April 15, 2025 • 31 mins
Ryan and Will discuss the prevalent fear in the market due to economic uncertainty in April 2025. They delve into how fear is a constant companion for founders and argue that it's not a weakness but a strength. Drawing on personal experiences, including public speaking and risky business moves, they illustrate how leaning into fear can drive massive growth and success. Comfortable activities rarely lead to significant achievements, they argue, emphasizing that true progress requires embracing discomfort. They also highlight the importance of conditioning oneself to fear and rejecting complacency to ensure continuous growth and impactful outcomes.
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Wil Schroter
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Ryan Rutan
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-rutan/
What to listen for:
00:35 Founders' Relationship with Fear
01:35 Fear as a Motivator and Asset
02:38 Personal Experiences with Fear and Risk
03:17 Balancing Risk and Reward in Decision Making
06:36 The Role of Fear in Entrepreneurship
07:05 Cultural Differences in Risk Perception
12:57 Embracing Fear as Part of the Job
14:55 Building Resilience Through Failure
15:39 Embracing Fear in Business
16:02 The Role of Fear in Motivation
17:46 The Danger of Complacency
19:25 Taking Big Risks for Big Rewards
21:23 Balancing Fear and Progress
25:44 Facing Public Speaking Fears
30:08 The Importance of Leaning Into Fear
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to the episode ofthe Startup Therapy Podcast.
This is Ryan Rutanfrom startups.com.
Joined as always by myfriend, the founder,
and CEO of startups.com.
Will Schroeder.
Well, let me timestamp this.
We are in the, the earlydays of April, 2025.
There's quite a bit of fearin the world right now.
There's a lot of fearabout a lot of things, but
probably most importantly,we're watching the markets
(00:21):
go absolutely haywire basedon this extreme uncertainty
around around tariffs.
And so fear is something that'sbeing talked about a lot.
There's a lot of peopleexperiencing fear who maybe
were quite comfortableeven a few weeks ago.
So that's where we're at.
Right.
And, but I think as youknow, as founders, you
and I have, have kind oflived in a, in a fear-based
environment for our careers.
(00:42):
And so like how unusual isthis for, for founders and,
and how, how, how strange isthis feeling of, of having
fear becoming a motivator?
For us
it was like, this isanother Tuesday, right.
That's like, you know,the markets are going
crazy tr and I get it.
It's their job togo crazy, right?
And I was like, the world isgetting to live in a level of
fear, uncertainty and doubt.
That it's just anotherTuesday for founders.
(01:04):
Right?
It's our, our normal, yeah.
Yeah.
I'm, I'm still unfazedby it now, like I'm
not excited about it.
Right.
I look at thatgoing, here we go.
And also, you know, I'm sure youhave the same thing, Ryan, like
empathetically, you know that itaffects a lot of other people,
so you can appreciate the factthat it's, it's bad, right.
But from a. Fear standpoint,I'm like, bring it on.
(01:25):
This is like almost likea trained boxer getting
in a, a fight at a bar.
Like this is whatwe're trained to do.
Um, this
amateur stuff, guys like this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Here's the thing, Ryan, I, Idon't think we talk about the,
the fear of being a founder, youknow, of, of, of this process
in quite the right context.
I think we talk about itmostly in terms of the,
(01:46):
the emotional impact, whichis, which is devastating.
Yeah.
Right.
I don't think we talkabout it or build upon it.
I. Where it'sactually a huge asset.
Absolutely can be.
And, and I, I think, you know,whenever I look at like big,
big steps in my life, andI, you know, my wife and I,
we sit down, we've moved abunch of times, so whenever
we make that move, you know,we, we've gone to, to Santa
Monica, to San Francisco, toBeverly Hills, you know, all
(02:08):
these other places, right.
And every time we makethe move, it's always
expensive and, and whatever.
And I'm like, I gottabe honest, like.
This doesn't scare me at all.
Yeah.
And my, my wife's who'svery conservative is
like, this terrifies me.
Yeah.
And I always say the same thing.
I'm like, if it doesn't terrifyus, we're doing it wrong.
Yeah.
It's exactly.
I don't think a lot ofpeople think like that.
(02:29):
What activity that'sentirely comfortable has
ever created growth foranything, whether it's
physical, mental, emotional.
Right.
You don't, you don't growthrough things like that.
Look, I, I, I, I getthat, you know, the,
the rallying cry, right?
Like, you know.
Yes, fear.
If fear can be a powerfulmotivator, fear, uh,
can be an asset for us.
I think there's still aline and, and we have to
figure out as founders hownot to cross it, where we
(02:50):
move into full paralysis.
Right.
And I think that's, honestly,that's, that's point,
part of the fear muscle.
Just like flexing itover and over again.
Like, I'm scared I'mgonna keep moving.
I'm scared I'mgonna keep moving.
And you just get
better
at it.
I don't think that you and Iare any less acceptable to fear.
We've just lived in it longenough and understand that these
things come and go in cyclesand that we can stick around.
And honestly, like the,the inaction is a thing
(03:10):
that will actually.
Take you out, right?
Yeah.
Whatever the risky moveyou're thinking about.
Yep.
It's probably truly lessrisky 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 highlightreel is, is highly
punctuated by Yeah.
All of the things thatyou were fearful of doing.
(03:33):
Yeah.
Yet you did anyway
move to Asia, decidenot to do MBA, right
out right outta school.
Right,
right, right.
There
were a lot of people whowere 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 littlethings, they were all these
moments in time where I goback and, you know, if you go
back a year prior to whateverthe highlight real moment is.
(03:54):
It was decisions like this.
Yeah.
And it was choosing riskover, it was choosing fear
and uncertainty over takinga more stable path that
led to the highlights.
Otherwise, I, I don'tknow that those wouldn't
have led to highlights.
They certainly would've led todifferent types of highlights,
mostly ones that I'm not allthat excited about, having
watched some of my friends godown those exact same paths.
They're like, here'smy highlight reel.
(04:15):
I got a certificate forbeing at the company for 25
years.
I can't take my preferences andproject them onto other people.
I just know whatmy preferences are.
They seem to be happyabout that stuff.
And, and maybe, right, but onthe other hand, when I bring
my wife into the equation,'cause again, my wife is
super conservative and shemarried a guy that is as, as
not conservative as possible.
(04:36):
Yep.
And when we talk about it, andshe's, she's such a, a cool wife
in that she's very cognizantthat in order to take big steps,
I have to lead those steps.
Like, but what's really coolabout my wife is that she's
always down to go along.
Right?
Sure.
She, she never says no, likewhatever crazy stuff we decide
(04:56):
to do, she's always on board,but she'll never initiate
it because she, she doesn'thave that muscle that you
described of understandinghow to take fear and do
something positive with it.
This is a huge, uh, speakingof, of marriage and wives, this
was a huge thing, uh, with,with Vargas and I in the early
days before we figured out therewas like some really specific.
(05:18):
Cultural differences that wereleading to us seeing things in
completely different ways, whichat first was, was challenging.
It was difficult therelike, yeah, I, you know,
the, everything's possible.
No risk is too great.
We can do anythingthat we set out to do.
We'll figure it out.
Right.
My wife growing up in a verydifferent culture where like
I. Streaming was not only notencouraged, it was discouraged.
Right?
Yeah.
You weren't supposed to try toaim session, you were, you know,
(05:39):
there were very specific paths.
You were think becomea doctor or an engineer
and those were the twothings you were gonna do.
Yep.
And here's how youaccomplish that.
And anything that deviated fromthose paths was bad and scary.
And we realized thatthere was just this, this
undercurrent for both of us.
My undercurrent everpresent is optimism.
Yeah.
Her undercurrent everpresent is pessimism.
Doesn't mean that we can't bothdream or both get excited about
(06:00):
stuff, but they're always goingto be flavored by that thing.
And once we realized thatit was actually fantastic.
I know you and Sarah dothe same thing, right?
But there's acounterbalance there, right?
Like there's the like,ah, we can go do this.
And then there's that littlevoice represented by my
wife saying, okay, but haveyou 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.
(06:21):
Yeah.
Yeah.
She's the, the little angelsitting on my shoulder
making sure that like,I'm, I'm considering.
The downsides 'cause it'seasy to get caught up
just in the upsides too.
You know, we talk withthis 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 whatwe're trying to teach them
(06:42):
is that fear is a feature.
Not a flaw.
Not a flaw.
Yep.
Right.
And, and I think for alot of people, that is
totally antithetical to whatwe've been brought up on.
Like fear is whatyou should run from.
Yeah.
Right.
Avoid it at all costs.
Avoid it
at all costs.
Right.
Find ways to be braveand to not be afraid.
Right.
No beef, it's
okay.
Yeah.
It's, but the other side ofit, it's a bit of a leading
(07:04):
indicator for me, right.
Like, I know when I getthat, that that tingle, that
feeling that I'm leaning intosomething 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 sharedexperience you and I had, uh,
(07:25):
when we bought z.com Oh yeah.
Uh, years ago.
We've told this story a littlebit in the past, but like, what
a lot of folks don't know is webought a company doing a million
dollars a month of revenue with450 employees, sight unseen at
five in the morning and ownedit at nine in the morning.
I mean, it was.
It was this cowboy as it gets,I remember I was laying in
(07:47):
bed and, uh, you know, we, wehad, we'd been in negotiations
with, with the owners forhours all throughout the
night, throughout the morning.
So this was like a, alast minute, crazy ordeal.
I, I'm, I'm laying in bed, it'slike five in the morning, and,
and I, I'd just gone to bedbecause I thought like the, the
deal was over and I turned toSarah, who's sleeping of course,
and I'm like, are you cool ifI make a really bad decision?
(08:12):
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 endedup buying the company and
four hours later we owned.
A company with 450 employeesand 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, webought it under, I mean, the
(08:33):
business was under significantstress at that point.
There were a lot of things thatcould go wrong and it had a
very specific set of criteriato make things go right.
And so we just focused on that.
You know, I was just thinkinglike, when was the last
time we said no becausesomething was too risky?
We've said no becausethey didn't represent
the right opportunity.
But I cannot think of thelast time that we were
like, should we do this?
(08:54):
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 thelast time we were like,
should we try that?
No, that's too risky.
Yeah.
Like, uh, for years everyonelogically 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'sexactly the kind of risk
(09:16):
that we know, right?
Yeah.
The kind of risk that welive in and understand very
well, we shouldn't enjoy it.
It's just, it's adivergence from what we
do and what we mm-hmm.
Think is our best attemptat helping startup founders.
It's not so thingthat we wanna build.
Yeah.
And, and so when I think about,again, that spidey sense that
says, Hey, I'm leaning intofear, I think because, um, you
and I have done it for so long.
(09:38):
Right.
And we have the benefitwith age of having seen what
it's like on the other side.
Yeah.
To see that you can do it.
Like Ryan, when you thinkabout uh, seeing this lens
through your children now whohaven't had the reps 'cause
they're just getting started.
Yeah.
You can see how differentlythey process that because
fear is very legit for them.
Yeah, it is.
And it.
(09:58):
It's funny too 'cause like thetypes of fear that exists are,
are very different as well.
Right.
There's is a more of anexistential type fear.
Right.
And it, it's interesting 'causethey're at that phase where they
also kind of think that they'reinvincible in a lot of ways.
Yeah.
Right.
And I remember like, therewere 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 ifI'm right, if this is too
(10:18):
big of a risk and it costsme 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 Iwas, you know, significantly
younger, in the earlytwenties, my tolerance
there was, was way higher.
Right.
I, I felt like I had lessto lose because I did, and
I also felt like I have moretime to recover because I did.
Yep.
Right.
As you age, I think it's,it's interesting because, you
(10:41):
know, I'm, I'm definitely.
Definitely things that Iwould probably add to the
equation now that wouldn'thave been there before.
Like, oh, well if we losethis, this matters a lot,
or this could change theopportunity for my kids.
It could do a lot of things,but on the other hand, I'm so
much more comfortable with theidea of risk and my ability
to calculate the risk that,again, I don't know that
it's caused me necessarily tosay no to anything that came
(11:02):
along simply because it was.
Too risky.
Interesting.
I'm gonna have to thinkabout this a bit now.
I wish I had thought aboutthis a bit, bit more, more
before the episode, uh, togo back and think like, how
much of this is just riskblindness 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 ofsaying no because
Yeah.
But, but again, you've been onthe other side of it, you've
(11:23):
seen the victory, so you knowthat it's, it's worth the risk.
Now, a lot of folks thatare becoming entrepreneurs,
they're not there yet.
Right.
They're like, oh, I have toquit my job, or I have to, you
know, bet my, my life savings.
Yeah.
And they're like, andall they can think of
is all the downside.
And that's, that's logical.
There's nothing wrongwith, with that processing.
However, the thing that thatdoes create a challenge is you
(11:44):
get to a point where you'reso worried about the downside
that you never see side, right?
Yep.
You, you, you get thesense that playing it
safe is the right bet.
And the problem withplaying it safe is
you never win.
Yeah.
If you don't put any chipson 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 alot of early stage founders.
(12:06):
They play the game asif 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 otherthing that you get really
good at over time is figuringout how much of this risk
is, can be, can be enteredinto sequentially, right?
I don't need to lookat this as well.
I have to build this, youknow, billion dollar business,
ergo I have to throw ineverything I have and all my
time and all my money and allmy resources have to go to
(12:27):
this in order to make work.
It is not the, the reality.
So I, I think that's areally important piece
is that this isn't an.
All in type situation.
In most cases, you have theability to sequentially and
incrementally increase yourrisk or decrease your risk.
And I think that's somethingthat we have become much better
at as we've gone through this,is really understanding what
(12:47):
are the actual risks and how canI, how can I eliminate or defer
some of that risk until later?
And I think that's animportant piece of it.
But so back to the,back to the core point
here, which is that, um.
Fear is, is is something thatwe should lean into and that
comfort is, is not necessarilya 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 thatlike we're associating as
(13:11):
founders, we're associatingfear as a weakness of
some sort or the opposite.
Something that weshould run from.
Yeah.
If what I'm saying, youknow, what we're saying in
this discussion is what ifyou just leaned into it?
Yep.
What if you were to say,look, fear is my job.
Sure.
Right.
That's literally in my jobdescription to be the person
that does really scary shit.
(13:31):
That is my job.
Okay.
And I wanna be reallygood at that job.
I wanna be the the personthat's willing to run into
the abyss when no one else iswilling to run into the abyss.
Right?
Yeah.
I wanna build that muscle.
Well, you gotta dosome hard stuff, right?
Yeah.
You gotta do some stuffwhere you don't know
what's on the other side.
You know, one of my favoritething, do you remember a show?
(13:52):
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'tremember 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 wouldrun through an obstacle course.
Okay?
And there wouldalways be this one.
They had to run at full speed.
(14:13):
There was always be thisone thing that I thought
was a perfect analogyfor founders, there would
be three doors, okay?
And like one of the doorsis made out of paper and the
other two doors are wooden.
But you can't tellthe difference when
you run into 'em.
It was like a Tom andJerry cartoon, right?
Yeah.
And so these, these, these,uh, these contestants would
run and they'd either burstthrough that door or they'd
(14:35):
get flattened out, rightThought, bounce off it.
I thought what a perfectright metaphor for being
a founder.
Yeah.
The difference is the founderwill then get up after having
bounced off one of the doors andrun full speed into another one.
And until one of through.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Did they, they also did thison, uh, a American gladiator.
Not that that'simportant at this point.
(14:55):
Yeah, but they rememberthere was like the, and, but
instead of being a woodendoor behind, one of the
doors of the gates would be.
Turbo or Nitro or one ofthe guys waiting to, I
love Turbo Nitro deaf.
You.
Yeah.
I'm, I'm shocked that, that thatshow isn't still around anyway,
point being, uh, this idea thatI wanna get good at running
through the doors knowing Yep.
(15:15):
Knowing that I'm gonna bounceoff a whole bunch of time.
I, I'm, I'm gonna hit the woodendoor 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 knockeddown and keep coming back.
There are very few people thatare willing to acknowledge
wanting that specific muscle.
(15:38):
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
But I think when you startto explain it to founders,
and you and I advise foundersall the time about this,
when you start to explain tothem, 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'snot, when you're, oh my
God, I can't believe I'mdoing everything wrong.
I must have fear.
I've been at this for 30 years.
I'm terrified every day.
(15:58):
Right?
Yeah.
Like that is
the business.
I it it is the business.
I think it's such an importantrealization because I
think until you have thatrealization, the, the constant
thought is, couldn't thisfear just be an indicator
that this is a bad idea,that this is a bad business?
Because that's usuallywhat fear is for.
That's what it's for.
It's to stop us from doingsomething right, or, or make
us take, take notice or to,to be able, or in some cases
(16:21):
truly to, to motivate us.
Right?
Yeah.
That fear and, and adrenalineare directly linked.
Yeah.
There's a reason we get scared.
We dump adrenaline, so we cando amazing shit to get ourselves
out of whatever we're scared of.
But I think it's reallyimportant that you can
change the relationshipwith fear so that you're
not always looking at it.
Yes, of course.
Of course.
Some fears are warranted,and you might have
(16:41):
a bad business idea.
This isn't to say that ifyou'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 veryimportant here is that
just because you're scared.
Does not mean it is not adirect indicator that it's
a bad business, right?
I see so manyfounders doing this.
It's like, I'm just reallyworried that this is a bad idea.
Well, you can keep doing thatand, and you will stay in that
same state or you can embracethe fear, lean into it a bit
(17:03):
and go find out, go validatewhatever it is you think is,
is causing this fear that,that, that whatever it is, that
the factor that's driving thefear for you and eliminate it.
Or validate it.
You know something that'sreally funny about everything
we talk about here isthat none of it is new.
Everything you're dealingwith right now has been done a
thousand times before you, whichmeans the answer already exists.
(17:27):
You may just not knowit, but that's okay.
That's kind of whatwe're here to do.
We talk about this stuff onthe show, but we actually
solve these problems alldayLong@groups.startups.com.
So if.
Any of this sounds familiar.
Stop guessing about what to do.
Let us just give you the answersto the test and be done with it.
I gotta say my, mygreatest fear is comfort.
(17:48):
I mean, is, is, isantithetical as that is to say.
Yeah.
Yeah.
At which point Ifeel comfortable.
I get this tingling that saysyou're doing something wrong.
Yeah.
Like something ain't right.
Now, I'm sure there's some bakedin psychology that would take
me years of therapy to unpackthat, and I'm okay with it.
Right.
I'm okay with it.
What I'm saying iscomfort terrifies me.
(18:10):
Yeah.
Because.
I look at comfort as when Istop doing interesting things
and that, that bothers me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I think it's, complacencyis extremely dangerous in
any, any aspect of life.
But I think as a startupfounder, it's, it's extremely,
extremely dangerous.
The funny thing about thatis that can actually increase
your, your real risk, notyour perceived risk, but
the, the actual risk, like,like being complacent, trying
(18:32):
to be comfortable withinthe business can absolutely
increase the, the actual risk,uh, which is funny because.
Fear often comes down is youget comfortable and you're
like, okay, well we can justkind of take this easy path.
We can, we can, youknow, do something that's
a little less risky.
Oftentimes you're, you'resetting yourself up, you know,
is, you know who loves, uh,you know, who loves caution
and comfort mediocrity, right?
Like I did.
(18:52):
I don't know.
I know a single legacythat was built without some
level of leap of faith.
All
of them, a hundredpercent of them.
Right.
And and I think what getsinteresting 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 Iwanna be a lead Cheetos all day.
(19:14):
Right.
It funny, it doesn'twork that way.
And I, I think what ends uphappening is, again, because
we, we spend so much timeavoiding fear, what we're
really avoiding is progress.
Yeah.
And I think that is adangerous path When I think
about, you know, this conceptof, of complacency, right?
I think about there areall these things I could
(19:35):
do and some number ofthem 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 biggerthe swing that I've took.
Yeah, the bigger the outcome.
Here's a differentway to say it.
I've never had a great outcomewhere I did a it half an effort.
Right.
Just ever or or half a riskwhere I, I said, well, I,
(19:56):
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 mostunlucky guy in the world,
but I don't, I don't thinkit's limited to that.
I think so I'll take that a stepfurther actually, and say that
when I have done things whereI did take like a half step,
I didn't get half the value orhalf the outcome, I got nothing.
Right.
So it, it's, it's, it's,it's subtle, but like,
(20:18):
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 havecome from the, the, the big
risks, uh, the big decisions incases 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 bevery careful there.
And it doesn't necessarilymean, again, this is not me
advocating for the, it's all,all in, on every single bet.
(20:39):
No, but I think pickingthe right bets is really
important and making surethat they're big enough.
There's an outcome worth chasingbecause I think that's the other
thing that ends up happening.
Even if you take that safepath and you do start to
feel comfortable, and itmay no longer be that fear
is motivating you all of asudden you start to realize
like, well, that thing I'maiming for is less risky.
It's also a lotless interesting.
(21:00):
Right.
The dent I'm gonna makein the universe based on
this isn't that impactful.
It's not gonna changepeople's lives.
It's not gonna change minds.
It's gonna changesomebody else's.
Why am I getting up in themorning to do this anymore?
Right?
So I think that's the otherthing that we, we talked
about this a few, uh, monthsago on the podcast, but
going back to your why.
And I think if thewhy is not big enough.
You're gonna stopdoing it at some point.
Agreed.
You're just gonna stop caring.
Agreed.
And, and that why the sizeof the why and the size
(21:20):
of the risk tend to bepretty 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 thebig stakes, big outcome kind
of equation because what I'vefound in my life, wherever
I've had moments where.
Fear wasn't driving everything,but it was more, you know,
(21:41):
the equivalent of greed.
You know, if you usethe opposite of fear
and greed, right?
Where it was more I'd liketo have something versus I
have to get something done.
I have few, if any winswhatsoever that are optional
where it was like, that wouldbe a lot of upside for me.
Right.
It it was, it was more, ohshit, if I don't get this
done, X, Y, Z will happen.
(22:02):
Now, hopefully thatleads to upside.
Yeah,
right, right.
Wasn't the motivatorat the time.
Yeah.
Wasn't what was driving you.
It wasn't like, oh, if I dothis, 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 greedmotivator is a two.
My fear motivator is a 12.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like if we like a, a dial.
(22:22):
Right.
And I, I wanna believethat a lot of people are
kind of in that same boat.
Whereby they don't get themaximum of their output
in a situation wherethey're not forced to.
Right now, I wannazoom out for a second.
We're not advocating.
Putting yourself in constantfear all the time in being
stressed out, like your bloodpressure and your health and
(22:44):
like, you gotta chill out too.
Like, like, like we have highintensity fear and like for
Ryan and I, we dial it backand go do something else.
Right?
Like it's, it's, this isn'ta Gary V moment where we're
like, you know, hustle pornwhere it's like you have
to be in fear all the time.
That would be psychotic.
Yeah.
What we're saying isthere are moments.
Where it's time.
Yeah.
Like it's,
(23:04):
it's big fear
time, and that's okay.
You should look for those
moments.
Yeah.
And you should look forthose moments and, and
again, embrace them becausethere, there are lots of
different types of fear too.
Right.
I like, let's, let's talk aboutanother one, which is that
there's some bad types of fear.
Something like, you know, theone that, that actually works
in the opposite way of fuel.
For me, I see founders whoare using fear, the fear of
the product launch, right?
The fear of public perception ofthe, of the product or service.
(23:26):
Just ends up leading to, uh,like this over perfectionism,
staying on the lab benchparalysis instead of
getting out in the market.
Um, and just paralysis, right?
Just not lettingthings move forward.
So I think it, it, it hasto be, I balance there
where it's like you canfeel it pushing you forward.
The minute it starts to push youbackwards, you gotta step back
and say like, am I, am I havingan appropriate relationship
(23:47):
with this fear right now?
Or am I letting this thing,uh, get the better of me and
keep me from doing the thingsthat should be helping instead?
Yeah.
And I think, you know, withinthat, when we're talking about
fear as a conditioned muscle,I wanna build on that to say,
yeah, Ryan, you and I, and, andsome other founders, not most
of them, 'cause most of themare relatively new to this,
but you and I have learned tocondition that fear muscle.
(24:09):
Like, like we get thebenefit of it, not just the
pain that comes from it.
Okay.
Yep.
And again, I'm not saying thatlike, look, I'm up at three,
well, I guess I'm up at threein the morning to wake up, but
like, I was gonna say, I'm upat three in the morning staring
at the ceiling, but like I am,I'm actually getting outta bed.
Um, but when I think aboutlike those moments where I'm,
you know, I'm, I'm scared, I'mterrified, whatever, it's not
(24:29):
that it doesn't affect me, I'mlike, 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 thismoment, I can live in
this, in this feeling.
'cause I've beenhere a lot of times.
And even when it doesn't workout and I think you were getting
at this, even when it doesn'twork out, I'll figure it out.
(24:50):
Like, uh, to your point,the loss is never everything
in our mind It is.
Right.
'cause it's so convenientto take it there.
Yeah.
But in reality it rarelyever turns out that way.
Yeah.
That's something I wish morefounders did was just to like
really get comfortable, like.
Get acquainted with the risk.
I think sometimes, like wejust, we, we did an entire
episode on this, right?
We run like the, the, thepaper dragons, but like
(25:10):
just document or say itout loud to somebody else.
Yep.
Sometimes it completelytakes the sting out of it
and you're like, oh, okay.
Well that thing that I wasreally scared of actually isn't
that scary and or the likelihoodof it becoming all that.
Is relatively right.
The, the idea that I do drainthe entire 401k or i, I do
alienate my entire networkor whatever the, the, the
(25:34):
big thing that you're, you'rescared of is, is rarely ends
up coming to, to fruition inthat, in that full strength way.
It's almost always somediluted version of that,
just like our successes,
you know, uh, Ryan, if youwere a couple months ago,
I was speaking, um, at anentrepreneurship conference.
It was one of these situations.
So, so the setup kinda matters.
I get a, uh, an emailfrom my booking agent.
I've got a speaking bookingagent, which is ironic because
(25:56):
the, the, the, the punchlinehere is I am terrified of
public speaking, right?
Yeah.
So why the fuck would youhave a booking agent to book
you to public speak, right?
If you don't push yourselfinto your f, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So.
Anyway, so I'm, I'm, I'm doingthe 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.
(26:16):
One of the, um, one of thepeople in the audience,
they're like, you're anincredible storyteller.
Like, you're, you'relike the best public
speaker I've ever seen.
And I, and, and, andit, it cracked me up.
Me, no, no, this isn't me sayinglike, like, uh, let me humble
brag about what they said.
It was my response.
I said, it's importantfor you to know that I am
absolutely terrified right now.
(26:38):
Yeah.
Right.
Like public speaking,like most people is, is
one of my greatest fears.
Yeah.
I happen to be good atit, but I'm terrified of
doing it, and that's neverchanged no matter how many
times I've ever done it.
You're, you're not gonnaseek it out on your own.
It's not somethingyou're just Right.
Like, just go do more someonein Paul to book me to, to
send me somewhere to do it.
I would never volunteer.
Right.
Yeah.
But here's the interestingthing when I do it.
(27:01):
It always pays huge dividends.
Yes.
I mean, tons of people, youknow, they send me a check at
the end, like, like it's, it'sa great, phenomenal experience.
Yeah.
But if you were to call me rightnow and said, Hey, will, uh, can
you be available for my event?
I would absolutely turn it down.
'cause I'm terrified of, sowhat I'm saying though is I,
I, I've created the conditionsfor me to lean into that fear.
(27:21):
But me not doing it if I justsaid, Hey, you know, I, I don't
enjoy, I'm just not gonna do it.
Would have given upso many opportunities.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Part of the reason I don'tlike doing it, it sounds odd.
I hate preparing for it.
Like you, you, you nevertruly give it the, the,
the time that it's due.
But it usually takes me daysto prepare and that seems
like a huge waste of time.
But my point is, I thinkabout it in terms of this
(27:42):
is something that's probablyone of my number one fears,
and yet I lean into it.
Yeah.
I lean into it because Iknow it's important for
me to condition that fear.
And again, standcomfortable doesn't,
doesn't change anything.
I think it's, it's nice like.
Things like public speaking inparticular to our audience is
great because we get real-timefeedback on it, you know?
Yeah.
We do podcasts and thendays, months, weeks later,
(28:03):
we're getting feedbackon what we talked about.
But it's, it's so niceto be able to have that,
that immediacy of thefeedback and the fear.
When you go into it and youlook at that, the risk reward,
what is the actual risk there?
Spending an hour terrified on astage, it doesn't feel good, but
nothing's actuallygonna happen to you.
I'm only terrified forthe first five minutes.
Like, like after that my heartrate comes down, um, from
(28:24):
like 160 down to whatever itnormally is, down to one 50.
And, and it's like, andthen I'm smooth sailing.
But leading up tothat, it's horrible.
The other side of it thoughis, you know, I think
about it in terms of.
Founders, especially thosethat are new, a lot of folks
listening to this, to thispodcast are like, I'm scared
about what I'm doing, and,and when they say that, they
act as if no one else is.
(28:46):
Yeah.
Like I'm
just the person that's scared.
I'm the one that's scaredof public speaking.
I'm the one that's scaredof pitching my product.
Right.
I'm the one that's scared ofmaking product level decisions.
I'm the one that's scaredof investing money.
A hundred percent ofpeople are terrified.
Everybody is.
Yep.
There's no otherversion of this job.
Right.
I know exactly howto do this job.
I've been doing it forever andI'm still scared every day.
Right.
That's just an the naturalreaction to what we do.
(29:08):
It's not an anomaly.
So I want some of thefolks listening, Ryan,
to be like, oh, like.
Those guys are scared too.
Yeah.
We're not just sayingthat to, like, to prove a
point where we're sayingthat because it's true.
It's how it is.
You know, in my mind, if I'mnot somewhat uncomfortable,
there's a problem.
Right.
And, and, and I, when we'rewe're writing this out, I wrote
(29:28):
that, uh, comfort is a, is thecurrency of a life half lived.
Yeah.
Comfort is thecurrency of a life.
Half lived.
And what I meant by that wasfor folks that haven't gone all
the way, haven't done amazingthings, what I picture kind of
my wife's alternate universewould've been if she didn't,
uh, marry this crazy guy, itwould've been very comfortable.
(29:49):
Yeah.
But her entire highlightreel has always has to do
with something where likeshe got pushed out of her
comfort zone a little bit.
Yep.
And, and did something crazy.
And, and while she wouldnever do that on her own,
she does have the instinctand I'll give her credit to
know when to, to lean intothat and just say, Hey, you
know, I'll figure it out.
I don't think a lot of peoplegoing into this business,
(30:12):
Ryan, understand how importantleaning into that fear is.
They understand the fear,like, holy shit, I'm scared.
Yeah, for sure.
But they don't understand howimportant it is to have fear
as part of your program, aspart 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.
(30:33):
I'm gonna, you know,risk my savings, whatever
in my strategy, isgonna lean into fear.
You have the opportunityto, to do big things.
If you don't, if you changeyour mind and you say, I
wanna seek comfort, you cannever truly expect to build
something great because the.
Biggest, greatest thingsthat you've ever done?
Everything in your life.
Everything in anybody, anybody'slife that's ever been done
by someone great involved.
A ridiculous amount of fear.
(30:57):
Overthinking your startupbecause you're going it alone.
You don't have to, and honestly,you shouldn't because instead,
you can learn directly frompeers who've been in your shoes.
Connect with bootstrapfounders and the advisors
helping them win in thestartups.com community.
Check out the startups.comcommunity@www.startups.com
to see if it's for you.
Could be just thething you need.
(31:17):
I hope to see you inside.
Welcome back to the episode ofthe Startup Therapy Podcast.
This is Ryan Rutanfrom startups.com.
Joined as always by myfriend, the founder,
and CEO of startups.com.
Will Schroeder.
Well, let me timestamp this.
We are in the, the earlydays of April, 2025.
There's quite a bit of fearin the world right now.
There's a lot of fearabout a lot of things, but
probably most importantly,we're watching the markets
(00:21):
go absolutely haywire basedon this extreme uncertainty
around around tariffs.
And so fear is something that'sbeing talked about a lot.
There's a lot of peopleexperiencing fear who maybe
were quite comfortableeven a few weeks ago.
So that's where we're at.
Right.
And, but I think as youknow, as founders, you
and I have, have kind oflived in a, in a fear-based
environment for our careers.
(00:42):
And so like how unusual isthis for, for founders and,
and how, how, how strange isthis feeling of, of having
fear becoming a motivator?
For us
it was like, this isanother Tuesday, right.
That's like, you know,the markets are going
crazy tr and I get it.
It's their job togo crazy, right?
And I was like, the world isgetting to live in a level of
fear, uncertainty and doubt.
That it's just anotherTuesday for founders.
(01:04):
Right?
It's our, our normal, yeah.
Yeah.
I'm, I'm still unfazedby it now, like I'm
not excited about it.
Right.
I look at thatgoing, here we go.
And also, you know, I'm sure youhave the same thing, Ryan, like
empathetically, you know that itaffects a lot of other people,
so you can appreciate the factthat it's, it's bad, right.
But from a. Fear standpoint,I'm like, bring it on.
(01:25):
This is like almost likea trained boxer getting
in a, a fight at a bar.
Like this is whatwe're trained to do.
Um, this
amateur stuff, guys like this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Here's the thing, Ryan, I, Idon't think we talk about the,
the fear of being a founder, youknow, of, of, of this process
in quite the right context.
I think we talk about itmostly in terms of the,
(01:46):
the emotional impact, whichis, which is devastating.
Yeah.
Right.
I don't think we talkabout it or build upon it.
I. Where it'sactually a huge asset.
Absolutely can be.
And, and I, I think, you know,whenever I look at like big,
big steps in my life, andI, you know, my wife and I,
we sit down, we've moved abunch of times, so whenever
we make that move, you know,we, we've gone to, to Santa
Monica, to San Francisco, toBeverly Hills, you know, all
(02:08):
these other places, right.
And every time we makethe move, it's always
expensive and, and whatever.
And I'm like, I gottabe honest, like.
This doesn't scare me at all.
Yeah.
And my, my wife's who'svery conservative is
like, this terrifies me.
Yeah.
And I always say the same thing.
I'm like, if it doesn't terrifyus, we're doing it wrong.
Yeah.
It's exactly.
I don't think a lot ofpeople think like that.
(02:29):
What activity that'sentirely comfortable has
ever created growth foranything, whether it's
physical, mental, emotional.
Right.
You don't, you don't growthrough things like that.
Look, I, I, I, I getthat, you know, the,
the rallying cry, right?
Like, you know.
Yes, fear.
If fear can be a powerfulmotivator, fear, uh,
can be an asset for us.
I think there's still aline and, and we have to
figure out as founders hownot to cross it, where we
(02:50):
move into full paralysis.
Right.
And I think that's, honestly,that's, that's point,
part of the fear muscle.
Just like flexing itover and over again.
Like, I'm scared I'mgonna keep moving.
I'm scared I'mgonna keep moving.
And you just get
better
at it.
I don't think that you and Iare any less acceptable to fear.
We've just lived in it longenough and understand that these
things come and go in cyclesand that we can stick around.
And honestly, like the,the inaction is a thing
(03:10):
that will actually.
Take you out, right?
Yeah.
Whatever the risky moveyou're thinking about.
Yep.
It's probably truly lessrisky 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 highlightreel is, is highly
punctuated by Yeah.
All of the things thatyou were fearful of doing.
(03:33):
Yeah.
Yet you did anyway
move to Asia, decidenot to do MBA, right
out right outta school.
Right,
right, right.
There
were a lot of people whowere 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 littlethings, they were all these
moments in time where I goback and, you know, if you go
back a year prior to whateverthe highlight real moment is.
(03:54):
It was decisions like this.
Yeah.
And it was choosing riskover, it was choosing fear
and uncertainty over takinga more stable path that
led to the highlights.
Otherwise, I, I don'tknow that those wouldn't
have led to highlights.
They certainly would've led todifferent types of highlights,
mostly ones that I'm not allthat excited about, having
watched some of my friends godown those exact same paths.
They're like, here'smy highlight reel.
(04:15):
I got a certificate forbeing at the company for 25
years.
I can't take my preferences andproject them onto other people.
I just know whatmy preferences are.
They seem to be happyabout that stuff.
And, and maybe, right, but onthe other hand, when I bring
my wife into the equation,'cause again, my wife is
super conservative and shemarried a guy that is as, as
not conservative as possible.
(04:36):
Yep.
And when we talk about it, andshe's, she's such a, a cool wife
in that she's very cognizantthat in order to take big steps,
I have to lead those steps.
Like, but what's really coolabout my wife is that she's
always down to go along.
Right?
Sure.
She, she never says no, likewhatever crazy stuff we decide
(04:56):
to do, she's always on board,but she'll never initiate
it because she, she doesn'thave that muscle that you
described of understandinghow to take fear and do
something positive with it.
This is a huge, uh, speakingof, of marriage and wives, this
was a huge thing, uh, with,with Vargas and I in the early
days before we figured out therewas like some really specific.
(05:18):
Cultural differences that wereleading to us seeing things in
completely different ways, whichat first was, was challenging.
It was difficult therelike, yeah, I, you know,
the, everything's possible.
No risk is too great.
We can do anythingthat we set out to do.
We'll figure it out.
Right.
My wife growing up in a verydifferent culture where like
I. Streaming was not only notencouraged, it was discouraged.
Right?
Yeah.
You weren't supposed to try toaim session, you were, you know,
(05:39):
there were very specific paths.
You were think becomea doctor or an engineer
and those were the twothings you were gonna do.
Yep.
And here's how youaccomplish that.
And anything that deviated fromthose paths was bad and scary.
And we realized thatthere was just this, this
undercurrent for both of us.
My undercurrent everpresent is optimism.
Yeah.
Her undercurrent everpresent is pessimism.
Doesn't mean that we can't bothdream or both get excited about
(06:00):
stuff, but they're always goingto be flavored by that thing.
And once we realized thatit was actually fantastic.
I know you and Sarah dothe same thing, right?
But there's acounterbalance there, right?
Like there's the like,ah, we can go do this.
And then there's that littlevoice represented by my
wife saying, okay, but haveyou 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.
(06:21):
Yeah.
Yeah.
She's the, the little angelsitting on my shoulder
making sure that like,I'm, I'm considering.
The downsides 'cause it'seasy to get caught up
just in the upsides too.
You know, we talk withthis 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 whatwe're trying to teach them
(06:42):
is that fear is a feature.
Not a flaw.
Not a flaw.
Yep.
Right.
And, and I think for alot of people, that is
totally antithetical to whatwe've been brought up on.
Like fear is whatyou should run from.
Yeah.
Right.
Avoid it at all costs.
Avoid it
at all costs.
Right.
Find ways to be braveand to not be afraid.
Right.
No beef, it's
okay.
Yeah.
It's, but the other side ofit, it's a bit of a leading
(07:04):
indicator for me, right.
Like, I know when I getthat, that that tingle, that
feeling that I'm leaning intosomething 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 sharedexperience you and I had, uh,
(07:25):
when we bought z.com Oh yeah.
Uh, years ago.
We've told this story a littlebit in the past, but like, what
a lot of folks don't know is webought a company doing a million
dollars a month of revenue with450 employees, sight unseen at
five in the morning and ownedit at nine in the morning.
I mean, it was.
It was this cowboy as it gets,I remember I was laying in
(07:47):
bed and, uh, you know, we, wehad, we'd been in negotiations
with, with the owners forhours all throughout the
night, throughout the morning.
So this was like a, alast minute, crazy ordeal.
I, I'm, I'm laying in bed, it'slike five in the morning, and,
and I, I'd just gone to bedbecause I thought like the, the
deal was over and I turned toSarah, who's sleeping of course,
and I'm like, are you cool ifI make a really bad decision?
(08:12):
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 endedup buying the company and
four hours later we owned.
A company with 450 employeesand 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, webought it under, I mean, the
(08:33):
business was under significantstress at that point.
There were a lot of things thatcould go wrong and it had a
very specific set of criteriato make things go right.
And so we just focused on that.
You know, I was just thinkinglike, when was the last
time we said no becausesomething was too risky?
We've said no becausethey didn't represent
the right opportunity.
But I cannot think of thelast time that we were
like, should we do this?
(08:54):
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 thelast time we were like,
should we try that?
No, that's too risky.
Yeah.
Like, uh, for years everyonelogically 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'sexactly the kind of risk
(09:16):
that we know, right?
Yeah.
The kind of risk that welive in and understand very
well, we shouldn't enjoy it.
It's just, it's adivergence from what we
do and what we mm-hmm.
Think is our best attemptat helping startup founders.
It's not so thingthat we wanna build.
Yeah.
And, and so when I think about,again, that spidey sense that
says, Hey, I'm leaning intofear, I think because, um, you
and I have done it for so long.
(09:38):
Right.
And we have the benefitwith age of having seen what
it's like on the other side.
Yeah.
To see that you can do it.
Like Ryan, when you thinkabout uh, seeing this lens
through your children now whohaven't had the reps 'cause
they're just getting started.
Yeah.
You can see how differentlythey process that because
fear is very legit for them.
Yeah, it is.
And it.
(09:58):
It's funny too 'cause like thetypes of fear that exists are,
are very different as well.
Right.
There's is a more of anexistential type fear.
Right.
And it, it's interesting 'causethey're at that phase where they
also kind of think that they'reinvincible in a lot of ways.
Yeah.
Right.
And I remember like, therewere 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 ifI'm right, if this is too
(10:18):
big of a risk and it costsme 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 Iwas, you know, significantly
younger, in the earlytwenties, my tolerance
there was, was way higher.
Right.
I, I felt like I had lessto lose because I did, and
I also felt like I have moretime to recover because I did.
Yep.
Right.
As you age, I think it's,it's interesting because, you
(10:41):
know, I'm, I'm definitely.
Definitely things that Iwould probably add to the
equation now that wouldn'thave been there before.
Like, oh, well if we losethis, this matters a lot,
or this could change theopportunity for my kids.
It could do a lot of things,but on the other hand, I'm so
much more comfortable with theidea of risk and my ability
to calculate the risk that,again, I don't know that
it's caused me necessarily tosay no to anything that came
(11:02):
along simply because it was.
Too risky.
Interesting.
I'm gonna have to thinkabout this a bit now.
I wish I had thought aboutthis a bit, bit more, more
before the episode, uh, togo back and think like, how
much of this is just riskblindness 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 ofsaying no because
Yeah.
But, but again, you've been onthe other side of it, you've
(11:23):
seen the victory, so you knowthat it's, it's worth the risk.
Now, a lot of folks thatare becoming entrepreneurs,
they're not there yet.
Right.
They're like, oh, I have toquit my job, or I have to, you
know, bet my, my life savings.
Yeah.
And they're like, andall they can think of
is all the downside.
And that's, that's logical.
There's nothing wrongwith, with that processing.
However, the thing that thatdoes create a challenge is you
(11:44):
get to a point where you'reso worried about the downside
that you never see side, right?
Yep.
You, you, you get thesense that playing it
safe is the right bet.
And the problem withplaying it safe is
you never win.
Yeah.
If you don't put any chipson 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 alot of early stage founders.
(12:06):
They play the game asif 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 otherthing that you get really
good at over time is figuringout how much of this risk
is, can be, can be enteredinto sequentially, right?
I don't need to lookat this as well.
I have to build this, youknow, billion dollar business,
ergo I have to throw ineverything I have and all my
time and all my money and allmy resources have to go to
(12:27):
this in order to make work.
It is not the, the reality.
So I, I think that's areally important piece
is that this isn't an.
All in type situation.
In most cases, you have theability to sequentially and
incrementally increase yourrisk or decrease your risk.
And I think that's somethingthat we have become much better
at as we've gone through this,is really understanding what
(12:47):
are the actual risks and how canI, how can I eliminate or defer
some of that risk until later?
And I think that's animportant piece of it.
But so back to the,back to the core point
here, which is that, um.
Fear is, is is something thatwe should lean into and that
comfort is, is not necessarilya 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 thatlike we're associating as
(13:11):
founders, we're associatingfear as a weakness of
some sort or the opposite.
Something that weshould run from.
Yeah.
If what I'm saying, youknow, what we're saying in
this discussion is what ifyou just leaned into it?
Yep.
What if you were to say,look, fear is my job.
Sure.
Right.
That's literally in my jobdescription to be the person
that does really scary shit.
(13:31):
That is my job.
Okay.
And I wanna be reallygood at that job.
I wanna be the the personthat's willing to run into
the abyss when no one else iswilling to run into the abyss.
Right?
Yeah.
I wanna build that muscle.
Well, you gotta dosome hard stuff, right?
Yeah.
You gotta do some stuffwhere you don't know
what's on the other side.
You know, one of my favoritething, do you remember a show?
(13:52):
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'tremember 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 wouldrun through an obstacle course.
Okay?
And there wouldalways be this one.
They had to run at full speed.
(14:13):
There was always be thisone thing that I thought
was a perfect analogyfor founders, there would
be three doors, okay?
And like one of the doorsis made out of paper and the
other two doors are wooden.
But you can't tellthe difference when
you run into 'em.
It was like a Tom andJerry cartoon, right?
Yeah.
And so these, these, these,uh, these contestants would
run and they'd either burstthrough that door or they'd
(14:35):
get flattened out, rightThought, bounce off it.
I thought what a perfectright metaphor for being
a founder.
Yeah.
The difference is the founderwill then get up after having
bounced off one of the doors andrun full speed into another one.
And until one of through.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Did they, they also did thison, uh, a American gladiator.
Not that that'simportant at this point.
(14:55):
Yeah, but they rememberthere was like the, and, but
instead of being a woodendoor behind, one of the
doors of the gates would be.
Turbo or Nitro or one ofthe guys waiting to, I
love Turbo Nitro deaf.
You.
Yeah.
I'm, I'm shocked that, that thatshow isn't still around anyway,
point being, uh, this idea thatI wanna get good at running
through the doors knowing Yep.
(15:15):
Knowing that I'm gonna bounceoff a whole bunch of time.
I, I'm, I'm gonna hit the woodendoor 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 knockeddown and keep coming back.
There are very few people thatare willing to acknowledge
wanting that specific muscle.
(15:38):
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
But I think when you startto explain it to founders,
and you and I advise foundersall the time about this,
when you start to explain tothem, 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'snot, when you're, oh my
God, I can't believe I'mdoing everything wrong.
I must have fear.
I've been at this for 30 years.
I'm terrified every day.
(15:58):
Right?
Yeah.
Like that is
the business.
I it it is the business.
I think it's such an importantrealization because I
think until you have thatrealization, the, the constant
thought is, couldn't thisfear just be an indicator
that this is a bad idea,that this is a bad business?
Because that's usuallywhat fear is for.
That's what it's for.
It's to stop us from doingsomething right, or, or make
us take, take notice or to,to be able, or in some cases
(16:21):
truly to, to motivate us.
Right?
Yeah.
That fear and, and adrenalineare directly linked.
Yeah.
There's a reason we get scared.
We dump adrenaline, so we cando amazing shit to get ourselves
out of whatever we're scared of.
But I think it's reallyimportant that you can
change the relationshipwith fear so that you're
not always looking at it.
Yes, of course.
Of course.
Some fears are warranted,and you might have
(16:41):
a bad business idea.
This isn't to say that ifyou'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 veryimportant here is that
just because you're scared.
Does not mean it is not adirect indicator that it's
a bad business, right?
I see so manyfounders doing this.
It's like, I'm just reallyworried that this is a bad idea.
Well, you can keep doing thatand, and you will stay in that
same state or you can embracethe fear, lean into it a bit
(17:03):
and go find out, go validatewhatever it is you think is,
is causing this fear that,that, that whatever it is, that
the factor that's driving thefear for you and eliminate it.
Or validate it.
You know something that'sreally funny about everything
we talk about here isthat none of it is new.
Everything you're dealingwith right now has been done a
thousand times before you, whichmeans the answer already exists.
(17:27):
You may just not knowit, but that's okay.
That's kind of whatwe're here to do.
We talk about this stuff onthe show, but we actually
solve these problems alldayLong@groups.startups.com.
So if.
Any of this sounds familiar.
Stop guessing about what to do.
Let us just give you the answersto the test and be done with it.
I gotta say my, mygreatest fear is comfort.
(17:48):
I mean, is, is, isantithetical as that is to say.
Yeah.
Yeah.
At which point Ifeel comfortable.
I get this tingling that saysyou're doing something wrong.
Yeah.
Like something ain't right.
Now, I'm sure there's some bakedin psychology that would take
me years of therapy to unpackthat, and I'm okay with it.
Right.
I'm okay with it.
What I'm saying iscomfort terrifies me.
(18:10):
Yeah.
Because.
I look at comfort as when Istop doing interesting things
and that, that bothers me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I think it's, complacencyis extremely dangerous in
any, any aspect of life.
But I think as a startupfounder, it's, it's extremely,
extremely dangerous.
The funny thing about thatis that can actually increase
your, your real risk, notyour perceived risk, but
the, the actual risk, like,like being complacent, trying
(18:32):
to be comfortable withinthe business can absolutely
increase the, the actual risk,uh, which is funny because.
Fear often comes down is youget comfortable and you're
like, okay, well we can justkind of take this easy path.
We can, we can, youknow, do something that's
a little less risky.
Oftentimes you're, you'resetting yourself up, you know,
is, you know who loves, uh,you know, who loves caution
and comfort mediocrity, right?
Like I did.
(18:52):
I don't know.
I know a single legacythat was built without some
level of leap of faith.
All
of them, a hundredpercent of them.
Right.
And and I think what getsinteresting 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 Iwanna be a lead Cheetos all day.
(19:14):
Right.
It funny, it doesn'twork that way.
And I, I think what ends uphappening is, again, because
we, we spend so much timeavoiding fear, what we're
really avoiding is progress.
Yeah.
And I think that is adangerous path When I think
about, you know, this conceptof, of complacency, right?
I think about there areall these things I could
(19:35):
do and some number ofthem 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 biggerthe swing that I've took.
Yeah, the bigger the outcome.
Here's a differentway to say it.
I've never had a great outcomewhere I did a it half an effort.
Right.
Just ever or or half a riskwhere I, I said, well, I,
(19:56):
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 mostunlucky guy in the world,
but I don't, I don't thinkit's limited to that.
I think so I'll take that a stepfurther actually, and say that
when I have done things whereI did take like a half step,
I didn't get half the value orhalf the outcome, I got nothing.
Right.
So it, it's, it's, it's,it's subtle, but like,
(20:18):
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 havecome from the, the, the big
risks, uh, the big decisions incases 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 bevery careful there.
And it doesn't necessarilymean, again, this is not me
advocating for the, it's all,all in, on every single bet.
(20:39):
No, but I think pickingthe right bets is really
important and making surethat they're big enough.
There's an outcome worth chasingbecause I think that's the other
thing that ends up happening.
Even if you take that safepath and you do start to
feel comfortable, and itmay no longer be that fear
is motivating you all of asudden you start to realize
like, well, that thing I'maiming for is less risky.
It's also a lotless interesting.
(21:00):
Right.
The dent I'm gonna makein the universe based on
this isn't that impactful.
It's not gonna changepeople's lives.
It's not gonna change minds.
It's gonna changesomebody else's.
Why am I getting up in themorning to do this anymore?
Right?
So I think that's the otherthing that we, we talked
about this a few, uh, monthsago on the podcast, but
going back to your why.
And I think if thewhy is not big enough.
You're gonna stopdoing it at some point.
Agreed.
You're just gonna stop caring.
Agreed.
And, and that why the sizeof the why and the size
(21:20):
of the risk tend to bepretty 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 thebig stakes, big outcome kind
of equation because what I'vefound in my life, wherever
I've had moments where.
Fear wasn't driving everything,but it was more, you know,
(21:41):
the equivalent of greed.
You know, if you usethe opposite of fear
and greed, right?
Where it was more I'd liketo have something versus I
have to get something done.
I have few, if any winswhatsoever that are optional
where it was like, that wouldbe a lot of upside for me.
Right.
It it was, it was more, ohshit, if I don't get this
done, X, Y, Z will happen.
(22:02):
Now, hopefully thatleads to upside.
Yeah,
right, right.
Wasn't the motivatorat the time.
Yeah.
Wasn't what was driving you.
It wasn't like, oh, if I dothis, 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 greedmotivator is a two.
My fear motivator is a 12.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like if we like a, a dial.
(22:22):
Right.
And I, I wanna believethat a lot of people are
kind of in that same boat.
Whereby they don't get themaximum of their output
in a situation wherethey're not forced to.
Right now, I wannazoom out for a second.
We're not advocating.
Putting yourself in constantfear all the time in being
stressed out, like your bloodpressure and your health and
(22:44):
like, you gotta chill out too.
Like, like, like we have highintensity fear and like for
Ryan and I, we dial it backand go do something else.
Right?
Like it's, it's, this isn'ta Gary V moment where we're
like, you know, hustle pornwhere it's like you have
to be in fear all the time.
That would be psychotic.
Yeah.
What we're saying isthere are moments.
Where it's time.
Yeah.
Like it's,
(23:04):
it's big fear
time, and that's okay.
You should look for those
moments.
Yeah.
And you should look forthose moments and, and
again, embrace them becausethere, there are lots of
different types of fear too.
Right.
I like, let's, let's talk aboutanother one, which is that
there's some bad types of fear.
Something like, you know, theone that, that actually works
in the opposite way of fuel.
For me, I see founders whoare using fear, the fear of
the product launch, right?
The fear of public perception ofthe, of the product or service.
(23:26):
Just ends up leading to, uh,like this over perfectionism,
staying on the lab benchparalysis instead of
getting out in the market.
Um, and just paralysis, right?
Just not lettingthings move forward.
So I think it, it, it hasto be, I balance there
where it's like you canfeel it pushing you forward.
The minute it starts to push youbackwards, you gotta step back
and say like, am I, am I havingan appropriate relationship
(23:47):
with this fear right now?
Or am I letting this thing,uh, get the better of me and
keep me from doing the thingsthat should be helping instead?
Yeah.
And I think, you know, withinthat, when we're talking about
fear as a conditioned muscle,I wanna build on that to say,
yeah, Ryan, you and I, and, andsome other founders, not most
of them, 'cause most of themare relatively new to this,
but you and I have learned tocondition that fear muscle.
(24:09):
Like, like we get thebenefit of it, not just the
pain that comes from it.
Okay.
Yep.
And again, I'm not saying thatlike, look, I'm up at three,
well, I guess I'm up at threein the morning to wake up, but
like, I was gonna say, I'm upat three in the morning staring
at the ceiling, but like I am,I'm actually getting outta bed.
Um, but when I think aboutlike those moments where I'm,
you know, I'm, I'm scared, I'mterrified, whatever, it's not
(24:29):
that it doesn't affect me, I'mlike, 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 thismoment, I can live in
this, in this feeling.
'cause I've beenhere a lot of times.
And even when it doesn't workout and I think you were getting
at this, even when it doesn'twork out, I'll figure it out.
(24:50):
Like, uh, to your point,the loss is never everything
in our mind It is.
Right.
'cause it's so convenientto take it there.
Yeah.
But in reality it rarelyever turns out that way.
Yeah.
That's something I wish morefounders did was just to like
really get comfortable, like.
Get acquainted with the risk.
I think sometimes, like wejust, we, we did an entire
episode on this, right?
We run like the, the, thepaper dragons, but like
(25:10):
just document or say itout loud to somebody else.
Yep.
Sometimes it completelytakes the sting out of it
and you're like, oh, okay.
Well that thing that I wasreally scared of actually isn't
that scary and or the likelihoodof it becoming all that.
Is relatively right.
The, the idea that I do drainthe entire 401k or i, I do
alienate my entire networkor whatever the, the, the
(25:34):
big thing that you're, you'rescared of is, is rarely ends
up coming to, to fruition inthat, in that full strength way.
It's almost always somediluted version of that,
just like our successes,
you know, uh, Ryan, if youwere a couple months ago,
I was speaking, um, at anentrepreneurship conference.
It was one of these situations.
So, so the setup kinda matters.
I get a, uh, an emailfrom my booking agent.
I've got a speaking bookingagent, which is ironic because
(25:56):
the, the, the, the punchlinehere is I am terrified of
public speaking, right?
Yeah.
So why the fuck would youhave a booking agent to book
you to public speak, right?
If you don't push yourselfinto your f, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So.
Anyway, so I'm, I'm, I'm doingthe 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.
(26:16):
One of the, um, one of thepeople in the audience,
they're like, you're anincredible storyteller.
Like, you're, you'relike the best public
speaker I've ever seen.
And I, and, and, andit, it cracked me up.
Me, no, no, this isn't me sayinglike, like, uh, let me humble
brag about what they said.
It was my response.
I said, it's importantfor you to know that I am
absolutely terrified right now.
(26:38):
Yeah.
Right.
Like public speaking,like most people is, is
one of my greatest fears.
Yeah.
I happen to be good atit, but I'm terrified of
doing it, and that's neverchanged no matter how many
times I've ever done it.
You're, you're not gonnaseek it out on your own.
It's not somethingyou're just Right.
Like, just go do more someonein Paul to book me to, to
send me somewhere to do it.
I would never volunteer.
Right.
Yeah.
But here's the interestingthing when I do it.
(27:01):
It always pays huge dividends.
Yes.
I mean, tons of people, youknow, they send me a check at
the end, like, like it's, it'sa great, phenomenal experience.
Yeah.
But if you were to call me rightnow and said, Hey, will, uh, can
you be available for my event?
I would absolutely turn it down.
'cause I'm terrified of, sowhat I'm saying though is I,
I, I've created the conditionsfor me to lean into that fear.
(27:21):
But me not doing it if I justsaid, Hey, you know, I, I don't
enjoy, I'm just not gonna do it.
Would have given upso many opportunities.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Part of the reason I don'tlike doing it, it sounds odd.
I hate preparing for it.
Like you, you, you nevertruly give it the, the,
the time that it's due.
But it usually takes me daysto prepare and that seems
like a huge waste of time.
But my point is, I thinkabout it in terms of this
(27:42):
is something that's probablyone of my number one fears,
and yet I lean into it.
Yeah.
I lean into it because Iknow it's important for
me to condition that fear.
And again, standcomfortable doesn't,
doesn't change anything.
I think it's, it's nice like.
Things like public speaking inparticular to our audience is
great because we get real-timefeedback on it, you know?
Yeah.
We do podcasts and thendays, months, weeks later,
(28:03):
we're getting feedbackon what we talked about.
But it's, it's so niceto be able to have that,
that immediacy of thefeedback and the fear.
When you go into it and youlook at that, the risk reward,
what is the actual risk there?
Spending an hour terrified on astage, it doesn't feel good, but
nothing's actuallygonna happen to you.
I'm only terrified forthe first five minutes.
Like, like after that my heartrate comes down, um, from
(28:24):
like 160 down to whatever itnormally is, down to one 50.
And, and it's like, andthen I'm smooth sailing.
But leading up tothat, it's horrible.
The other side of it thoughis, you know, I think
about it in terms of.
Founders, especially thosethat are new, a lot of folks
listening to this, to thispodcast are like, I'm scared
about what I'm doing, and,and when they say that, they
act as if no one else is.
(28:46):
Yeah.
Like I'm
just the person that's scared.
I'm the one that's scaredof public speaking.
I'm the one that's scaredof pitching my product.
Right.
I'm the one that's scared ofmaking product level decisions.
I'm the one that's scaredof investing money.
A hundred percent ofpeople are terrified.
Everybody is.
Yep.
There's no otherversion of this job.
Right.
I know exactly howto do this job.
I've been doing it forever andI'm still scared every day.
Right.
That's just an the naturalreaction to what we do.
(29:08):
It's not an anomaly.
So I want some of thefolks listening, Ryan,
to be like, oh, like.
Those guys are scared too.
Yeah.
We're not just sayingthat to, like, to prove a
point where we're sayingthat because it's true.
It's how it is.
You know, in my mind, if I'mnot somewhat uncomfortable,
there's a problem.
Right.
And, and, and I, when we'rewe're writing this out, I wrote
(29:28):
that, uh, comfort is a, is thecurrency of a life half lived.
Yeah.
Comfort is thecurrency of a life.
Half lived.
And what I meant by that wasfor folks that haven't gone all
the way, haven't done amazingthings, what I picture kind of
my wife's alternate universewould've been if she didn't,
uh, marry this crazy guy, itwould've been very comfortable.
(29:49):
Yeah.
But her entire highlightreel has always has to do
with something where likeshe got pushed out of her
comfort zone a little bit.
Yep.
And, and did something crazy.
And, and while she wouldnever do that on her own,
she does have the instinctand I'll give her credit to
know when to, to lean intothat and just say, Hey, you
know, I'll figure it out.
I don't think a lot of peoplegoing into this business,
(30:12):
Ryan, understand how importantleaning into that fear is.
They understand the fear,like, holy shit, I'm scared.
Yeah, for sure.
But they don't understand howimportant it is to have fear
as part of your program, aspart 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.
(30:33):
I'm gonna, you know,risk my savings, whatever
in my strategy, isgonna lean into fear.
You have the opportunityto, to do big things.
If you don't, if you changeyour mind and you say, I
wanna seek comfort, you cannever truly expect to build
something great because the.
Biggest, greatest thingsthat you've ever done?
Everything in your life.
Everything in anybody, anybody'slife that's ever been done
by someone great involved.
A ridiculous amount of fear.
(30:57):
Overthinking your startupbecause you're going it alone.
You don't have to, and honestly,you shouldn't because instead,
you can learn directly frompeers who've been in your shoes.
Connect with bootstrapfounders and the advisors
helping them win in thestartups.com community.
Check out the startups.comcommunity@www.startups.com
to see if it's for you.
Could be just thething you need.
(31:17):
I hope to see you inside.
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The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.