Ryan Rutan: Welcome back to the episode of the Startup Therapy podcast. This is Ryan Tan from Startups.com, joined as always by my friend, the founder and CEO of Startups.com, Will Schroeder. Well, let me time stamp this. We are in the early days of April 2025. There's quite a bit of fear in right now. There's a lot of fear about a lot of things, but probably most importantly, we're watching the markets go absolutely haywire based on this extreme uncertainty around around tariffs. So fear is something that's being talked about a lot. There's a lot of people experiencing fear who maybe were quite comfortable even a few weeks ago. And so that's where we're at, right? And but I think as you know, founders, you and I have have kind of lived in a in a fear-based environment for our careers. And so like, how unusual is this for for founders and and how, how, how strange is this feeling of of having fear becoming a motivator for us.
Wil Schroter: I was like, this is another Tuesday,
Ryan Rutan: right?
Wil Schroter: You know, the markets are going crazy and I get it, it's their job to go crazy, right? And I was like, the world is getting to live in a level of fear, uncertainty and doubt that it's just another Tuesday for founders. It's our our normal. I'm, I'm so unfazed by it now like I'm not excited about it, right? I look at that going, here we go. And also, you know, I'm sure you have the same thing, right, like, empathetically, you know that it affects a lot of other people, so you can appreciate the fact that it's it's bad, right? But from a fear standpoint, I'm like, bring it on. This is like almost like a trained boxer getting in a fight at a bar like this is what we're trained to do.
Ryan Rutan: Um amateur stuff guys like this, yeah,
Wil Schroter: well, but here's the thing, right, I, I don't think we talk about the, the fear of being a founder, you know, of, of, of this process in quite the right context. I think we talk about. Mostly in terms of the emotional impact, which is, which is devastating, right? I don't think we talk about it or build upon it where it's actually a huge asset.
Ryan Rutan: Absolutely
Wil Schroter: can be. And I, I think, you know, whenever I look at like, big, big steps in my life, and I know my wife and I, we sit down, we've moved a bunch of times. So whenever we make that move, you know, we've gone to to Santa Monica, to San Francisco, to Beverly Hills, you know, all these other places, right? And every time we make the move, it's always expensive and and whatever. And I'm like, I gotta be honest, like, this doesn't scare me at all. And my my wife's who's very conservative, is like, this terrifies me, and I always say the same thing. I'm like, if it doesn't terrify us, we're doing it wrong. Yeah,
Ryan Rutan: it's I
Wil Schroter: don't think a lot of people think like that.
Ryan Rutan: What activity that's entirely comfortable has ever created growth for anything, whether it's physical, mental, emotional, right? You don't, you don't grow through things like that. Look, I, I, I, I get that, you know, the, the rallying cry, right? Like, you know, yes, fear, fear can be a powerful motivator, fear, uh, can be an asset for us. I think there's still a line and and we have to figure out as founders how not to cross it where we move into full paralysis. And I think that's honestly that's it that's part of it's the fear muscle just like flexing it over and over again like I'm scared, I'm gonna keep moving. I'm scared, I'm gonna keep moving, and you just get better at it. I don't think that you and I are any less susceptible to fear. We've just lived in it long enough and understand that these things come and go in cycles and that we can stick around and honestly like the the inaction is the thing that will actually take you out, right? Whatever the risky move you're thinking about, it's probably truly less risky than than not to.
Wil Schroter: Yeah, and I think like Ryan, when you look back on your highlight reel of life, OK, my guess is, cause I'm I'm uh projecting here cause it's certainly mine. My guess is your highlight reel is is highly punctuated by all of the things that you are fearful of doing. Yeah. And yet you did anyway.
Ryan Rutan: Move to Asia, decide not to do MBA right out of right out of school, right? Like, right, right. There were a lot of people who are looking at me going, you're absolutely insane, what are you doing, right? Start second business versus uh go take high paying job at Procter Gamble, right? All of these other little things. They were all these moments in time where I go back and, you know, if you go back a year prior to whatever the highlight reel moment is, it was decisions like this and it was choosing. Risk over, it was choosing fear and uncertainty over taking a more stable path that led to the highlights. Otherwise, I, I don't know that this wouldn't have led to highlights. They certainly would have led to different types of highlights, mostly ones that I'm not all that excited about having watched some of my friends go down those exact same paths, and they're like, here's my highlight reel. I got a certificate for being at the company for 25 years.
Wil Schroter: I can't take my preference. and project them on to other people. I just know what my preferences are. They
Ryan Rutan: seem to be happy about
Wil Schroter: that and, and maybe, right? But on the other hand, when I bring my wife into the equation because again my wife is super conservative and she married a guy that is not conservative as possible. And I, and when we talk about it, and she's she's such a a cool wife in that she's very cognizant. That in order to take big steps, I have to lead those steps, like, but what's really cool about my wife is that she's always down to go along, right? She, she never says no, like whatever crazy stuff we decide to do, she's always on board, but she'll never initiate it. Because she, she doesn't have that muscle that you described of understanding how to take fear and do something positive with it.
Ryan Rutan: This is a huge, uh speaking of of marriage and wives, this was a huge thing uh with with Nargis and I in the early days before we figured out, there was like some really specific cultural differences that were leading to us seeing things in completely different ways, which at first was was challenging, it was difficult there like I, you know, the everything's possible. No risk is too great. We can do anything that we set out to do. We'll figure it out. My wife, growing up in a very different culture where like dreaming was not only not encouraged, it was discouraged, right? You weren't supposed to try to aim. You were, you know, there were very specific paths. You're gonna become a doctor or an engineer, and those are the two things you're gonna do. Here's how you accomplish that. And anything that deviated from those paths was bad and scary. And we realized that there was just this, this undercurrent for both of us. My undercurrent. Ever present is optimism. Yeah, or undercurrent ever present is pessimism. Doesn't mean that we can't both dream or both get excited about stuff, but they're always going to be flavored by that thing. And once we realized that it was actually fantastic. I know you and Sarah do the same thing, right, but there's a counterbalance there, right? Like there's like, ah, we can go do this. And then there's that little voice represented by my wife saying, OK, but have you 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. Yeah, yeah, she's the the little angel sitting on my shoulder, making sure that like I'm, I'm considering. The downsides, cause it's easy to get caught up just in the upsides too, you know, we talked about this 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,
Wil Schroter: I think when we coach uh founders, when we advise founders, part of what we're trying to teach them is that fear is a feature, not a flaw, not a flaw, right? And, and I think for a lot of people that is totally antithetical to what we've been brought up on like. Fear is what you should run from,
Ryan Rutan: yeah, right? Avoid it at all costs. Avoided all costs is to be brave and to not be afraid, right? No, yeah, be afraid. It's OK. Yeah,
Wil Schroter: it is, but the other side of it, it's a bit of a leading indicator for me, right? Like I know when I get that, that, that tingle, that feeling that I'm leaning into something, and I'm like, OK, this is probably a bad idea, right? However, however, if it works. This will be awesome, right? And, and, like, I wanna go back to, to, you know, a shared experience you and I had uh when we bought virtual.com uh years ago. We've told the story a little bit in the past, but like what a lot of folks don't know is we bought a company doing a million dollars a month of revenue with 450 employees, sight unseen at 5 in the morning and owned it at 9 in the morning. I mean, it was. It was this cowboy as it gets. I remember I was laying in bed and uh you know, we we we've been in negotiations with with the owners for hours all throughout the night, throughout the morning, so this was like a a last minute crazy ordeal. I'm, I'm laying in bed, it's like 5 in the morning, and and I I just gone to bed cause I thought like the the deal was over, and I turned to Sarah, who's sleeping, of course, and I'm like, are you cool if I make a really bad decision? 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 ended up buying the company and 4 hours later we owned a company with 450 employees and thousands of clients and millions of revenue, also millions. Some expenses, and we're like, I was terrifying.
Ryan Rutan: Yeah, I mean, cause we, we, we bought it under, I mean the business was under significant stress at that point. There were a lot of things that could go wrong and it had a very specific set of criteria to make things go right, and so we just focused on that. So, you know, I was just thinking like, when was the last time we said no because something was too risky. We've said no because they didn't represent the right opportunity, but I cannot think of the last time that we were like, should we do this? That's too much of a risk. Should we do this? Um, it, it's not enough focus. Should we do this? Not enough opportunity. Should we do this time, not enough reason. Yeah, I cannot think of the last time we were like, should we try that? No, that's too risky.
Wil Schroter: Yeah, like uh for years everyone logically asks us like, why don't you guys have a fund?
Ryan Rutan: Yeah, not that it's too risky, it is risky, but it's exactly the kind of risk that we know, the kind of risk that we live in and understand very well. You shouldn't enjoy it, just it's a divergence from what we do and what we think is our best attempt at helping startup founders. It's not the thing that we want to build.
Wil Schroter: Yeah, and, and so when I think about again that spidey sense that says, hey, I'm leading into fear, I think. Because, um, you and I have done it for so long, right? And we have the benefit with age of having seen what it's like on the other side to see that you can do it. Like, Ryan, when you think about uh seeing this lens through your children now who haven't had the reps because they're just getting started, you can see how differently they process that because fear is very legit for them.
Ryan Rutan: Yeah, it is, and it's funny too cause like the types of fear that exists are are very different as well, right? There's is a more of an existential type fear, right? And it it's because they're at that phase where they also kind of think that they're invincible in a lot of ways. And I remember like there were times where a good feeling that that is of course part of the the risk calculus is what is, what happens if I'm right, if this is too big of a risk and it costs me whatever it can cost me. The maximum cost. What's that look like? Like what does it actually do? And I think as the when I was, you know, significantly younger in early twenties, my tolerance there was was way higher, right? I, I felt like I had less to lose because I did, and I also felt like I had more time to recover because I did. As you age, I think it's, it's interesting because, you know, I'm, I'm definitely, definitely things that I would probably add to the equation now that wouldn't have been there before, like, oh well, if we this matters a lot, or this could change the opportunity for my kids. It could do a lot of things. But on the other hand, I'm so much more comfortable with the idea of risk and my ability to calculate the risk that, again, I don't know that it's caused me necessarily to say no to anything that came along simply because it was too risky. Interesting. I'm gonna have to think about this a bit now. I wish I had thought about this a bit more, more before the episode, uh, to go back and think like, how much of this is just risk blow. Blindness versus uh comfort and and actual calculation or am I just so used to this point that I don't even, don't even think of saying no because. Yeah, but,
Wil Schroter: but again, you've been on the other side of it. You've seen the victory, so you know that it's it's worth the risk. Now, a lot of folks that are becoming entrepreneurs, they're not there yet, right? They're like, oh, I have to quit my job or I have to, you know, bet my my life savings and they're like, and all they can think of is all the downside, and that's that's logical. There's nothing wrong with with that processing. However, the thing that that does create a challenge is you get to a point where you're so worried about the downside that you never see outside, right? You, you, you get the sense that playing it safe is the right bet. And the problem with playing it safe is you never win.
Ryan Rutan: Yeah, if you don't put any chips on 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 a lot of early stage founders. They play the game as There's only one way to bet and it's all in. Yep, right? It's just not the case. I feel like that's the other thing you get really good at over time is figuring out how much of this risk is can be, can be entered into sequentially, right? I don't need to look at this as well, I have to build this, you know, billion dollar business ergo, I have to throw in everything I have and all my time and all my money and all my resources have to go to this in order to make work this is not the the reality. So I, I think that's a really important piece is that this isn't. All in type situation in most cases, you have the ability to sequentially and incrementally increase your risk or decrease your risk. I think that's something that we have become much better at as we've gone through this is really understanding what are the actual risks and how can I, how can I eliminate or defer some of that risk until later, and I think that's an important piece of it. But so back to the back to the core point here which is that um Fear is, is, is something that we should lean into and that comfort is, is not necessarily a good thing and that it does take some risk to get reward. I think we all have that uh in in mind at least the basic. It
Wil Schroter: does, but, but again, I think that like we're associating as founders, we're associating fear as a weakness of some sort or the opposite, something that we should run from. If what I'm saying, you know, what we're saying in this discussion is what if you just leaned in. it. What if you were to say, look, fear is my job, right? That's literally in my job description to be the person that does really scary shit. That is my job, OK? And I want to be really good at that job. I wanna be the, the person that's willing to run into the abyss when no one else is willing to run into the abyss, right? I want to build that muscle. Well, you gotta do some hard stuff, right? You gotta do some stuff where you don't know what's on the other side. You know, one of my favorite thing. Do you remember a show, 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't remember if it was from Japan or whatever, but they had, they had the greatest, they had the greatest stunt where these, these players would run through an obstacle course, OK? And there would always be this one, they had to run at full speed. There's always be this one thing that I thought was a perfect analogy for founders. There would be 3 doors, OK? And like, one of the doors is made out of paper, and the other two doors are wooden, but you can't tell the difference when you run into them. It was like a Tom and Jerry cartoon, right? And so these, these, these, uh, these contestants would run and they'd either burst through that door or they'd get flattened out, right? And I thought, I thought what a perfect, right metaphor for being a founder.
Ryan Rutan: Yeah, the difference is the founder will then get up after having bounced off one of the doors and run full speed into another one and,
Wil Schroter: yeah, yeah,
Ryan Rutan: they also did this on uh American Gladiator, not that that's important at this point, but they remember there was like the and but instead of being a wooden door behind one of the doors of the gates would be turbo or niro or one of the guys waiting to turbo deck you,
Wil Schroter: yeah. I'm, I'm shocked that that that show. still around. Anyway, point being, uh, this idea that I want to get good at running through the doors knowing, knowing that I'm gonna bounce off a whole bunch of times. I, I'm, I'm gonna hit the wooden door way more often than I'm gonna hit the, the paper door, OK? But I want to build a muscle that allows me to bounce back, that allows me to get knocked down and keep coming back. There are very Few people that are willing to acknowledge wanting that specific muscle, yeah, right? And but I think when you start to explain it to founders, and you and I advise founders all the time about this, when you start to explain to them, look, the fear you're feeling is the business. We are in the business of fear. That's not an anomaly. That's when, that's not when you're, oh my God, I can't believe I'm doing everything wrong. I must have fear. I've been at this for 30 years. I'm terrified every day. Yeah this is the business. I
Ryan Rutan: it is the business. I think it's such an important realization because I think until you have that realization, the, the constant thought is, couldn't this fear just be an indicator that this is a bad idea, that this is a bad business, because
Wil Schroter: that's usually what fear is for.
Ryan Rutan: That's what it's for. It's to stop us from doing something, right? Or or make us take take notice or to to be able or in some cases truly to to motivate us, right? That fear and and adrenaline are directly linked. There's the reason we get scared, we dump adrenaline so we can do amazing shit to get ourselves out of whatever we're scared of. But I think it's really important that you can change the relationship with fear so that you're not always looking at. Yes, of course, of course, some fears are warranted, and you might have a bad business idea. This isn't to say that if you're scared, you're absolutely doing the right thing. It doesn't mean you're right, doing the wrong thing. But the thing is very important here is that just because you're scared does not mean it is not a direct indicator that it's a bad business idea, but I see so many founders and it's like, I'm just really worried that this is a bad idea. Well, you can keep doing that and and you will stay in that same state or you can embrace the fear, lean into it a bit and go find out, go validate whatever it is you think is is causing this fear that that that whatever it is that the factor that's driving the fear for you, and eliminate it. Or validate it.
Wil Schroter: You know, something that's really funny about everything we talk about here is that none of it is new. Everything you're dealing with right now has been done 1000 times before you, which means the answer already exists, you may just not know it, but that's OK. That's kind of what we're here to do. We talk about this stuff on the show, but we actually solve these problems all day long at groups.startups.com. So if any of this sounds familiar, stop guessing about what To do, let us just give you the answers to the test and be done with it. I gotta say, like, my greatest fear is comfort. I mean, it is, is antithetical as that is to say, at which point I feel comfortable. I get this tingling that says you're doing something wrong, like something ain't right. Now, I'm sure there's some baked in psychology that would take me years of therapy to unpack that, and I'm OK with it, right? I'm OK with it. What I'm saying is comfort terrifies me. Because I look at comfort as when I stopped doing interesting things, and that, that bothers me.
Ryan Rutan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I think it's complacency is extremely dangerous in any any aspect of life, but I think as a startup founder, it's it's extremely, extremely dangerous. The funny thing about that is that can actually increase your your real risk, not your perceived risk, but the the actual risk, like like being complacent, trying to be comfortable within the business can absolutely increase the the. Actual risk, uh, which is funny because fear often comes down as you get comfortable and you're like, OK, well we can just kind of take this easy path, we can, we can, you know, do something that's a little less risky. Oftentimes you're, you're setting yourself up, you know, cause, you know who loves, uh, you know, who loves caution and comfort mediocrity. Like I, I don't know a single legacy that was built without some level of leap of faith.
Wil Schroter: All of it 100%. None of them, right? And and I think where it gets interesting is when people say I want the big prize, but I don't want the fear that comes with it. No shit, right? Like, right, I want a six pack, but, but I want to be elite Cheetos all day, right? Funny it doesn't work that way. And then I, I think what ends up happening is, again, because we spend so much time avoiding fear, what we're really avoiding is progress. And I think that is a dangerous path. When I think about, you know, this concept of of complacency, right? I think about, there are all these things I could do, and some number of them 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 bigger the swing that I've took, the bigger the outcome. Here's a different way to say it. I've never had a great outcome where I did it half an effort, right? Just ever or or half a risk, where I, I said, well, I, I'll only bet a little of, you know, whatever this. mental that is, and, and that will pay off. It's, that's happened to me never. And maybe I'm the most unlucky guy in the world, but I don't, I don't think it's limited to that. I think so.
Ryan Rutan: I'll take that a step further actually and say that when I have done things where I did take like a half step, I didn't get half the value or half the outcome. I got nothing, right? So it, it's, it's, it's, it's subtle, but like 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 have come from the, the, the big. Risks, uh, the big decisions in cases 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 agree that you have to be very careful and it doesn't necessarily mean again this is not me advocating for the, it's all all in on every single bet. No, but I think picking the right bets is really important and making sure that they're big enough that there's an outcome worth chasing. So I think that's the only thing that ends up happening, even if you take that safe path and you do start to feel comfortable. And it may no longer be that fear is motivating you. All of a sudden you start to realize like, well, that thing I'm aiming for is less risky. It's also a lot less interesting, right? The dent I'm gonna make in the universe based on this isn't that impactful. It's not gonna change people's lives. I'm gonna change minds, I'm gonna change anybody else's. Why am I getting up in the morning to do this anymore? And so I think that's the other thing that we, we talked about this a few months ago on the podcast, but going back to your why. And I think if the Y is not big enough, you're gonna stop doing it at some point. You're gonna start caring and and that why the size of the why and the size of the risk tend to be pretty directly correlated.
Wil Schroter: Right? And I look at the fear as a fuel, and I'm addicted to that fuel. I'm addicted to the to the big stakes, big outcome kind of equation. Because what I've found in my life, wherever I've had moments where fear wasn't driving everything, but it was more, you know, the equivalent of greed, you know, if you use the opposite of fear and greed, right, where it was more, I'd like to have something versus I have to get something done, I have few if any wins whatsoever that are optional, where it was like that would be a lot of upside for me, right? It, it was, it was more, oh shit, if I don't get this done, XYZ will happen. Now hopefully that leads to upside. Yeah,
Ryan Rutan: right. But wasn't the motivator at the time, yeah, wasn't what was driving it. It wasn't like, oh, if I do this, maybe I'll get that. It's if I don't do this, I'm gonna get something I really don't.
Wil Schroter: That's what I'm saying, like I, my greed motivator is a 2, my fear motivator is a 12. Like if we like a dial, right? And I, I wanna believe that a lot of people are kind of in that same boat, whereby they don't get the maximum of their output in a situation where they're not forced to. Right now, I want to zoom out for a second. We're not advocating putting yourself in constant fear all the time and being stressed out with your blood pressure and your health and like, you gotta chill out too, like like like we have high intensity fear and like for Ryan and I, we dial it back and go do something else, right? Like it's, it's, this isn't a Gary Vee moment where we're like, you know, hustle porn where it's like you have to be in fear all the time. That would be psychotic. What we're saying is there are moments where it's time. Yeah. Like it's, it's big fear time and that
Ryan Rutan: look for those moments, yeah, and you should look for those moments and and again embrace them because there are lots of different types of fear too, right? I like, let's let's talk about another one which is that there's some bad types of fear, something like, you know, the one that that actually works in the opposite way of fuel for me, I see founders who are using fear, the fear of the product launch, right? The fear of public perception of the of the product or service just ends up leading to uh. This over perfectionism, staying on the lab bench of getting out in the market, um, and just paralysis, right? Just not letting things move forward. So I think it, it, it has to be in balance there where it's like, you can feel it pushing you forward. The minute it starts to push you backwards, you gotta step back and say like, am I, am I having an appropriate relationship with this fear right now, or am I letting this thing uh get the better of me and keep me from doing the things that should be helping me do instead?
Wil Schroter: Yeah, and I think, you know, within that, when we're talking about fear as a conditioned muscle. I want to build on that to say, Ryan, you and I and and some other founders, not most of them, because most of them are relatively new to this, but you and I have learned to condition that fear muscle, like, like we get the benefit of it, not just the pain that comes from it, OK? And again, I'm not saying that like, look, I'm up at 3, well I guess I'm up at 3 in the morning to wake up, but like. I was gonna say I'm up at 3 in the morning staring at the ceiling, but like, I am, I'm actually getting out of bed. Um, but when I think about like those moments where I'm, you know, I'm, I'm scared, I'm terrified, whatever, it's not that it doesn't affect me. I'm like, not like inhuman, but at the same time, I've done it enough times where I'm starting to say, OK, like, I can live in this moment. I, I can live in this in this feeling, cause I've been here a lot of times, and even when it doesn't work out, and I think you were getting at this, even when it doesn't work out, I'll figure it out, like, uh, to your point, the loss is never everything in our mind it is, right, cause it's so convenient to take it, but in reality it rarely ever turns out that way.
Ryan Rutan: Yeah, it's something I wish. Founders did was just to like really get comfortable, like, get acquainted with the risk. I think sometimes like we just we we did an entire episode on this right around like the the the paper dragons, but like just document or say it out loud to somebody else. Yep, sometimes it completely takes the sting out of it. You're like, oh, OK, well, that thing that I was really scared of actually isn't that scary and or the likely of it becoming all that is relatively, right? The, the idea that I do drain the entire 401k or I, I do alienate my entire network or whatever the, the, the big thing that you're, you're scared of is just rarely ends up coming to to fruition in that in that full strength way. Um it's almost always some deluded version of that, just like our successes, right.
Wil Schroter: You know, uh, Ryan, if you were a couple of months ago I was speaking, um, at an entrepreneurship conference. It was one of these situations, so the setup kind of matters. I get a uh an email from my booking agent. I've got a speaking booking agent, which is ironic because the the the the the punch line here is I'm terrified of public speaking, right? So why the fuck would you have a booking agent to book you to public speak, right? If you don't like yourself into your, right? Yeah, yeah, so. Anyway, so I'm, I'm, I'm doing the speech. When I got out to questions for the audience, it's a whole room of uh founders and entrepreneurs, and I got to questions. One of the, um, one of the people in the audience, they're like, you're an incredible storyteller, like you're you're like the best public speaker I've ever seen. And I and and and it it it cracked me up. No, no, this isn't me saying like, like, uh, let me humble brag about what they said, it was my response. I said, it's important for you to know that I am absolutely terrified right now. Right, like public speaking, like most people, is, is one of my greatest fears. I happen to be good at it, but I'm terrified of doing it, and that's never changed, no matter how many times I've ever done it.
Ryan Rutan: You're you're not gonna seek it out on your own. Correct, right?
Wil Schroter: Like if someone didn't call to book me to to send me somewhere to do it, I would never volunteer, right? But here's the interesting thing, when I do it. It always pays huge dividends. I mean tons of people, you know, they send me a check at the end, like, like it's, it's a great phenomenal experience, but if you were to call me right now and said, hey Will, uh, can you be available for my event? I would absolutely turn it down cause I'm terrified. So. What I'm saying though is, I, I, I've created the conditions for me to lean into that fear, but me not doing it, if I just said, hey, you know, I, I don't enjoy it, I'm not gonna do it, would have given up so many opportunities. Yeah. Part of the reason I don't like doing it, it sounds odd. I hate preparing for it. Like you, you never truly give it the the the time that it's due, but it usually takes me days to prepare, and that seems like a huge waste of time. But my point is, I think about it in terms of this is something that's probably one of my number one fears. And yet I lean into it. I lean into it because I know it's important for me to condition that fear.
Ryan Rutan: And again, stand comfortable doesn't doesn't change anything. I think it's, it's nice, like, things like public speaking in particular to our audience is great because we get real-time feedback on it, you know, we do podcasts and then days, months, weeks later we're getting feedback on what we talked about, but it's, it's so nice to to have that that immediacy of the feedback and The fear when you go into it and you look at that, the risk reward, what is the actual risk there? Spending an hour terrified on a stage, it doesn't feel good, but nothing's actually gonna happen to you.
Wil Schroter: I'm only terrified for the 1st 5 minutes, like, like after that, my heart rate comes down, um, from like 160 down to whatever it normally is, down to 150. And it's like, and then I'm smooth sailing, but leading up to that it's horrible. The other side of it though is, you know, I think about it in terms of founders, especially those that are new, a lot of folks listening to this to this podcast are like, I'm scared about what I'm doing and and when they say that, they act as if no one else is. Like, I'm just the person that's scared.
Ryan Rutan: I'm the one that's scared of public speaking. I'm the one that's scared of pitching my product. I'm the one that's scared of making product level decisions. I'm the one that's scared of investing money.
Wil Schroter: 100% of people are terrified. Everybody is,
Ryan Rutan: yep.
Wil Schroter: There's no other version of this job, right? I know exactly how to do this job. I've been doing it forever, and I'm still scared every day, right? That's just the natural reaction to what we do. It's not. An anomaly. So I want some of the folks listening, Ryan to be like, oh, like those guys are scared too. Yeah, we're not just saying that to like, to prove a point we're saying that because it's true. It's how it is, you know. In my mind, if I'm not somewhat uncomfortable, there's a problem, right? And and and and I, when we're, we're writing this out, I wrote that uh comfort is a is the currency of a life half lit. Comfort is the currency of a life half-lived. And what I meant by that was for folks that haven't gone all the way, haven't done amazing things, what I picture kind of my wife's alternate universe would have been if she didn't marry this crazy guy. It would been very comfortable, but her entire highlight reel has it always has to do with something where like She got pushed out of her comfort zone a little bit, right? And and did something crazy. And, and while she would never do that on her own, she does have the instinct that I'll give her credit, to no one to to lean into that and just say, hey, you know, I'll figure it out. I don't think a lot of people going into this business, Ryan, understand how important leaning into that fear is. They understand the fear. Like, holy shit, I'm scared, for sure. But, but they don't understand how important it is to have fear as part of your program, as part 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, I'm gonna, you know, risk my savings, whatever, and my strategy is gonna lean into fear. You have the opportunity to to do big things. If you don't, if you change your mind and you say, I want to seek comfort, you can never truly expect to build something great, because the biggest, greatest things that you've ever done, everything in your life, everything anybody anybody's life that's ever been done by someone great involved a ridiculous amount of fear.
Ryan Rutan: Overthinking your startup because you're going it alone, you don't have to, and honestly, you shouldn't because instead, you can learn directly from peers who've been in your shoes. Connect with bootstrapped founders and the advisors helping them win in the Startups.com community. Check out the Startups.com community at www.startups.com to see if it's for you. Could be just the thing you need. I hope to see you inside.