Leading In the Real World

A Brain Twister That Saved A 45 Year Old First-Time Entrepreneur

Siu David -

Hi.

I have been struggling. As a 45 year old first time entrepreneur, I find being on my own surprisingly difficult. I now truly know what "I am too old for this shit" feels like.

I didn't realize how much I have gotten used to surviving and navigating in a workplace where the circumstances, context, and rules were defined.

  • I knew what time I needed to show up at the office.
  • I knew what my role was- at least I knew what my title meant in the organisation.
  • I didn't need to think about wifi, the coffee machine, and the bathrooms.
  • I knew, subconsciously or not, slacking off every now and then, really didn't matter that much.

Being on my own changed all that. Everything is disorienting, nothing is defined, and if I slack off, even for just a second, my bank statements will tell me about it, without fail.

Don't get me wrong, I love this disorienting journey. The number 1 reason why I am loving this torture is because I am forced to come up with new ways to merely survive. I have to find new coping mechanisms. I have to find new ways to self motivate. I have to get better at bouncing back. I have to learn how to do this on my own (or to recruit new imaginary co-worker-friends).

This week I found this brain twister that brought me a bit of peace. You see, we see the world the way our brains explain it. More often than not this explanation of the world by our brain is quite different from reality- I see my failure to convince a client to hire me as a sign of my uselessness, but in reality it could just be because the client's budget has been cut.

And then, I began to notice the tendencies of how my brain saw the world, such as "most people are smarter than me," or "I am a fraud." I started to see how my mind has been conditioned by the experiences I have had. I started to see how the world created my mind.

I was reminded of these facts repeatedly. I was coming up with stories about the world that were inaccurate, and the reason why these stories sucked was because of the subpar experiences I have had in this world.

"The mind creates the world and the world creates the mind."

I can't control how I see the world, but I can control how I see the world.

Alright. Until next time.

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I think about leadership & psychology in the showers. I know it's odd, but these topics are important and fun. I hope you find them useful too.

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David