#42 Ignoring reality never does any good
What we often do wrong, and how to get better in facing facts.
Hey, how have you been? I haven’t written much lately and need to review my schedule to get back on track. I'm taking a break from interviews after completing ten of them, as my other projects are picking up, and I feel stretched (and in need of a vacation, which has been booked for the end of April).
I've been keeping in touch with many people who are in different phases of transition. One topic that comes up a lot in our conversations is our ability to face the truth. The truth about our limits, our perception of ourselves, our understanding of market reality, and the fact that life is a non-linear roller coaster that sometimes sends you off the cliff when you least expect it.
There are some common pitfalls that most of us share, and I've decided to summarize them for you today.
Overindexing on previous employment
The dimension I would like to explore here is when people wish to leave big corporate roles and transition to social impact, sustainability, startup advisory, or simply freelance positions. The disappointment that many people face is that the salaries are not comparable to those in the corporate sector. When I say "not comparable," I mean a decrease of -30% in the best-case scenario or even up to -80% if one aims to maximize the social impact dimension. I'm exaggerating a bit, but I've had quite a few discussions along the lines of "purpose is critical for me in my next job move, but the salaries are so low!"
The sooner you gather benchmarks, the better.
Talking to friends too much
The main problem with friends is that they like you, want to support you, and have already accepted your blind spots, embracing you as you are. However, this attitude may not help you succeed in the job market. Just as you shouldn't ask your mom whether your business is a good idea because she loves you and may not give an objective opinion, you also shouldn’t rely solely on your friends when seeking feedback on your future career plans. The reason is simple: your friends are not the ones hiring you and will not bear the business risks. While they will undoubtedly be supportive and encourage you to pursue your goals, their role as your friends is to uplift you, not to assess your professional viability.
The less time you spend conversing with your friends, and the more you focus on potential employers or customers, the better. You have only 24 hours in a day; use them wisely to gain new insights.
Going into networking not ready to learn about the reality
This is a tough situation, and I've been there with many of you. You start networking with a certain idea about yourself and your market value, all of which are based on sometimes outdated information. Then you meet someone, and the answer disappoints you. You learn that some of your skills are not transferable, your experience is not a good fit, your salary expectations are not realistic, or the job that looks good on paper is not as exciting in reality.
Attitude is key here because the worst thing you can do to yourself is become demotivated, stop engaging with people, and continue sticking to the status quo. While there are scenarios where staying where you are can be a good thing, most likely you entered into networking looking for a change. The best decision you can make during such conversations is to look for cues on where to dig next.
Accept the facts, recalibrate quickly, and move on.
Insisting on a wrong hypothesis for too long
This results from a combination of the previous two points. Imagine you have a startup idea; your kind friends tell you that it is brilliant and that you should pursue it, yet you still haven’t found any investors to back it up. Even worse, you decide to bootstrap and invest your own money. While you may have read plenty of motivational articles about people building unicorns when no one believed in them, those who failed rarely make it onto the pages of Forbes.
A long time ago, I heard a statement that I still believe: if no one backs your idea by sharing financial risks with you, most likely it is a bad idea.
Try not to run out of cash while pursuing a path that hasn’t been working for too long.
Not experimenting enough
Another aspect of the previous point. Imagine you had one hypothesis, it proved wrong, you tried one or two more options, and didn’t receive great feedback either. You become demotivated and start watching another TV show on Netflix. The truth is, you need to test many options and try to explore the direction of “what else exists out there that I have no idea about?”
When I tell people that at our level of seniority (15-20 years), you need to send roughly 100 CVs to get a couple of good offers, they stare at me in disbelief. However, this is precisely what I observe around me, especially for people who have had jobs with limited exposure to external networks.
This is a numbers game, and you need to maximize your chances by getting out more and playing with different versions.
Until next time!
nat
📚 To read:
The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you - During the past 7 months I engaged with quite a few startups, and at one point or another “talk to your customers” came up in every conversation. While not many of you are building a business, you should treat yourself like one in a professional setting.
My favorite quote from the book: “Rule of thumb: You should be terrified of at least one of the questions you’re asking in every conversation”. Frankly, I think it applies to life in general, if you want to get real about your blind spots.