The "Why" behind - The Friday Finance Break
The Friday Finance Break
(For anyone just tuning in, every Friday we take a break from the CFO content and talk about mental health. If you're just here for the CFO stuff, we'll see you Monday!)
Every Friday, I take a break from finance and talk about founder mental health.
But I realized the other day,
That I’ve never really shared why.
Here’s the thing:
It’s for me, as much as it is for you.
Here’s why:
I had a challenging time transitioning from W2 to founder.
It wasn’t because I didn’t have the skillset to build a startup
(I’d arguably been training on how to do that for the past 14 years);
It was because I initially struggled to create the mental and logistical systems to support myself emotionally as a self-employed person:
Sure, I knew how to write a sales email, but what about the mental weight of writing 20 personalized notes and only hearing back from 5?
Sure, I knew how to craft a Go-To-Market strategy, but where do you get the mental grit to painstakingly create all the critical assets for a launch, only to realize a month later, you need to go back to the drawing board?
Sure, I knew how to be a CFO, but how about learning how to CFO for a different company every half hour for 3 hours, then getting a proposal out over lunch, then running to a podcast studio in the afternoon, then trying to resolve a client fire drill over email while commuting on the subway, then meeting and remembering a dozen new potential clients at an evening networking event, and finally trying to email all of them before going to bed and forgetting anything not written down?
I’ve built so many systems and mental calluses in my past 4 years as a founder,
And it’s really made all the difference.
It used to take a week-plus to move past losing a single deal.
Now, I think about it for maybe 10 minutes
And then move on.
...Because more customers will most likely wander into my inbox by next week.
...Because it leaves more capacity for another project that did convert.
...Because the proposal itself took max an hour of my life.
...Because it’s the gazillionth time this has happened.
...Because I know it’s, at most, ~10% about me.
...Because it’s just part of the process.
...Because it's off my To Do list.
...And frankly, because I simply have too much else to get done.
All this to say, I love these Friday mental health notes.
They've help me get to this point, mentally.
And I think it's because they help me remember
To step back and see the struggle,
And to think about that struggle
As just another problem to solve for,
Rather than sitting in it.
I really hope,
That on occasion,
It does the same for you.
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