has no preferences.
for the one that
can find the good in any result.
And I think this gets to how can you get off of this fork in the road of success and failure and get onto a single path that is going to take you to Providence, no matter what?
Providence, no matter what meaning is your ego tied, to some result with their business or is your ego tied to learning as much as possible.
Socrates once said that he thought a guy was asking, whether you should get married and not in Socrates, as could be apocryphal. But Socrates said you should get married because either you get married in your happy and you have a happy life because you got married or get married in your wife makes you unhappy, you'll become a philosopher.
That's interesting because it he basically saying you could win either way, either scenario. I think it's the same with starting a start-up. So the Tactical answer, I would give you Nick is to make the leap and start your company.
Just head on go into the unknown because either the company will do well and you'll be happy.
Or there will be struggles. And I don't know if you'll want to become a floss or but you certainly will learn so much more meaning. An MBA and mbas is essentially at the fingertips of anyone that wants really 10 times, at education of a two-year degree graduate degrees by starting your own business. You will have the learnings that are going to inform so many facets of your life.
You start a business and it fails ice. I built a business for five years, five and a half years that failed and five and a half years. I look back and say that was a 25-year career in five years and it's led to every inside I've had since then. It is allowed me to invest in startups. Build further startups, inform me in the businesses that I built within Airbnb and it's informed me with with
Really shifted perspective on on life. And it really informed me how not to orient or your ego. I oriented my ego on accomplishment.
And I sense learned, if it's oriented on learning, then you cannot lose.
If you have no preferences of what happens in those outcomes, the business is either successful or you have a 10-year career condensed into a year and a half on something that does not pan out. If you are comfortable with both of those scenarios.
It's George, Bernard Shaw. The brilliant thinker would say that he can get comfortable in any scenario in life. As long as he can think. Through the worst case scenario and get comfortable with that. The worst-case scenario is you spend all your savings. You spend some of your family and friends money. Spend a hundred fifty Grand a year and a half into your idea and it does not pan out well,
One that's a year and a half, that's less time than an MBA 150k, that's less than an MBA and you probably going to learn 10 times more than an MBA.
worst case scenario you have a better education in less time for cheaper amount of money then going to get an MBA at you said you're in California so you know UCLA
I swear to you.
That is the that's that's the worst case scenario. As you also learn a lot about yourself, you're going to learn so much about life business, in yourself by doing that and that's the worst case scenario.
best case
you build something, you're really happy with proud of and eight months in 18 months in you look back and you say shed, I'm so glad that I took both feet off the ledge and went after this so that fear that fear is
That is what?
It's all about.
And not a positive
sense.
It's what we think is this
Potential at every turn that something goes wrong. I know the prison that I have often lived in is what will people think that question of what will people think if it doesn't achieve some result?
It doesn't go the way that I wanted to go. And that prison is is, it's a prisoner in my own mind and it's the wrong question.
The question is more like what will you think if you don't take this chance, 10 years from now 20 years from now 50 years from now?
I don't know your individual situation in life but it sounds like you've done enough thinking to know, it's a coin toss of whether you do it or not. And if it's that realistic that you're really entertaining thinking about this and fearing, that it could go south. Then then it sounds like you have a lot of good reasons to go and do it and that fear.
I think can evaporate when you can think through the worst case scenario.
And get comfortable with that.
Maybe even find the good in that.
And when you do that, not only does the fear evaporate
but a lot of this psychological constraints that we have start to ease up because
we start let go of this immensely specific preference that we have on how everything should turn out when you start to let go of that then and you start to become a little bit more flexible and knowing that, hey, there's a whole range of potential results that are still net
positive.
Even including the worst case scenario and when you feel like there's this whole range, then it allows you to really incorporate information better.
allows you to approach each interaction with people with more flexibility with less rigidity of meeting X out of this person needing why out of out of this scenario and that
That letting go is freedom.
And in many ways, it's freedom from you and I sabotaging our own potential.
Because we have this false constraint, this limiting grip on a very narrow set of outcomes because our ego is oriented around achievement or some milestone in our mind instead of an ego oriented around learning which opens up, really 360° potential outcomes that are still net positive. So Nick, I hope that is helpful for you and
And like Socrates said, I'd say, go ahead and do it either. You'll be happy with it going the way you want it to or you'll become a little bit wiser. So with that, today's episode of below the hotline, feel free to call in with your own question and the number in the show notes.
