Building the Wall
Today I learned – and this is by no means an original thought – that shit takes time, man. And that shit really isn't that stressful.
This is one of the most beautiful quotes I've ever heard:
“You don't set out to build a wall. You don't say 'I'm going to build the biggest, baddest, greatest wall that's ever been built.' You don't start there. You say, 'I'm going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid.' You do that every single day. And soon you have a wall.”
Those words are attributed to Mr. Will Smith and the moment I read them, they set my soul on fire.
I have spent years feeling overwhelmed about business. Years. But just today I got it. Something snapped and I got this quote for real and how it applies to my life.
I've viewed building a great company like a trek to the top of Mount Everest. No...a trip to the moon! And to go to the moon I have to not only design the spaceship myself, but I have to hire the scientists and engineers to build it, trust they know what they're doing, and that they're not fraudsters (you know who you are), and trust that they won't blow me up on the way.
Oh, and once I get to the moon it's not over. I have to figure out how to get back...from scratch.
Your company is never done. It's no wonder most of us are overwhelmed. At least someone has gone to the moon before and can teach us how it's done. And maybe we could poach a few of their engineers, right?
But all our businesses are new, uncharted territory. And very, very difficult to launch and keep running.
I've been under the ridiculous delusion that there's a finish line.
There's not. And it never gets easier.
So tackling things one small step at a time, one day at a time is something that helps my psyche immensely. Again, this is common knowledge...almost to the point of being cliché.
But yeah, I didn't get it fully until today.
After today, there's no such thing as a HUGE MARKETING CAMPAIGN!!! There's a little marketing exercise today. Then another tomorrow. And then a little itty-bitty one the day after that.
No more will we make this the MOST F'N AWESOME PRODUCT EVER KNOWN TO MAN!!! We now tweak the product a little today, fix a thingie tomorrow, and clean up that annoying bit the day after that.
Damn, why did it take me so long to figure this out. I actually feel at peace right now for the first time in ???