Successful startup founders are Invictus

Successful startup founders are the embodiment of self-reliance. I learned to adore is this concept. It has helped me.

You'll find self-reliance in Viktor Frankl's beautiful Man's Search for Meaning. Ralph Waldo Emerson has a substantial essay with the same theme. Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Baruch Spinoza all talk about it. It is human nature.

For me, self-reliance is about being real with yourself. It is you, accepting the responsibility you have in your life to be excellent and kind to all people.

In startup land, we build multi-billion-dollar empires in less than a decade. In startup land, self-reliance is paramount. The market doesn't care about you, and your customers don't care about you. You must care about yourself while being useful to others.

You must exceed expectations with your co-founders, partners, and investors. Don't let this go into your head. Execute every day knowing that you gave your very best. That is how I find peace under a sea of egotistical narcism, power, and competition.

For me, giving my best is pushing a little more right when I am on the verge of quitting. Right when it starts to become painful, but not EXTREME pain. I'm referring to mild discomfort. Like the great Arnold said, no pain, no gain.

Be the master of your fate. Be the Captain of your soul.

I highly recommend the movie Invictus.

Here is one of my favorite clips, in which the following poem is shared in full.

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be
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For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.
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Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.
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Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,
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And yet the menace of the years
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Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
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It matters not how strait the gate,
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How charged with punishments the scroll,
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I am the master of my fate:
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I am the captain of my soul.