To Thine Own Self, Be True
Shakespearean Advice for Launching Startups
The Bard said it best in Hamlet:
This is a quote that keeps springing to mind for me. For so long, I have given up my true self to be the person that I thought I was supposed to be. Recently, I decided to be my own self unapologetically. The success has been mixed.
How I Am Redefining Who I Am
My journey to self-discovery restarted over the summer. I finally burst from trying to fit into everyone else’s view of who exactly I should be. Before that, I tried to be the perfect family man and corporate cog. I tried to follow all the rules of society. That didn’t make me happy.
Don’t get me wrong. A lot of parts of my life made me happy individually. But overall, something was missing. I was missing. I let my happiness be determined by those around me. And it ended up affecting my mental health.
Writing has been my mechanism for unraveling myself. It has taken a lot. I let myself get completely overrun. Now, I need to figure out which of my goals are actually mine and which are those that I think I should have. Every piece I write helps me clarify things a little bit more.
In the process, I have pissed some people off. Some of my relationships are cracking under the new strain I have placed on them. That’s ok with me. If others can’t support me in figuring out who I am and what I want from life, then I don’t need to keep them around.
My journey of self-discovery led me to quit my job. I knew what I wanted out of life and there came a time when I was told that I needed to make a choice. Because of my efforts in self-discovery, I knew the choice that I had to make for myself. And I made it.
The Journey as an Entrepreneur
It is interesting for me to see how my ideas for my startup have mirrored my path of self-discovery. I have started to go down several paths only to stop myself and back up. I keep doing things that I think I have to, “because that is what startup founders do.”
One of the recurring themes in my research has been that the way we do things now is not the best way to do them. There is always a better way. So if I keep doing things the same way that others have done, I can expect similar results. But I don’t want similar results.
I want weird results. I want things to happen that I don’t fully understand. That is where fun exists for me. When I can predict the outcome, I get bored pretty quickly. I have spent my life studying things that were weird to me. Specifically, two things that have stuck out to me throughout my life. Quantum Mechanics and People. Those are the two pieces that have stumped me over the years. I never quite understood them.
Until I started to really understand myself. That’s what it took for me to put the last pieces together in my head. When I finally figured out how I work, I was able to understand how others worked. This also helped me to understand time and how it affects people. And that led me to my breakthrough in understanding Quantum Physics. Everything was tied together. The part that I needed to focus on was the one thing I kept trying to avoid focusing on. Myself.
For my startup to be successful, it has to be driven completely by me. It has to embody me or the chances of success are slim. The amount of effort it takes to go from nothing to something is immense. If I don’t align my startup with my goals and values, I severely hurt my chances. The flip side of this, though, is where the incredible value comes in. When my goals and values align with my startup’s vision for the future, the needed work comes easily. I don’t need to struggle to find my motivation. My motivation is just simply always there.
You Don’t Need to Find Your Motivation, You Need to Find Your Why
I know that those two concepts sound like the same thing. But I don’t think they are. To me, motivation is what you need to do something that you don’t want to do. Finding your why is more complete. It is your driving force behind everything you do. Once you have your why, it becomes easy to perform any action that lines up with your why. You no longer need to motivate yourself.
Your why is specific to you. It requires a ton of introspection and self-analysis. But the payoff in the end? You won’t ever have to struggle to complete your tasks. You understand why they are necessary to reach your greater goals.
