After winning a bronze medal (female wrestling) in the London 2012 Olympic games, Maider Unda was asked why her sport wasn’t more popular in Spain.
Her answer was straight to the point, she said that wrestling is a tough sport and life in Spain was too easy (compared with the quality of life in other countries) to convince youngsters to go through the “pain” required to succeed in this sport.
I think this perfectly applies to the startup life. Many people talk about creating a company, few actually start one and only “fools” stick to it when they realize that in 99,99 % of cases a startup is not an overnight success (even when you think they are, most likely what you perceive as immediate success is the result of many years of hidden work and failed attempts, a classic example is Angry Birds an overnight success 8-years in the making .
So, before wasting your time think twice. Can you really find the passion (whether your motivation is making the world a better place, your newborn or getting filthy rich doesn’t matter as you as long as you feel the fire) required to keep you going long-term through the rough life of an entrepreneur (juggling a daily job, family, the company,..; spending most of your time doing non-creative tasks, accounting, administering your web site,…)?
It’s not going to be nice so you better be prepared for it or just stop dreaming and enjoy your comfortable life as it is now. Halfhearted efforts will get you nowhere and will only cause pain to you and your family. As we said in a previous post “We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret and disappointment.”
Dear Jordi,
I agree. And I’d like to share something related, with you and your readers.
I practice kung fu for some years now.
At first, practice seems quite easy and fun; you keep learning things and your body follows your wills. Then the time arrives when you face your (current) limits and the endurance it takes to go through the pain to reach beyond is the most common reason of drop-out. Your body seems unable to stretch further, you start being unable of remembering the technical stuff and you realise that you will never get where Bruce Lee, Jet Li or Donnie Yen arrived (to name just a few recent and famous ones). Many quit practicing at this point. It is not only the physical pain you must cope with, it is also emotional.
But if you keep committed to practising, once you cross the threshold of pain and you fully embrace the practice, then the pain becomes bearable and you find your own source of inspiration and passion inside of you. It is not only a mere physical activity, but it has a background rooted in Chinese philosophy and medicine. You realise the wellness it brings to your life and you succeed to move forward and improve.
I will never be like the masters of kung fu I mentioned above (I started late, my body has uncrossable limits and my true passion is actually research); but never mind, I’m not idolatrous at all; they are just my positive referents of people who are great at what they do, as many researchers I admire. But the truth is that I am far more healthy than 5 years ago, and I have more energy and self-discipline to devote to other projects in my life. Practising kung fu helped me go through hard times while tackling with my PhD: it helped me keep focused, it restored my body and my mind after sitting for 12 hours in front of my computer. Of course, to be fair, my girl, my family, my friends, my boss, my colleagues and PhD comics 🙂 helped me to a great extent too.
But here comes the best and why I am sharing all this with you. Kung fu literally means “mastery through effort” so it refers to any skill one achieves through hard work and committed practice, not only to a martial art (the sport itself is more properly referred to as wushu). There is a kung fu of agriculture, of bakery, and even of sex.
The thing is, what kung fu can teach us is that, to be good at something, you must really practise hard. And in the short term you may lose heart and desire to quit, but in the mid and in the long term, it is worth the effort! Whatever discipline you are interested in or project you are undertaking.
There is also a kung fu of research, don’t you think Jordi?
Best,
Sergio
PS: Keep on with your blogs, they inspire me.
You may be interested in reading this post from this interesting blog: http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2010/09/presentation-and-life-lessons-from-the-dojo.html
This reminds me as well the “no pain no gain” motto of bodybuilders