Week 6: this happens to everyone

stay the course

what’s common in the early stage (almost weekly sometimes) but no one talks about - is the emotional S-curve.

Bob Lewis - my business coach for 5 years at Terminus first introduced me to the S-curve and it was a gift as I could see my life through this curve at the moment.

here is how it looks:

this is what happened to my partners and I just last week:

• Shock - we can’t do this forever - seems impossible to scale

• Denial - something must be wrong with our approach

• Frustration - we are working harder than ever with no clear path

• Depression - i want to quit, like yesterday, and why me

• Experiment - wonder if this might work

• Decision - we are going to fight thru this and renew my commitment

• Integration - Let’s go!

if you are a first-time founder, you are likely to experience the same.

but it gets worse as a second-time founder because it feels like people expect you to win and you have to carry the shame, doubt, and imposter syndrome all happening at the same time.

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just yesterday, on a personal side, my daughter, Kiara, had her first singing recital.

well, the funny (not in the moment funny) thing is that she went thru the same.

as she woke up - she was happy but right before we had to go, she got nervous and started saying:

i don’t want to sing, i want to quit, i can’t sing and even blamed us that we might have pressured her into singing even though this has been her favorite thing to do.

sounds similar to the s-curve and how quickly one can move from shock to denial to depression??

well, somehow we get to the recital and as her friend showed up and others came, she is filled with a little excitement.

my dad mode kicked in (about time) - so i went to her and got on my one knee and looked straight in her eyes and said:

Please sing….. no kidding… here’s is what i really said to her:

the only thing I want you to think about is this one-word “joy”

i told her, that when you are doing anything with joy, no matter how hard it is, you will be just fine on the other end.

well - she did it!

she was asked to sing first and she sang with all her heart and joy!

and then when I asked her, do you want to sing again or cancel - she is like, i can’t want to sign again :)

Ha! but now imagine if she would have quit halfway?

imagine a thing you might have quit halfway that was worth going for?

well, no matter what it is that you are working on, my hope is that you don’t quit because you might be going through the S-curve.

for Kiara, it came and went within 2 hours.

for us founders, it comes and goes every so often.

Leaderpoint: Fog is always in the moment but you have to believe that there is a bright road ahead. Stay the course with joy, and when the fog clears away, you will be glad you didn’t quit halfway.

love,

Sangram

p.s. thank you for reading. it does mean a ton to me when i see your comments below with your thoughts.

p.p.s my 21 frameworks for the business of marketing, leadership, and life are here