One of my favorite sayings is "Don't compare the inside of your life to the outside of someone else's life."
When people ask me how I am, I usually say "Oh, failing and flailing in all directions. How about you?" I find that disarms people, and they feel a lot more free about sharing their current pain points.
One nice variation of that quote I've been seeing is "Don't compare your behind the scenes to someone else's highlight reel". It's far too easy for us to reflect on all the daily hurt and trials we go through, only to compare it to someone else's most glorious 15 minutes and feel like we've failed. When in reality most of us are fighting some sort of battle, many just hide it well.
> Graphicly was struggling. Yet, I was spending hours and hours weekly talking to founders that all felt that they are doing better than me. My standard suicidal thoughts started to be tinged with questions about my ability to achieve. I never question my ability. But I did.
This really hits home - I'm not an entrepreneur (anymore) but this is something I used to do on a regular basis: compare my own achievements based on what others were telling me.
I wasn't at the point where I considered taking my life, but I did doubt myself. I doubted myself for a very long time, settling for mediocre results and mediocre work, because I just had no idea what I was really capable of anymore.
Like Micah, I stopped and I thought. Mine went like this: "Ya know, I may not be achieving as much (on paper) as these other guys and gals, but I'm certainly very proud of what I have set out to do. I should stop comparing myself with them and start comparing myself to what I would love to be doing."
And here I am, working in a role that I qualify as my "dream job," with a wicked smart team doing really challenging work.
I just had to stop putting myself down because of the achievements of others. Celebrate with them, and then celebrate yourself, and then kick your own ass the next year.
When you talk to people, they are also going to give you, even if they don't exaggerate anything, "only the good parts", with maybe a carefully selected set of bad parts to make the stories believable. It's like making a movie, and then comparing it not to someone else's movie, but to their trailer: even if you made a really great film, it is going to feel boring and even tedious in comparison.
yeah, sometimes we forget that there are roles and expectations forced on men, too. Women are subconsciously expected to be thin and pretty thanks to images shown by the media. Men, on the other hand, are basically expected to be Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. Mild success is not enough, we are expected to be billionaire success stories, and anything short of that is not acceptable.
I think it may be an American thing (though I am also quite sure it has started spreading to the Australian startup community), but why is it founders keep saying "crushin' it" or "killin' it" when asked about their startups?
In recent years I've been increasingly compelled to say similar things, and I've theorized it to be two reasons, both of which I have personally experienced: the concept of 'saving face' (i.e. a duty to signal startup's success to other people) and common courtesy (i.e. people really don't want to hear about you, they want to hear about themselves, so a short answer would suffice, kinda like "I'm doing well thank you").
On one hand, we're starting to go to the other end and start fetishizing failure, but on the other hand, chest puffery and internal competitiveness of startup founders (we really really really really really like to compare ourselves to others) has caused a lot of depression.
If it's true that Jody took his own life, this is really hitting me hard.
As an entrepreneur, I know well the need to put on the "killing it" face when asked about progress by others. But this is making me reconsider. If every interaction is superficial and full of one-upmanship, then we'll never find out about problems like these until it's too late.
Next time you ask a fellow entrepreneur how they are, and they give you some response about killing it, or talk about their company interrupt them and ask "how are you?"
I'm sure this will mean a lot to someone. Maybe not everyone, but you could end up doing it to the right person at the right time.
I find it's really important to have a core group of friends outside of work and projects. Like a support network, or a release valve. People who care about how you are doing, not your company. I think a lot of founders feel like they can't do anything but work, or else they're wasting time and money.
But it's the same fallacy that pushes game companies into crunch mode. Everyone's morale suffers, and the quality of crunch work is always far inferior to the quality of non-under-the-gun work.
The Valley is so high pressure. Find that release valve before you boil over.
I'm not an entrepreneur, but I have a tendency to be rather open to random people, and generally I think they appreciate it a lot. Everybody has bullshit friends and knows how to be a bullshit friend, it's just not everybody dares to be an actual friend (if even just for the moment) to random people "just because"... but I rarely encountered anyone who didn't appreciate it, and not ever anyone who held it against me. There are ways to show weakness that are not weak at all, it's just honesty. Though of course there are also those who just use use other people's honesty to rob them, but you wouldn't want to stick around there anyway, right? "So be ye innocent as doves, and wise as serpents" :)
If it wasn't a suicide, I really hope someone clarifies the situation. It would be a pretty terrible thing (even more so) if everyone started to assume it was self inflicted when it wasn't.
On the other hand, if it's actually what happened, then I'm 100% ok with them not revealing the details.
I think so many of us forget what truly matters in life. Our families, our friends, our experiences and memories with them, and - (just now, my little guy called me upstairs to give him one last hug before bed) - all of that good stuff.
At the end of the day, are we going to care about the companies we create, or the times we've had with those we love?
When people ask me how I am, I usually say "Oh, failing and flailing in all directions. How about you?" I find that disarms people, and they feel a lot more free about sharing their current pain points.