My Wife is Why I'm Able to Write This
She's the reason why I'm still going
Don't come to me with a flimsy boat and expect my seas to calm. I am tornadoes on churning oceans, water spouts in black clouds like fingers of a god stirring his coffee, black as night.
-Tyler Knott Gregson
Let me tell you, the journey of building a startup is as churning, and sometimes even darker than the blackest cup of Americano you can find. But no matter how many times people read or hear this, the sirens of glory that a successful startup promises lures never ending waves of hopeful souls, each thinking that s/he is the special one - the chosen one - that will somehow make it.
And that includes me.
But somehow, even with the odds stacked against success and the reality of failure looming in the not-so-distant horizon, I remain calm. I reach to my side and I feel the warmth of someone’s hand and body next to me, and I smile.
I’m not alone.
“This is a marathon, not a sprint.” Ugh, such cringe. Suddenly I’m brought back to the wildly rocking boat we are on. Amidst all the platitudes shoved down our throats as we embark on our journey, there are only a couple that I actually value.
One of them is this:
Behind a successful man there is a woman.
- someone
Did I disappoint? Isn't this like the oldest of the old clichés, n’est ce pas?
Its roots are, but it has a deeper symbolic meaning to me. You see, it’s not about a woman staying at home cooking, doing laundry, cooking meals, and taking care of children that enables - by freeing him up - the man to go out and kick ass. The house, is not the kind of house you are thinking of. Actually, the house, is our mind.
Perhaps a better version would be:
Behind every successful man there is a woman, who laid a firm foundation with the bricks that others threw at him.
I think you’re beginning to get what I mean. I find my wife’s belief in me and her unwavering support in my endeavor as a potent propellant to nudge me forward. Not only that, but her companionship and unity as we march forward into the wildness is the comforting antidote to the arrows of stress raining down on us, day after day, week after week.
Which brings me to the main message of this post: you must get your house in order, before you attempt to change the world.
If you are thinking about embarking on a startup journey, you must understand that having people in your boxing corner aligned with you is absolutely critical. If you have a significant other, that person needs to be in your corner. If you are single, your co-founder must be in your corner. If you are a solopreneur, you must have close friends - the kind who will tell you the truth - in your corner. No matter what, your corner cannot be empty. Because you will go there in between rounds, after getting pummeled and having the wind knocked out of you. If your corner is empty, I guarantee that you won’t make it back up for the next round.
Never start your journey as a startup founder if you are not aligned with the closest people around you on the purpose, strategy, and most importantly, sacrifices that must be made - financial, time / attention, place / geography, schooling / children, and the list goes on.
The last thing you want to do is to build a skyscraper on top of a shaky sand dune. If you do that, it will collapse. I can also guarantee that.
Over a decade ago, in my first foray into startups, I had to go through quite a bit to get the house (e.g. mind) in order before diving full time into it. I had to ultimately divorce my ex-wife. My current wife and I had to agree to postpone tying the knot and having children, resulting in us being “old parents” today. These are just a few of the difficult but critical things that had to get done before setting sail.
This time around, the configuration is different but the underlying mantra is still the same. We totally got our house in order before diving into FoFty, and that is why my wife is the reason I’m able to write this and share it with you.
See what purpose, strategy, and sacrifices my wife and I had to get aligned on in our current journey over here:
Team Shin-Kloor ✨