Hello!

When you join a startup, family and friends don’t understand why you work harder than anyone they’ve ever met. They don’t understand why you are tired at your kid’s birthday, or why you suddenly started falling asleep at the movies. They don’t understand how you can operate on such little sleep, or why you push yourself as hard as you do.

This can lead to tension because your friends view everything you do as work, while you view it as a calling. You simply feel compelled.

This calling is similar to the calling an athlete feels when they train for the Olympics.

It’s funny, because as soon as you tell someone you are training for the Olympics (and not working for a startup) a certain magical, mystical aura seems to fill the air. Images of the Olympic rings and gold, silver, and bronze medals come to mind. Happiness, joy, pain, determination, and a host of other powerful emotions flood to the surface. People look at you admiringly – wow, an Olympic athlete. They admire your determination, and encourage you on your journey. They understand why you push yourself so hard, and sacrifice so much. You are going for gold.

But joining a startup is a lot like training for the Olympics.

1. Both are all consuming.
2. Both span similar periods of time (4 years).
3. Both demand a lot of hard work, time, dedication, and pain.
4. Both force you to make sacrifices.
5. Both are extremely addictive in their own unique way.
6. Chances of failure in both are high.

People joining startups share a lot with Olympians. Both pursue goals and glory for which they are willing to work extremely hard, and dedicate a good portion of their lives. They realize the risks, and accept the consequences of failure. They also love the journey, and look back on their pursuits as some of the best years of their lives.

So the next time you are taking heat from a friend or loved one about how they never get to see you anymore, try explaining in terms of athletes training for the Olympics. You both make great sacrifices, and you are both going for gold.

Hat tip to Sarah.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 15th, 2006 at 1:17 pm and is filed under Startups / Entrepreneurship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.