Welcome back to the episode of the Startup Therapy Podcast. This is Ryan Rutan from startups.com. Joined as always by my friend, the founder, and CEO of startups.com. Will Schroeder. Well, let me timestamp this. We are in the, the early days of April, 2025. There's quite a bit of fear in the world right now. There's a lot of fear about a lot of things, but probably most importantly, we're watching the markets go absolutely haywire based on this extreme uncertainty around around tariffs.
And so fear is something that's being talked about a lot. There's a lot of people experiencing fear who maybe were quite comfortable even a few weeks ago. So that's where we're at. Right. And, but I think as you know, as founders, you and I have, have kind of lived in a, in a fear-based environment for our careers. And so like how unusual is this for, for founders and, and how, how, how strange is this feeling of, of having fear becoming a motivator?
For us it was like, this is another Tuesday, right. That's like, you know, the markets are going crazy tr and I get it. It's their job to go crazy, right? And I was like, the world is getting to live in a level of fear, uncertainty and doubt. That it's just another Tuesday for founders. Right? It's our, our normal, yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm still unfazed by it now, like I'm not excited about it. Right. I look at that going, here we go.
And also, you know, I'm sure you have the same thing, Ryan, like empathetically, you know that it affects a lot of other people, so you can appreciate the fact that it's, it's bad, right. But from a. Fear standpoint, I'm like, bring it on. This is like almost like a trained boxer getting in a, a fight at a bar. Like this is what we're trained to do. Um, this amateur stuff, guys like this.
Yeah. Yeah. Here's the thing, Ryan, I, I don't think we talk about the, the fear of being a founder, you know, of, of, of this process in quite the right context. I think we talk about it mostly in terms of the, the emotional impact, which is, which is devastating. Yeah. Right. I don't think we talk about it or build upon it. I. Where it's actually a huge asset. Absolutely can be.
And, and I, I think, you know, whenever I look at like big, big steps in my life, and I, you know, my wife and I, we sit down, we've moved a bunch of times, so whenever we make that move, you know, we, we've gone to, to Santa Monica, to San Francisco, to Beverly Hills, you know, all these other places, right. And every time we make the move, it's always expensive and, and whatever. And I'm like, I gotta be honest, like. This doesn't scare me at all.
Yeah. And my, my wife's who's very conservative is like, this terrifies me. Yeah. And I always say the same thing. I'm like, if it doesn't terrify us, we're doing it wrong. Yeah. It's exactly. I don't think a lot of people think like that. What activity that's entirely comfortable has ever created growth for anything, whether it's physical, mental, emotional. Right. You don't, you don't grow through things like that. Look, I, I, I, I get that, you know, the, the rallying cry, right?
Like, you know. Yes, fear. If fear can be a powerful motivator, fear, uh, can be an asset for us. I think there's still a line and, and we have to figure out as founders how not to cross it, where we move into full paralysis. Right. And I think that's, honestly, that's, that's point, part of the fear muscle. Just like flexing it over and over again. Like, I'm scared I'm gonna keep moving. I'm scared I'm gonna keep moving. And you just get better at it.
I don't think that you and I are any less acceptable to fear. We've just lived in it long enough and understand that these things come and go in cycles and that we can stick around. And honestly, like the, the inaction is a thing that will actually. Take you out, right? Yeah. Whatever the risky move you're thinking about. Yep. It's probably truly less risky than, than not doing. Yeah. And I think, like Ryan, when you look back on your highlight reel of life, okay.
Yeah. My guess is 'cause I'm, I'm, uh, projecting here 'cause it's certainly mine. My guess is your highlight reel is, is highly punctuated by Yeah. All of the things that you were fearful of doing. Yeah. Yet you did anyway move to Asia, decide not to do MBA, right out right outta school. Right, right, right. There were a lot of people who were looking at me going, you're absolutely insane. What are you doing? Right.
Yep. Start second business versus, uh, go take high paying job at Proctor Gamble. Yep. All of these other little things, they were all these moments in time where I go back and, you know, if you go back a year prior to whatever the highlight real moment is. It was decisions like this. Yeah. And it was choosing risk over, it was choosing fear and uncertainty over taking a more stable path that led to the highlights. Otherwise, I, I don't know that those wouldn't have led to highlights.
They certainly would've led to different types of highlights, mostly ones that I'm not all that excited about, having watched some of my friends go down those exact same paths. They're like, here's my highlight reel. I got a certificate for being at the company for 25 years. I can't take my preferences and project them onto other people. I just know what my preferences are. They seem to be happy about that stuff.
And, and maybe, right, but on the other hand, when I bring my wife into the equation, 'cause again, my wife is super conservative and she married a guy that is as, as not conservative as possible. Yep. And when we talk about it, and she's, she's such a, a cool wife in that she's very cognizant that in order to take big steps, I have to lead those steps. Like, but what's really cool about my wife is that she's always down to go along. Right?
Sure. She, she never says no, like whatever crazy stuff we decide to do, she's always on board, but she'll never initiate it because she, she doesn't have that muscle that you described of understanding how to take fear and do something positive with it. This is a huge, uh, speaking of, of marriage and wives, this was a huge thing, uh, with, with Vargas and I in the early days before we figured out there was like some really specific.
Cultural differences that were leading to us seeing things in completely different ways, which at first was, was challenging. It was difficult there like, yeah, I, you know, the, everything's possible. No risk is too great. We can do anything that we set out to do. We'll figure it out. Right. My wife growing up in a very different culture where like I. Streaming was not only not encouraged, it was discouraged. Right?
Yeah. You weren't supposed to try to aim session, you were, you know, there were very specific paths. You were think become a doctor or an engineer and those were the two things you were gonna do. Yep. And here's how you accomplish that. And anything that deviated from those paths was bad and scary. And we realized that there was just this, this undercurrent for both of us. My undercurrent ever present is optimism. Yeah. Her undercurrent ever present is pessimism.
Doesn't mean that we can't both dream or both get excited about stuff, but they're always going to be flavored by that thing. And once we realized that it was actually fantastic. I know you and Sarah do the same thing, right? But there's a counterbalance there, right? Like there's the like, ah, we can go do this. And then there's that little voice represented by my wife saying, okay, but have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? Have you thought about this?
And she's not saying no, but she's saying, Hey, let's, let's think about it. And it actually is, which is a reasonable thing to do. Yeah. Yeah. She's the, the little angel sitting on my shoulder making sure that like, I'm, I'm considering. The downsides 'cause it's easy to get caught up just in the upsides too. You know, we talk with this as founders, we have to believe in that. But that can be dangerous too. Being pure optimism, uh, can, can lead to some, some bad falls too.
I, I think when we coach, uh, founders and we advise founders, part of what we're trying to teach them is that fear is a feature. Not a flaw. Not a flaw. Yep. Right. And, and I think for a lot of people, that is totally antithetical to what we've been brought up on. Like fear is what you should run from. Yeah. Right. Avoid it at all costs. Avoid it at all costs. Right. Find ways to be brave and to not be afraid. Right. No beef, it's okay.
Yeah. It's, but the other side of it, it's a bit of a leading indicator for me, right. Like, I know when I get that, that that tingle, that feeling that I'm leaning into something and I'm like, okay, this is probably a bad idea. Yeah. Yeah. However, however, if it works. This'll be awesome. Yeah. Right. And, and that's the thing, man, like, I wanna go back to, to, you know, a shared experience you and I had, uh, when we bought z.com Oh yeah. Uh, years ago.
We've told this story a little bit in the past, but like, what a lot of folks don't know is we bought a company doing a million dollars a month of revenue with 450 employees, sight unseen at five in the morning and owned it at nine in the morning. I mean, it was. It was this cowboy as it gets, I remember I was laying in bed and, uh, you know, we, we had, we'd been in negotiations with, with the owners for hours all throughout the night, throughout the morning.
So this was like a, a last minute, crazy ordeal. I, I'm, I'm laying in bed, it's like five in the morning, and, and I, I'd just gone to bed because I thought like the, the deal was over and I turned to Sarah, who's sleeping of course, and I'm like, are you cool if I make a really bad decision? And she was like, go for it. Right. And you know, that's when, that's when we reached out and, and we, uh, and we ended up buying the company and four hours later we owned.
A company with 450 employees and thousands of clients and millions of revenue, also, million, millions of expenses. And we were like, I was terrifying. Yeah. I mean, 'cause we, we, we bought it under, I mean, the business was under significant stress at that point. There were a lot of things that could go wrong and it had a very specific set of criteria to make things go right. And so we just focused on that.
You know, I was just thinking like, when was the last time we said no because something was too risky? We've said no because they didn't represent the right opportunity. But I cannot think of the last time that we were like, should we do this? That's too much of a risk. Should we do this? Mm. It it's not enough focus. Should we do this? Not enough opportunity. Should we do this? Yep. Or shouldnt want to. Not enough time. Not enough reason.
Yeah. I cannot think of the last time we were like, should we try that? No, that's too risky. Yeah. Like, uh, for years everyone logically asked us like, why don't you guys have a fund? Yeah. It's not that it's too risky. It is risky, but it's exactly the kind of risk that we know, right? Yeah. The kind of risk that we live in and understand very well, we shouldn't enjoy it. It's just, it's a divergence from what we do and what we mm-hmm. Think is our best attempt at helping startup founders.
It's not so thing that we wanna build. Yeah. And, and so when I think about, again, that spidey sense that says, Hey, I'm leaning into fear, I think because, um, you and I have done it for so long. Right. And we have the benefit with age of having seen what it's like on the other side. Yeah. To see that you can do it. Like Ryan, when you think about uh, seeing this lens through your children now who haven't had the reps 'cause they're just getting started.
Yeah. You can see how differently they process that because fear is very legit for them. Yeah, it is. And it. It's funny too 'cause like the types of fear that exists are, are very different as well. Right. There's is a more of an existential type fear. Right. And it, it's interesting 'cause they're at that phase where they also kind of think that they're invincible in a lot of ways.
Yeah. Right. And I remember like, there were times too where it's good feeling and that's, that is of course part of the, the, the risk calculus. Yep. Is what, is what happens if I'm right, if this is too big of a risk and it costs me whatever it can cost me. Yep. The maximum cost, what's that look like? Like what does it actually do? Yep. And I think as the, when I was, you know, significantly younger, in the early twenties, my tolerance there was, was way higher.
Right. I, I felt like I had less to lose because I did, and I also felt like I have more time to recover because I did. Yep. Right. As you age, I think it's, it's interesting because, you know, I'm, I'm definitely. Definitely things that I would probably add to the equation now that wouldn't have been there before. Like, oh, well if we lose this, this matters a lot, or this could change the opportunity for my kids.
It could do a lot of things, but on the other hand, I'm so much more comfortable with the idea of risk and my ability to calculate the risk that, again, I don't know that it's caused me necessarily to say no to anything that came along simply because it was. Too risky. Interesting. I'm gonna have to think about this a bit now.
I wish I had thought about this a bit, bit more, more before the episode, uh, to go back and think like, how much of this is just risk blindness versus, uh, comfort and, and actual calculation, or am I just so used to this point that I don't even, I. Don't even think of saying no because Yeah. But, but again, you've been on the other side of it, you've seen the victory, so you know that it's, it's worth the risk. Now, a lot of folks that are becoming entrepreneurs, they're not there yet.
Right. They're like, oh, I have to quit my job, or I have to, you know, bet my, my life savings. Yeah. And they're like, and all they can think of is all the downside. And that's, that's logical. There's nothing wrong with, with that processing. However, the thing that that does create a challenge is you get to a point where you're so worried about the downside that you never see side, right? Yep. You, you, you get the sense that playing it safe is the right bet.
And the problem with playing it safe is you never win. Yeah. If you don't put any chips on the table, they think, I have to empty my 401k, I have to quit my job. I have to do all these things. There's also this impression, I think this is where the risk calculation goes wrong for a lot of early stage founders. They play the game as if there's only one way to bet and it's all in. Yep. Right. It's just not the case.
I like, that's the other thing that you get really good at over time is figuring out how much of this risk is, can be, can be entered into sequentially, right? I don't need to look at this as well. I have to build this, you know, billion dollar business, ergo I have to throw in everything I have and all my time and all my money and all my resources have to go to this in order to make work. It is not the, the reality. So I, I think that's a really important piece is that this isn't an.
All in type situation. In most cases, you have the ability to sequentially and incrementally increase your risk or decrease your risk. And I think that's something that we have become much better at as we've gone through this, is really understanding what are the actual risks and how can I, how can I eliminate or defer some of that risk until later? And I think that's an important piece of it. But so back to the, back to the core point here, which is that, um.
Fear is, is is something that we should lean into and that comfort is, is not necessarily a good thing and that it does take some risk to get reward. I think we all have that, uh, in in mind, at least at a basic it does. But, but again, I think that like we're associating as founders, we're associating fear as a weakness of some sort or the opposite. Something that we should run from. Yeah. If what I'm saying, you know, what we're saying in this discussion is what if you just leaned into it?
Yep. What if you were to say, look, fear is my job. Sure. Right. That's literally in my job description to be the person that does really scary shit. That is my job. Okay. And I wanna be really good at that job. I wanna be the the person that's willing to run into the abyss when no one else is willing to run into the abyss. Right? Yeah. I wanna build that muscle. Well, you gotta do some hard stuff, right? Yeah. You gotta do some stuff where you don't know what's on the other side.
You know, one of my favorite thing, do you remember a show? I think it was, um, it was called Maximum Extreme Challenge. Uh, for some folks listening, that's like their favorite show, whatever, I don't, I can't remember if it was, it was from Japan or whatever, but they had. They, they had the greatest, they had the greatest stunt where these, these players would run through an obstacle course. Okay? And there would always be this one. They had to run at full speed.
There was always be this one thing that I thought was a perfect analogy for founders, there would be three doors, okay? And like one of the doors is made out of paper and the other two doors are wooden. But you can't tell the difference when you run into 'em. It was like a Tom and Jerry cartoon, right? Yeah. And so these, these, these, uh, these contestants would run and they'd either burst through that door or they'd get flattened out, right Thought, bounce off it.
I thought what a perfect right metaphor for being a founder. Yeah. The difference is the founder will then get up after having bounced off one of the doors and run full speed into another one. And until one of through. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Did they, they also did this on, uh, a American gladiator. Not that that's important at this point. Yeah, but they remember there was like the, and, but instead of being a wooden door behind, one of the doors of the gates would be.
Turbo or Nitro or one of the guys waiting to, I love Turbo Nitro deaf. You. Yeah. I'm, I'm shocked that, that that show isn't still around anyway, point being, uh, this idea that I wanna get good at running through the doors knowing Yep. Knowing that I'm gonna bounce off a whole bunch of time. I, I'm, I'm gonna hit the wooden door way more often than I'm gonna hit the, the paper door. Okay. Yeah. But I wanna build a muscle. That allows me to bounce back.
That allows me to get knocked down and keep coming back. There are very few people that are willing to acknowledge wanting that specific muscle. Yeah, yeah. Right. But I think when you start to explain it to founders, and you and I advise founders all the time about this, when you start to explain to them, look, the fear, you're feel feeling is the business. We are in the business of fear. That's not an anomaly.
That's when, that's not, when you're, oh my God, I can't believe I'm doing everything wrong. I must have fear. I've been at this for 30 years. I'm terrified every day. Right? Yeah. Like that is the business. I it it is the business. I think it's such an important realization because I think until you have that realization, the, the constant thought is, couldn't this fear just be an indicator that this is a bad idea, that this is a bad business? Because that's usually what fear is for.
That's what it's for. It's to stop us from doing something right, or, or make us take, take notice or to, to be able, or in some cases truly to, to motivate us. Right? Yeah. That fear and, and adrenaline are directly linked. Yeah. There's a reason we get scared. We dump adrenaline, so we can do amazing shit to get ourselves out of whatever we're scared of. But I think it's really important that you can change the relationship with fear so that you're not always looking at it. Yes, of course.
Of course. Some fears are warranted, and you might have a bad business idea. This isn't to say that if you're scared, you're absolutely doing the right thing. It doesn't mean you're right, be doing the wrong thing. But the thing is very important here is that just because you're scared. Does not mean it is not a direct indicator that it's a bad business, right? I see so many founders doing this. It's like, I'm just really worried that this is a bad idea.
Well, you can keep doing that and, and you will stay in that same state or you can embrace the fear, lean into it a bit and go find out, go validate whatever it is you think is, is causing this fear that, that, that whatever it is, that the factor that's driving the fear for you and eliminate it. Or validate it. You know something that's really funny about everything we talk about here is that none of it is new.
Everything you're dealing with right now has been done a thousand times before you, which means the answer already exists. You may just not know it, but that's okay. That's kind of what we're here to do. We talk about this stuff on the show, but we actually solve these problems all [email protected]. So if. Any of this sounds familiar. Stop guessing about what to do. Let us just give you the answers to the test and be done with it. I gotta say my, my greatest fear is comfort.
I mean, is, is, is antithetical as that is to say. Yeah. Yeah. At which point I feel comfortable. I get this tingling that says you're doing something wrong. Yeah. Like something ain't right. Now, I'm sure there's some baked in psychology that would take me years of therapy to unpack that, and I'm okay with it. Right. I'm okay with it. What I'm saying is comfort terrifies me. Yeah. Because. I look at comfort as when I stop doing interesting things and that, that bothers me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I think it's, complacency is extremely dangerous in any, any aspect of life. But I think as a startup founder, it's, it's extremely, extremely dangerous. The funny thing about that is that can actually increase your, your real risk, not your perceived risk, but the, the actual risk, like, like being complacent, trying to be comfortable within the business can absolutely increase the, the actual risk, uh, which is funny because.
Fear often comes down is you get comfortable and you're like, okay, well we can just kind of take this easy path. We can, we can, you know, do something that's a little less risky. Oftentimes you're, you're setting yourself up, you know, is, you know who loves, uh, you know, who loves caution and comfort mediocrity, right? Like I did. I don't know. I know a single legacy that was built without some level of leap of faith. All of them, a hundred percent of them.
Right. And and I think what gets interesting is when people say, I want the big prize, but I don't want the fear that comes with it. No shit. Right? Yeah. Right. I want a six pack, but, but I wanna be a lead Cheetos all day. Right. It funny, it doesn't work that way. And I, I think what ends up happening is, again, because we, we spend so much time avoiding fear, what we're really avoiding is progress.
Yeah. And I think that is a dangerous path When I think about, you know, this concept of, of complacency, right? I think about there are all these things I could do and some number of them won't work, right? Just the nature of it. But if I don't try, I get none of it. And, and I think to myself, the more I've ever tried at something, the bigger the swing that I've took. Yeah, the bigger the outcome. Here's a different way to say it. I've never had a great outcome where I did a it half an effort.
Right. Just ever or or half a risk where I, I said, well, I, I'll only bet a little of, you know, whatever this, you know, mental bet is. Yeah. And, and that will pay off. It's, that's happened to me. Never, never. And maybe I'm the most unlucky guy in the world, but I don't, I don't think it's limited to that. I think so I'll take that a step further actually, and say that when I have done things where I did take like a half step, I didn't get half the value or half the outcome, I got nothing.
Right. So it, it's, it's, it's, it's subtle, but like, there, that was there, right. And so it was like the, the big outcomes have come from the big swings. The big joys in life have come from the, the, the big risks, uh, the big decisions in cases where we tried to hedge and tried to play it safe, tried to take the half step, didn't get anything right. And so I agreed. You have to be very careful there.
And it doesn't necessarily mean, again, this is not me advocating for the, it's all, all in, on every single bet. No, but I think picking the right bets is really important and making sure that they're big enough. There's an outcome worth chasing because I think that's the other thing that ends up happening.
Even if you take that safe path and you do start to feel comfortable, and it may no longer be that fear is motivating you all of a sudden you start to realize like, well, that thing I'm aiming for is less risky. It's also a lot less interesting. Right. The dent I'm gonna make in the universe based on this isn't that impactful. It's not gonna change people's lives. It's not gonna change minds. It's gonna change somebody else's. Why am I getting up in the morning to do this anymore? Right?
So I think that's the other thing that we, we talked about this a few, uh, months ago on the podcast, but going back to your why. And I think if the why is not big enough. You're gonna stop doing it at some point. Agreed. You're just gonna stop caring. Agreed. And, and that why the size of the why and the size of the risk tend to be pretty directly correlated. Right. And I look at the fear as a fuel, and I'm addicted to that fuel.
I'm addicted to the, to the big stakes, big outcome kind of equation because what I've found in my life, wherever I've had moments where. Fear wasn't driving everything, but it was more, you know, the equivalent of greed. You know, if you use the opposite of fear and greed, right? Where it was more I'd like to have something versus I have to get something done. I have few, if any wins whatsoever that are optional where it was like, that would be a lot of upside for me. Right.
It it was, it was more, oh shit, if I don't get this done, X, Y, Z will happen. Now, hopefully that leads to upside. Yeah, right, right. Wasn't the motivator at the time. Yeah. Wasn't what was driving you. It wasn't like, oh, if I do this, maybe I'll get that. It's, if I don't do this, I'm gonna get something. I really don't. That's what I'm saying. Like, I, my greed motivator is a two. My fear motivator is a 12. Yeah. Yeah. Like if we like a, a dial.
Right. And I, I wanna believe that a lot of people are kind of in that same boat. Whereby they don't get the maximum of their output in a situation where they're not forced to. Right now, I wanna zoom out for a second. We're not advocating. Putting yourself in constant fear all the time in being stressed out, like your blood pressure and your health and like, you gotta chill out too. Like, like, like we have high intensity fear and like for Ryan and I, we dial it back and go do something else.
Right? Like it's, it's, this isn't a Gary V moment where we're like, you know, hustle porn where it's like you have to be in fear all the time. That would be psychotic. Yeah. What we're saying is there are moments. Where it's time. Yeah. Like it's, it's big fear time, and that's okay. You should look for those moments. Yeah. And you should look for those moments and, and again, embrace them because there, there are lots of different types of fear too. Right.
I like, let's, let's talk about another one, which is that there's some bad types of fear. Something like, you know, the one that, that actually works in the opposite way of fuel. For me, I see founders who are using fear, the fear of the product launch, right? The fear of public perception of the, of the product or service. Just ends up leading to, uh, like this over perfectionism, staying on the lab bench paralysis instead of getting out in the market. Um, and just paralysis, right?
Just not letting things move forward. So I think it, it, it has to be, I balance there where it's like you can feel it pushing you forward. The minute it starts to push you backwards, you gotta step back and say like, am I, am I having an appropriate relationship with this fear right now? Or am I letting this thing, uh, get the better of me and keep me from doing the things that should be helping instead?
Yeah. And I think, you know, within that, when we're talking about fear as a conditioned muscle, I wanna build on that to say, yeah, Ryan, you and I, and, and some other founders, not most of them, 'cause most of them are relatively new to this, but you and I have learned to condition that fear muscle. Like, like we get the benefit of it, not just the pain that comes from it.
Okay. Yep. And again, I'm not saying that like, look, I'm up at three, well, I guess I'm up at three in the morning to wake up, but like, I was gonna say, I'm up at three in the morning staring at the ceiling, but like I am, I'm actually getting outta bed. Um, but when I think about like those moments where I'm, you know, I'm, I'm scared, I'm terrified, whatever, it's not that it doesn't affect me, I'm like, not right, like in human.
But at the same time, I've done it enough times where I'm starting to say. Okay. Like I can live in this moment, I can live in this, in this feeling. 'cause I've been here a lot of times. And even when it doesn't work out and I think you were getting at this, even when it doesn't work out, I'll figure it out. Like, uh, to your point, the loss is never everything in our mind It is. Right. 'cause it's so convenient to take it there. Yeah. But in reality it rarely ever turns out that way.
Yeah. That's something I wish more founders did was just to like really get comfortable, like. Get acquainted with the risk. I think sometimes, like we just, we, we did an entire episode on this, right? We run like the, the, the paper dragons, but like just document or say it out loud to somebody else. Yep. Sometimes it completely takes the sting out of it and you're like, oh, okay.
Well that thing that I was really scared of actually isn't that scary and or the likelihood of it becoming all that. Is relatively right. The, the idea that I do drain the entire 401k or i, I do alienate my entire network or whatever the, the, the big thing that you're, you're scared of is, is rarely ends up coming to, to fruition in that, in that full strength way.
It's almost always some diluted version of that, just like our successes, you know, uh, Ryan, if you were a couple months ago, I was speaking, um, at an entrepreneurship conference. It was one of these situations. So, so the setup kinda matters. I get a, uh, an email from my booking agent. I've got a speaking booking agent, which is ironic because the, the, the, the punchline here is I am terrified of public speaking, right?
Yeah. So why the fuck would you have a booking agent to book you to public speak, right? If you don't push yourself into your f, right? Yeah. Yeah. So. Anyway, so I'm, I'm, I'm doing the speech when I go out to questions for the audience, it's a whole room of, uh, founders and entrepreneurs, and I go to questions. One of the, um, one of the people in the audience, they're like, you're an incredible storyteller. Like, you're, you're like the best public speaker I've ever seen.
And I, and, and, and it, it cracked me up. Me, no, no, this isn't me saying like, like, uh, let me humble brag about what they said. It was my response. I said, it's important for you to know that I am absolutely terrified right now. Yeah. Right. Like public speaking, like most people is, is one of my greatest fears. Yeah. I happen to be good at it, but I'm terrified of doing it, and that's never changed no matter how many times I've ever done it.
You're, you're not gonna seek it out on your own. It's not something you're just Right. Like, just go do more someone in Paul to book me to, to send me somewhere to do it. I would never volunteer. Right. Yeah. But here's the interesting thing when I do it. It always pays huge dividends. Yes. I mean, tons of people, you know, they send me a check at the end, like, like it's, it's a great, phenomenal experience.
Yeah. But if you were to call me right now and said, Hey, will, uh, can you be available for my event? I would absolutely turn it down. 'cause I'm terrified of, so what I'm saying though is I, I, I've created the conditions for me to lean into that fear. But me not doing it if I just said, Hey, you know, I, I don't enjoy, I'm just not gonna do it. Would have given up so many opportunities. Yeah. Yeah. Part of the reason I don't like doing it, it sounds odd. I hate preparing for it.
Like you, you, you never truly give it the, the, the time that it's due. But it usually takes me days to prepare and that seems like a huge waste of time. But my point is, I think about it in terms of this is something that's probably one of my number one fears, and yet I lean into it. Yeah. I lean into it because I know it's important for me to condition that fear. And again, stand comfortable doesn't, doesn't change anything. I think it's, it's nice like.
Things like public speaking in particular to our audience is great because we get real-time feedback on it, you know? Yeah. We do podcasts and then days, months, weeks later, we're getting feedback on what we talked about. But it's, it's so nice to be able to have that, that immediacy of the feedback and the fear. When you go into it and you look at that, the risk reward, what is the actual risk there?
Spending an hour terrified on a stage, it doesn't feel good, but nothing's actually gonna happen to you. I'm only terrified for the first five minutes. Like, like after that my heart rate comes down, um, from like 160 down to whatever it normally is, down to one 50. And, and it's like, and then I'm smooth sailing. But leading up to that, it's horrible. The other side of it though is, you know, I think about it in terms of.
Founders, especially those that are new, a lot of folks listening to this, to this podcast are like, I'm scared about what I'm doing, and, and when they say that, they act as if no one else is. Yeah. Like I'm just the person that's scared. I'm the one that's scared of public speaking. I'm the one that's scared of pitching my product. Right. I'm the one that's scared of making product level decisions. I'm the one that's scared of investing money. A hundred percent of people are terrified.
Everybody is. Yep. There's no other version of this job. Right. I know exactly how to do this job. I've been doing it forever and I'm still scared every day. Right. That's just an the natural reaction to what we do. It's not an anomaly. So I want some of the folks listening, Ryan, to be like, oh, like. Those guys are scared too. Yeah. We're not just saying that to, like, to prove a point where we're saying that because it's true. It's how it is.
You know, in my mind, if I'm not somewhat uncomfortable, there's a problem. Right. And, and, and I, when we're we're writing this out, I wrote that, uh, comfort is a, is the currency of a life half lived. Yeah. Comfort is the currency of a life. Half lived. And what I meant by that was for folks that haven't gone all the way, haven't done amazing things, what I picture kind of my wife's alternate universe would've been if she didn't, uh, marry this crazy guy, it would've been very comfortable.
Yeah. But her entire highlight reel has always has to do with something where like she got pushed out of her comfort zone a little bit. Yep. And, and did something crazy. And, and while she would never do that on her own, she does have the instinct and I'll give her credit to know when to, to lean into that and just say, Hey, you know, I'll figure it out. I don't think a lot of people going into this business, Ryan, understand how important leaning into that fear is.
They understand the fear, like, holy shit, I'm scared. Yeah, for sure. But they don't understand how important it is to have fear as part of your program, as part of your DNA, as a founder, and as part of your strategy, if you go in and you say, I'm gonna start something, I'm gonna quit my job. I'm gonna, you know, risk my savings, whatever in my strategy, is gonna lean into fear. You have the opportunity to, to do big things.
If you don't, if you change your mind and you say, I wanna seek comfort, you can never truly expect to build something great because the. Biggest, greatest things that you've ever done? Everything in your life. Everything in anybody, anybody's life that's ever been done by someone great involved. A ridiculous amount of fear. Overthinking your startup because you're going it alone.
You don't have to, and honestly, you shouldn't because instead, you can learn directly from peers who've been in your shoes. Connect with bootstrap founders and the advisors helping them win in the startups.com community. Check out the startups.com [email protected] to see if it's for you. Could be just the thing you need. I hope to see you inside.