koolhead17
Sometimes our overconfidence leads us to lose more relationships, business, and connections than we gain. We live in a society, and we are tamed to live in a herd. No one likes getting hurt by others’ actions.
As an overconfident individual, you will turn to burn bridges and leave connections hanging. In the short run, you can gloat about your smartness, but when things are haywired, you will be the first to bear the brunt of all your actions.
As a founder, you have to grow a thick skin. You are responsible for all the failures, while success will be shared by everyone. The sooner you realise it is your responsibility to run the company, the more aware and stoic you will be about everything. Running a startup is not for the faint-hearted. The media is selling fake entrepreneur glorification. There is no work-life balance either. Most founders don’t end up getting rich either.
In short, there are more negatives of being an entrepreneur than the fluff media glorifies.
Unless you are aware that you are in your idea and enterprenuerial ride for the long term. Unless you realise it is very lonely at the top. Unless you realise the default outcome is failure and rejection. Unless you realise you are a lone man staying till the end. Please don’t start a startup.
If you ask me, why did I start? After working for 10 years, I realised I cannot work for anyone else. I had too many complaints about things around me. So instead of complaining, I took life into my own hands.
At every step of our lives, we create an aura, an identity of ourselves. It can be how others see us or how we see the world around us.
These are just a few examples I have listed, but observe yourself. You will be carrying a dozen other identities.
We carry ourselves in layers. Our identity changes as we progress into a newer journey of life. We are the same soul kept in various new roles to play.
As we age, we end up becoming more connected to ourselves: likes, dislikes, and many other beliefs become de facto. We tend to focus on what really matters to us more than what others will think.
Our bullshit detection keeps on improving, and we become wiser in staying away from what we don’t want. This inner self tends to make us calmer within. We are least bothered about externalities and tend to focus on the internal. The glamour, consumerism, and all other distractions end up taking a back seat.
The closer we are to self, the more we have time for ourselves. As a result, we can spend time on rebuilding ourselves: our hobbies, unfinished readings, and writings.
In earlier days, we would call it retirement. With Capitalism taking the hot seat, the retirement concept has gone alien.
Time and again, we’re asked how we came up with the idea of building Taghash. I always tell them that we were lucky to have an initial set of believers who genuinely felt the pain. It was their expertise and nuanced understanding that helped us build the product to where it is today.
We’ve followed this fundamental principle all these years: finding our first set of customers and co-building with them.
The advantage of this approach is two fold:
I understand that this is completely different from the traditional playbook of raising capital, evangelizing through marketing, and hoping customers will come.
The entire narrative of category creation, market leadership, and building something so “sexy” that people flock to it: something Apple perfected in the Steve Jobs era.It has largely faded with time.
In short, identifying your core offering and your true market will be the real differentiator.
We are all craving attention. It’s the reason social media is minting millions, and why influencer marketing even exists.
As a civilization, we are increasingly seeking validation from the outside rather than within. The reason is simple: the modern world has given us enough luxury that we are no longer worried about food, shelter, or clothing. Our abundant time has turned us into seekers of eyeballs and external validation.
I am not saying that the craving for attention didn’t exist in the era of the Renaissance, or that salons were doing anything different. It’s just that the medium has changed in our times, becoming more commoditized.
I bet if Van Gogh, Michelangelo, or Socrates lived in the era of social media, they would have wasted time on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram as well.
We live in a world shaped by social media. Every other advertisement promises a better life, better looks, or greater wealth. The urge to compare ourselves with our peers is constant.
This vice of comparison can drive an ordinary person to madness, because nothing ever feels enough.
History is full of stories of wars, betrayals, and ruthless expeditions: all driven by rulers who wanted to build a legacy greater than their forefathers’.
Our will to survive and our desire to progress keep us moving forward. And most of that drive comes from within.
Going by the media and news websites, it often feels like the world is coming to an end. Our jobs are supposedly going to AI, and we’re heading toward a recession. Every other day, some new piece of negative news takes over the front page.
I remember graduating in 2007, right in the middle of a full-blown recession. We didn’t have the constant internet exposure that amplifies anxiety about the future. I was fortunate to have worked on a few open-source projects, which eventually helped me land a job.
I know we’re not living in an ideal world, but that doesn’t mean we have to live in fear or anxiety. We have to believe in ourselves, keep sharpening our skills, and stay open-minded to new opportunities.
In the end, we live our lives in our own minds. Life becomes what we choose to see.
There is an innate desire in us to be famous, create a masterpiece, or amass wealth. Each one of us feels we are living for a purpose. When things don’t happen the way we want them to, we feel sad — and in some cases, even fearful.
Imagine not finding a partner in life after multiple failed relationships. Or failing to build a successful startup after several unsuccessful attempts. All of this adds to our insecurity, makes us weaker, and pushes the subconscious mind to question everything in the opposite direction. As a result, even when we are with a new partner or our current startup is doing well, we are scared that everything might fall apart.
The fear engulfs us in negativity. It kills the joy of living.