Ryan Rutan: Welcome back to the episode of the Startup Therapy podcast. This is Ryan Routan joined as always by my friend, the founder and CEO of Startups.com, Will Schroeder. Well, we talked to lots and lots of founders. Everybody knows this. We see founders hitting all kinds of milestones from shipping their first product to, I don't know, getting their first customer or raising a seed round, doing all these things that we happen to know are major and massive milestones, and yet all they can seem to talk about is how like there's still more to go, right? There's still something missing, like we're not there yet. And so today I want to unpack some of this, you know, the psychological cost of never really getting to that point where you've celebrated how far you've come, not having the perspective to see it.
Wil Schroter: I think it's, it's hard because for, for all of us, you know, you mentioned like raising a seed around. Kind of all you can think about is, well, I just, somebody just gave me money, I gotta go spend it and and create more liabilities and like keep growing this thing. And that's just if you're raising money. If you're not, you're in a different boat we're like, well, there's just so much I don't have, right? You know, I need all these resources, that's the nature of it. But I think where we get caught, and certainly I've been a victim of this, and, and, you know, Ryan, I'd love to hear your thoughts too, is even when we're successful, even when things go well, we don't really how unique that success is or even within the startup world, I think it's uh uh fascinating. We don't appreciate, even if we get to like $100,000 of, of ARR how few people actually do that? Like we keep thinking, well, we're not at Amazon level. Yeah, but neither is 99% of the rest of the world and you're actually ahead of them. In the United States, uh, most specifically, there's this whole kind of. And have not mentality that that what we call the one percenters, like the super ultra rich people and and how they have everything and everybody else has nothing. And, and of course there's fundamentally some truth to that. However, I also think that there's a 1 percenter among startups, and most of the people that are listening, I think it's gonna be surprised they're gonna find out they're in that 1%, because the tickets to that 1% ain't that high, which is what makes it interesting.
Ryan Rutan: Yeah, it is, and but I again like it's just it's so rarely celebrated as I go back in my own history and like things that you and I know to celebrate at this point, we have talked about some of these things, right? Like, I go back to little moments like the the big ones are obvious, right? Like selling the agency, right? When I sold the agency, it was a big deal and celebrated it and I understood it, but even within that, like it was cool at the moment. I understood it was a big deal and I should celebrate it, and I did. But then as time went on, I started to compare it right like you and I both sold agencies, but I kind of near the same time. Mine is a rounding error compared to
Wil Schroter: yours and mine's a rounding error compared to US Web or somebody who's exactly
Ryan Rutan: right. So there's always some comparison that that's the funny thing about the 1%. That 1% stretches across a really, really big spectrum of, of, of outcomes and and achievements, but I was perfectly happy with it as long as I wasn't comparing it. But at the time, like there were a lot of other wonderful little muscles like getting that first client, right? Like the first client, the second one was actually the big trick because the first one came to me, the second one I had to go find. Going from $300 for the first job to getting up to that $5000 mark to get you a $50,000 to give you a $500,000 project, right? Those were huge at the time, I didn't really pay much attention to. It just felt like, OK, it's just what I needed to go do. But it's really interesting how it didn't occur to me at the time that I was in super, super small company at that point, right? Like there were very few other people who had set out to do that, who are actually doing it at the time, all, you know, and again, like you're always chasing something, so you're looking ahead to those other things and it's so funny, man. So many times in, in startup life you're you're at a summit, right? You're on the summit instead of looking around and going. Damn, that was a great climb. Look at the views from here, you're like, I wonder if I can climb that one, right? You just point to the next summit. It's just the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. Let's change gear for just a second because I want to get your feedback on this cause we always like to talk about this, I think too, which is, you know, you and I push back against a lot of the startup tropes, like just crush it all, you know, put in 80 hours a week, do all these things. Yeah, OK, but don't kill yourself, right? So there's there's gotta be this balance. So one of the things I want to talk about from a balanced perspective today is Is there also a danger in giving ourselves too much credit? Could that breed, I don't know, complacency or arrogance, or like, right, we need to worry about that, or is that so rare that kind of doesn't matter?
Wil Schroter: I mean, if you get there, uh, congrats. Like if that's the way you're feeling, congrats. And, and yes, I understand like where it could go the wrong way, but my bigger fear in having experienced this is getting to that next level, whatever that is, and being like, oh my God, I'm exactly where I wanted to be, and I'm so far from where I should be. I'll give you an example. Years ago. Uh, you, you and I had two very different adventures. I moved to Beverly Hills. You moved to I know where
Ryan Rutan: this is going, yeah, right? Yeah, yeah. Starting in Columbus, Ohio, and ending up in we
Wil Schroter: lived down the street from each other and we went two very different places. So, so let me give you my version and I'm and I'd love to see how that contrasts with yours because I, I, I think there's gonna be, there's gonna be a similar facet here. So I moved with my family uh out to Beverly Hills. In my mind, that was like we didn't intentionally move there. We were living in San Francisco at the time. We were trying to get back to Los Angeles so so my daughter could start school, and we just happened to find a house there. So like it it sounds ritzy, but it wasn't our first choice. Anyway, we get there and um it's beautiful, right? You know, we got this this house on on on a on a mountain Mountain top. Everything's kind of on a mountain top because because of where it is, but I wake up the next day, uh, you know, after, after we're settled in. I remember I walk out and there's this massive like canyon, all these just absolutely insane houses like dotting the canyon, right? And I'm looking across at the house that was like directly, directly across the canyon from me and it's a billionaire's house, OK? And in my house is. So freaking small by comparison just small by by any comparison, right, but by comparison that every morning instead of waking up and like holy cow, I can't believe I'm living in Beverly Hills because I grew up with nothing, right? Like
Ryan Rutan: every morning living in the equivalent of that guy's utility room.
Wil Schroter: Exactly. That's exactly what it felt like. And, and I'm using this because it just paints such a beautiful picture, like a physical manifestation of what it was is I'm in literally the 1% of 1% of zip codes. And all I can think about is how the guy across the street or Kenyon in this case from me, is so much more successful than I am, how I'll never have what he has, like, and mind you, you said this a minute ago, the stratification among the 1% isn't just a little step function, it is, it is a massive, massive delta, right? And so my point is, here I am in a place I'd never thought I'd be at, you know, kind of the top of my peak at that moment, and all I can think about is what a loser I am. And I'm like, what the hell, man?
Ryan Rutan: I wish this was a rare story.
Wil Schroter: That's exactly, that's that's sort of my point. It's it's gonna underlie all of. This, yeah,
Ryan Rutan: the countless founders who have achieved really significant wealth, you know, you and I both know people who've had some really big exits, and yet we'll still hear this common refrain from them. It's like, yeah, I got a lot of money in the bank. I got a lot more than I had. But now I feel broker than ever because I'm comparing myself to people who got even bigger exits, right? It's
Wil Schroter: But hold on Ryan, you went the opposite direction.
Ryan Rutan: OK,
Wil Schroter: so, so, uh, for folks listening, Ryan and I live more or less down the street from each other in Ohio, right? So we're coming from exactly the same base. I go to Beverly Hills where I feel like a total pauper. You go to Guatemala. Tell me what you experienced there.
Ryan Rutan: Yeah, so you went to Beverly Hills. I went to Beverly volcanoes. It's uh it's, it's night and day, right? Like all of a sudden the the income disparity between me and the folks around me is, is significant, right? And, and in some ways, startlingly so and and not necessarily pleasantly so. I wasn't like, oh, I moved here so I can feel superior, wasn't the intention. I mean there were definitely financial superiority. Sure, some of that happened, right? It just, it is what it is, right? Yeah, and so we definitely had kind of the the opposite feelings, right? All of a sudden, like just waves of gratitude for what we have start flowing over and thinking through like how fortunate it was that I was able to achieve this and then I just happened to be born in a place that allowed me to do that. Yep, compared to some folks I'm looking at across the street who live in, you know, the The equivalent of a shack didn't necessarily have the same right. So it gives you such a different perspective, right? And, and like again, like I'm I'm not a billionaire by any stretch, but here, by contrast, I was the person that you were looking out at, right across the street from me, we're looking at me going, Jesus, we'll never have anything close to that, right? Like I've got, got friends that are literally like own empires here and and are actually significantly more wealthy. And do things like land helicopters in my backyard. That's fun, right? That makes you feel pretty cool, right? I, I like having friends that land helicopters in my backyard and take my son for a ride. And so it's, it's wild though that That changed simply based on what I was looking out the window and, and where what I'm what I'm surrounding myself with. I didn't feel that way in, you know, in Ohio, right? I didn't feel bad in Ohio, but I certainly didn't feel, I didn't have anybody landing helicopters in my yard.
Wil Schroter: Funny thing, I don't know if you ever knew this guy that I think you know from one of our other companies actually landed a helicopter in my front yard, jumped out and proposed to his wife. And it's funny, we saw them at at an event like a couple of years ago and they're like, do you remember like the time when I, when I flew a helicopter into your front like dude, how am I gonna forget that to say
Ryan Rutan: no, tell me, remind me something rings a bell. Yeah,
Wil Schroter: yeah, yeah. Anyway, anyway, where this is interesting, you know, you know, those, those two examples give us a sense of perspective, and I think for A lot of startups and this is, you know, what, what I think we're talking about unpacking here is you're probably you being audience are probably way further ahead than most startups than you realize. Now most people like, oh yeah, you're talking about someone else. No, I'm kind of talking about you, put it this way, if you're still in business, you're ahead of 90% of other like, and people kind of don't care. Unless you're the other 90%.
Ryan Rutan: Like I, I consider it one of my jobs, right? In, in, in what we do here at Startups.com. I consider it one of my jobs just to remind founders that simply by starting their startup, right, as opposed to leaving it as a dream, that puts them past 99% of people, because most people will never even launch it, right? Even attempting to do things like raise money, put you in an extremely tiny category, and, and it's important to understand that.
Wil Schroter: Fundamentally for between the number of Companies that are started and this is worldwide really, but even like let's say the United States as an example, and the number that will raise money is an exponential delta. You people like oh we only raised the seed round. Yeah, but you're still like in the top 1% of people who raised anything at all.
Ryan Rutan: Yeah, that's exactly it, right? Yeah, you only raised $250. Ask the other 10,000 people who were stomping around at exactly the same time who got zero investors to say 0 yeses to $0 and all of a sudden you understand you're in a very different position.
Wil Schroter: I remember I, I, I met this guy like 10 years ago. I met this guy and he's a super young guy. He had bought a 3 series BMW, right? Like the the the the quintessential milestone of you first made some money, right? The 3 series we've all done it, right? And so, so he has it, and he's like, yeah man, you know, yeah, it's only a 3 series, but you know, but it's cool it's a BMW, right? And Thinking, you've got to understand when you say it's only a 3 series, you're in the 1% of 1% of people in the world, again, you gotta look at this on a broader scale that can even afford this. And your issue is that it's, it's, it's not a, a, a more expensive model BMW. And again, that's what this all comes down to. I, I think for a lot of startups, let's talk to the founders in general so people can calibrate. If you've raised any amount of money, if you have uh over $100,000 in revenue, so you know, actual customer revenue on a recurring basis, and you manage any kind of payroll, you are in the top 1% of startups. Now, most people will not believe that. Most people will push back this, that, that cannot be true, except it is yeah. Um, and, and by the way, even if all that math was off, let's say it was off by 10x and it's, you're in the top 10%, who gives a shit, right? Like the 1% and 10% here doesn't make a lick of difference cause the the balance is 90%. But I think when people get theiryan, I don't think they appreciate how hard it is to do even that.
Ryan Rutan: They don't. I, I, I'm gonna go back to what I said before, like just even deciding to start it,
Wil Schroter: mhm.
Ryan Rutan: Just deciding to dedicate most of your time to this thing and actually put it out there and breathe some life into it regardless of how far it makes it, that alone puts you in a 1% category, right? And not 1% of operating services, but 1% because 1% of people that have a dream of starting. A company actually
Wil Schroter: do
Ryan Rutan: anything
Wil Schroter: about it. Let me build on that. Now let's talk about being in the 1% of the 1%, right? The 0.01%, which doesn't sound cool. It needs like a cool unicorn style name.
Ryan Rutan: If you use the word not instead of zero, I always find that to be appealing. What's that? Not N A U G H T, not instead of, yeah, just use not, not one. Yeah, yeah,
Wil Schroter: not good to build on that one. So in order to get to that, the, the 1% of 1%, you would have had to raise from a brand name VC and brand doesn't have to be Sequoia and Gries and it could be, you know, uh, best, you know, great, uh, uh, firm, whatever. You'd have to have raised for a name brand VC. You'd have to hit at least a million dollars in revenue. Remember, a lot of people who raise never actually get any revenue, so that's the whole thing. You have to have scale the team, and this is the key one actually, you'd have to be in business for more than 5 years. 1 in 10,000 founders, 0.01%, 1% or 1%, will ever get there. 1 in 10,000 founders. Now, here's what's interesting. When you get there, it never feels that good. Because just just getting there doesn't mean you like you succeeded, right, in the traditional sense. But this is where we're saying the fact that you even made it that far up the mountain is insane. You're, you're like, whoa, I didn't get to the the peak. OK, but do you understand that everybody else is dead along the path and you're the only person still alive?
Ryan Rutan: Doesn't necessarily feel good at that point though, right? Like this is the, the, the, the other analogy I've heard you use is like, you know, winning silver. Right, right, you win a silver medal. You still made it to the bloody Olympics, right? And yet all you can look at is that that the difference between what I did and that little more I could have done. I remember, you know, growing up, started playing soccer when I was 6 years old, as soon as we moved to Florida when I was a kid, moved back to Ohio, continued playing. Moved up through the ranks there, started playing traveling and Olympic development and was was really competitive, and I was king shit of my own little kingdom, right? Like I was, I was the guy that I knew that played, played really well. It's certainly in my own little small town I was like several levels above because I'd had the opportunity to go and do it and I'd played elsewhere. Um, one of those guys had never played before, uh, until they didn't make the American football team, and they're like, let me go play soccer instead. So, so for me, soccer was the roar for them it was a concession prize, but then I, I was. I was given an opportunity to go and play on some, some bigger teams as a guest, and I remember guesting for Team Pepsi and and all of a sudden being like just a sub on that team. I never got any playing time. I went to a couple tournaments. I maybe I maybe I get in for a few minutes. Mostly I was there running drills as a backup player in case somebody got injured, whatever, and just thinking, man, well how, how much that sucked, right? I was like, but you still got there. All of a sudden all that achievement that I'd had, and then again by by comparison, and it and it was just. Deservedly so, like I wasn't nearly as good as as those people were. I'm still a great soccer player, but all of a sudden I felt like I didn't belong there. Like why am I even playing this game? Like there's a whole different level that I can never achieve. And some of those guys went on to play like the national level went on to play pro, so like it it wasn't as if I was up against a bunch of schlubs, but it wouldn't have mattered even if I had been, like, yep, until that moment I had felt great about what I had accomplished, yep, not all of a sudden it's like. It was taken away from me because somebody moved the finish line. And how crazy is that? Going back to like, you know, some of these founders that we know that have exited, and some of these folks, you know, in this 1% of 1%. It's like we set a finish line and then the second we get there, we, we just move it ahead. Like, I'm trying to get to this point and then the second you get there, just throw that thing another couple 100 m to in front of myself.
Wil Schroter: I think part of it is we I believe that it doesn't matter if we got to that 1%, you know, that, hey, maybe I raised money or I, I didn't go out of business, unless I have whatever I picture to be a successful outcome, you know, usually a monetary outcome on top of that, then that's all just talk. I just don't care. And I get that. I, I get it. I've been there, right? So I get it. My response to that though is, and, and Ryan, this actually aligns with exactly what you just said about being a soccer player, but understand that you've absolutely quantifiably proven that you're an elite athlete. OK, so let's let's go back to the Olympics example, right? So I think that's that's a perfect example. Olympian goes out, first off, makes it to the Olympics, right, which that alone is bananas. And then let's say makes it and gets a silver medal and comes home disappointed. Now, obviously, if if you're an athlete at that level, you compete at that level because winning the gold, winning the top prize is what you intend to do. If you didn't, you wouldn't have gotten to that level. OK. So, so you, you have to be in that mentality. And I get that. We're in the same boat with what we do, uh, with startups. Like we have to be in a winning mentality or we wouldn't be doing this, OK? Because nobody pays us whether we do it or not. Like we have to make that money. Silver level winner, OK? Coming home all disappointed. Here would be my, my response to them. There are 135 million active skiers, OK? You're in the 0.00001% of those skiers, which means you're better than 135 million skiers other than 1, 11, and that that could have just been the difference of a day. Yeah,
Ryan Rutan: so that on that on that particular day in that particular event, yeah.
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. Think about that for a second. If you're going home and carry this analogy, if you're going home and you're like, I'm such a loser. Number one, what does that say to all the 135 million skiers, OK? But number 2, here's, here's what's most important. You have proven, this goes back to exactly what you just said about soccer. You have proven that you have an elite level of skill, and I think where that gets lost the most, Ryan, is when somebody fails. I'll give you an example, right? We both know this, we, we talked to lots of founders who you couldn't get to their. Next funding round or, you know, uh whatever series of conditions, uh, they, they've got to close shop. And of course you feel like shit. I get that. However, I make it a point wherever possible to reach out to those founders. Sometimes I don't even know them, by the way. And I say, I want to remind you, founder to founder, that you are in the 0.0001% of founders that do what we do. And maybe it didn't turn out the way. You wanted, you didn't get Olympic gold. Don't forget for a second the quality of athlete you are because you need to go do it again because there are statistically very few of you. And I think that's a powerful message.
Ryan Rutan: It's a super powerful message and I'm sure that you always get amazing response to that because in that moment, that's absolutely what they need to hear and be reminded that.
Wil Schroter: I get a lot of go fuck yourself. I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
Ryan Rutan: Never mind. Yeah, all those things I said,
Wil Schroter: yeah, you deserve
Ryan Rutan: to
Wil Schroter: lose. Take your hallmark.
Ryan Rutan: Be careful not to break your teeth on the silver medal asshole. Let's play devil's advocacy for a second here, because I guess we talked about this before, like a few weeks ago we talked about, you know, fear being a motivator and and kind of a good one for for founders in some ways. Could we argue that it's this dissatisfaction, this is what keep the top performers going, right? So if, if you're in 2nd place, you find yourself in 2nd place that you, you want to be #1, and is that healthy?
Wil Schroter: I think ambition and gratitude are not at polar ends. I don't think you're either ambitious or grateful. I think the goal is to be ambitious and grateful. Yeah. And I think it's really hard to do. It's really hard to do because a lot of ambition is founded in what you don't have, right? So it's hard to say I'm good with what I have and Yet I'm gonna kill myself to get something I don't have at the same time. It's possible. I've certainly been working on it, you know, in the years that ensued, but it's hard. It's, it's, it's way harder than people give it credit for.
Ryan Rutan: Have you found it difficult? I, I have, I've found it difficult difficult when I'm, when I'm actively working on something, I'm building and I'm chasing after something. I have found it hard. I'm, I'm getting significantly better at it as I, as I age, but it was always significantly hard for me to be grateful as I was working on something, right? So there was sort of like, that's the point. I, I could build and I could grow and I could achieve, and then I could stop back and kind of relax a little to the extent that we can, and, and, and feel a little gratitude over it. But I historically, I I found it extremely hard to balance those two things at the same time, right? I could sort of work my ass off and then be grateful for what I achieved from working my ass off, but it was hard to work my ass off and be grateful at the same time to like create that space for gratitude. Again, like something I'm getting way better at as we figure out a lot more about work-life balance, work-life blend and all that stuff.
Wil Schroter: One of the places that I've actually had a lot of success with this, uh, recently in the last couple of years, is with my family, with my kids. Well, we do the thing at the dinner table, we just do gratitude, right? And it, it, it doesn't have to be scripted or like, you know, like, like pointed in a certain direction, but we just go around the table, like almost like Thanksgiving. Right? And we say, um, hey, what are you grateful for today? And it could be totally minor, right? In many cases it is. What's fascinating about it is that what comes out of our kids' mouths are always the simplest things. You know, my son will be like, God, Dad, I love that you told me you were proud of me today. Yeah, yeah. It's like and and what's bananas about that is like, that was the top of his list. He wasn't like, Dad, I'm glad we made some money so I could buy a thing, right? That it comes up almost never, and yet how much energy gets expended for that outcome. Yeah,
Ryan Rutan: I told you the one Jack shared with me recently, which he just walked out. I didn't even ask him. He just walked in and and announced, Dad, I'm glad you're home when I get home. Right? I felt good. Like, not only is he happy, he, he recognizes the fact that I'm there. We, we also have a uh a dinner time tradition, uh, and I suppose there's some gratitude involved, but in our case, I just asked my kids how many goals they scored in after school soccer, and the one that scored the most gets to eat, and the other two have to wait till tomorrow.
Wil Schroter: I love it, I love it, yeah, the Spartan way of life. But what's interesting is, again, this concept of gratitude. I think gratitude takes some practice, meaning you have to actively do it, you know, like work that that muscle, but part of it. I think is a reinforcing mechanism. So let me, let me build on that. Let's say that I was your coach at that point you were subbing on that, that soccer team, right? Like, uh, back in the day. My advice to former you or, you know, younger you would be, even if you're not starting, you were good enough to be in this arena right now. So show up every day like you're a starter. Don't show up every day like you're the guy that is outside the stadium. You're inside the stadium, right? Act like it. Now that doesn't mean. that you're ungrateful. It means that you're actually grateful that you have these skills that you have these capabilities, and you use that as a reinforcing behavior. If I was going back to me and Beverly Hills, if I could have, you know, gone back in time and, and talked to that younger version of myself, I would have said the same thing. I was like, I get it. That guy's got a billion dollars and honestly, you'll never get that, right? And that's not being like less than ambitious, it's just the, the statistical likelihood that you'll do that is insanely low. The point of it's Going to happen, it's gonna happen regardless. You can't wake up tomorrow and just decide that you're gonna make it happen. It doesn't actually work like that. But my point is, I would have said, what you need to do is you need to look at that guy's house and say, good for him, and then turn around and look at your house and say, but good for me. Good for me too, right? Um, and balance that a lot of maturity, which I didn't have. The point of this episode is we go through, particularly the founder journey, feeling like an imposter, feeling like shit. Because we actually don't have a lot of tools that allow us to measure progress that isn't just exponential outcome. Let's say we're running a marathon, which, you know, metaphorically we are, we're running a marathon, it's hard for us to to be able to to look back and see that that 99% of the rest of the runners are behind us, and there's like 5 people in front of us. We can't picture that. If we could, I bet we'd feel a lot different.
Ryan Rutan: I would think so, and I think it's it's interesting and you you've had the experience now of, of kind of having gone and come back and and gained the perspective. And so I think it's part of it's a maturity thing, part of it's an opportunity thing too, right? Which is to, to have seen kind of both sides of that and and understand like. Truly, again, like, being able to contrast it, like me being able to contrast what life in Ohio was like versus what life in in Antigua has been like, and getting ready to compare it to what what life in in Madrid is going to be like, where I'll I'll be moving back towards the other end of the spectrum in a lot of ways, and so. So I, I think that that's a huge, huge part of it, and I think that perspective is a huge piece for me at least, and it's what's allowed like that gratitude to start to injury even while still working on things and, and while I can and having the ability to look and see what other people are doing and go great for them, yeah. Because the, the other thing, and then you we've talked about this in 100 other ways and and other episodes, but the, you know, when you just end up comparing yourself to the Instagram version of what you're seeing, are you're like, oh man, I'll never have that. I'll never get on it. Yeah, you also didn't do all the things that that person did, right? We have no idea it's so hard until you're, you till you've walked all the miles in the shoes, right? You can't expect to end up in the same spot, uh, but that's, that's really hard, so. How do we use that kind of perspective, right? How can we say that like, look, perspective isn't about necessarily just being happy with what we've got either, because like we've said like you can't just become complacent either. So it isn't about resting on the laurels, but it but it is should be about using that as some level of fuel for the rocket. With the knowledge that we've already broken through so many barriers, to your point, you're already in the 1%, or maybe the 1% of the 1%, right? So how do we use that perspective to, to fuel that rocket as opposed to letting it drag us down?
Wil Schroter: I think the first thing we do is we use it as a reinforcing mechanism to remind ourselves how capable we are. Again, I think that's so important because for most of us, particularly on this journey, cause most people are going through it for the first time, for most of us, we don't have a way, especially early in our journey, to say, hey, I'm pretty good at this, you know. Because most of what our feedback is in the world is bad. We can't make payroll or, you know, we can't figure out marketing or the product isn't ready. Like most of it is a negative signal. Very little of it is, oh my God, you're so good, you know, you're so good at this,
Ryan Rutan: especially and, and even, even if you're directly sharing, right? So in, in some ways, like sometimes you just don't get any feedback, right, there just is no feedback. There's nothing happens. Like I did a thing and nothing happened, but I go back to to moments in time where I've shared things and just like the the feedback was so brutal, right? And and not not necessarily intentionally so, but I remember sharing at one point at like the, the, the, you know, the the family table like, so I got a client, and I got, I got the first client and they're like, oh, just the one.
Wil Schroter: A wrong answer.
Ryan Rutan: Yes, just the one, right? Like, but it's where it starts, right? But yeah, so even in the moment where like you're trying to celebrate something, the world, if you're talking to non-founders, they just have no idea, right, to them it doesn't sound impressive, because. Based on what they see around them and the things that they do, it isn't that impressive, but yeah,
Wil Schroter: it's also terrifying what we are. For a lot of folks, what is missing, certainly what was missing for me, maybe what was missing for you in a, in a big part of this journey was someone saying, like we're saying right now, that practice of gratitude of showing and reminding and reinforcing with yourself that you are very good at this, even if what you're, what you're working on. Hasn't gone the way you wanted. It goes back to the Olympic skier. Yes, maybe you didn't get gold, but dude, you went to the Olympics, like that is, like how rare that is. If all you're thinking about is what you didn't get, this is also a behavior that ends really poorly. If you, if the only behavior you develop is the I don't have behavior, I guarantee it doesn't end because you have more later. I don't know a single person who got more and was like, oh, I'm good now. All I saw in every case, it's actually the curse of the exited founder, which is, once you achieve that exit, that becomes your baseline, and you are absolutely tortured with the idea that you have to improve that, or you're not good enough, which is the biggest irony. Hysterical
Ryan Rutan: given that we can define that baseline wherever we want, and yet we always seem to like. To put it just out of reach, whatever we've accomplished. We'll build a whole new ladder just so there's a rung we haven't reached yet.
Wil Schroter: And and that's the point, man. I gotta say, like, in the past few years where I've really been trying to kind of change the course of my own ship, is I've been trying to be far more reinforcing about the good. And constantly critical of the bad. Like, I don't need a lesson in ambition. Like that that thing's built in, right? Like I don't have any point where I become complacent. Like, I couldn't if I tried. Complacency isn't really my issue, it's gratitude. Where if I keep moving forward in this, I have to keep filling this bottomless pit. Um, without ever leveling up with gratitude, then I'll always lose. I'll always lose. Like it doesn't matter if I get to the next thing. I can already tell you it it it's gonna suck, right? Yeah. And that's what I'm trying to head off at the pass, not the ambition along the way. I'll always want to build something new, that's fine.
Ryan Rutan: Because you've had this contrast now, right? So you, you've used a a literally changed your physical environment, yeah, twice now, but more than that, but twice in terms of the example that we're giving you, you went from Ohio to Beverly Hills, you went from Beverly Hills back to Ohio. And that drastically, in both cases, drastically change your baseline for comparison. And then that baseline might be different for some people, but I think there's this notion that sort of like less exposure to extremes can help to reset that perspective or or being in a different position within the extreme can change that. But one of one of the things that I've been curious about and I never asked you is having now come back. And and your baseline is now changed, and, and you're, you're, you're more grateful for what you have and you're able to be satisfied with what you've accomplished. Do you think if you went back to Beverly Hills tomorrow, the next day, I'll give you a couple of days to pack, you get there, do you think you'd have the same issue? If you look out the window and now you see that that billionaire's, have you, have you leveled up in your ability to draw appropriate comparison, or is it simply avoidance, right? Is it just like I just won't put that in front of me, right? If there's no pudding in front of me, I won't eat the pudding, right? Uh, the dieter's dilemma, right? So do I just avoid, uh, or, or do I have I developed a different level of self-understanding and catharsis so that I don't have to react to it in that way? Where do you feel like you landed on that
Wil Schroter: one? I've definitely leveled up in the right way, you know, if, if, if I were to wake up tomorrow in that same place and look at that same person's house, my response would be good for them. That'll never be me. And that doesn't matter, cause then I'd turn around and look at my own house and be like, I'm good. And I think that was probably for me psychologically, one of the the most important unlocks in my founder journey was being good, being good with what I got, right? Not complacent, right? And my life's been great, so like, you know, I'm not I'm I'm certainly not settling it, you know, in any means either, but for the first time in my life, I'm finally looking at things saying I just don't need more, right? In other words, like, yes, there is more, there's always more. I just don't actually need it, and it's not because I'm living like some super humble lifestyle, it's because I, I, I, I've been to this show so many times, right, the Beverly Hills thing where I'm like, dude, I've done that like, I know exactly what how that ends, right? It ends with me just being like, yeah, OK, now what? And it's that. That circle, that cycle that I need to get out of, because you can't fix it. It never ends and it it it ends in misery every time.
Ryan Rutan: It's a great reinforcement. This does really all come down to perspective because a huge part of what changed the perspective for both of us was just literally changing our physical perspective. We just moved somewhere different, literally had a different view out the window, and it changed how, how we felt about this. For the founders who are out there right now, let's just say that they're, they're not even sure if they're in the, they're in the 1%, my 1% because they've they're, they're. Starting and they're trying to do something. Let's just say there maybe there, there's somewhere in that that that ground somewhere between the, the 1% and the 1% of the 1%. What's the, what's the big takeaway here? Like what do you want people to feel? What do you want people to walk away with today?
Wil Schroter: I think we all need to realize we've crossed the, uh, a, a finish line, OK? Cause if we feel like, oh, I'll cross the finish line when, when I exit, you've already lost. You've already lost because I guarantee if that's your only finish line, statistically you won't get there anyway. But more importantly, once you do, if you've not built a habit of gratitude for each of them. Milestones, it won't matter. And if you start with it,
Ryan Rutan: right, yeah, no outcome, right?
Wil Schroter: And, and if you start with that mentality now, like it doesn't matter what I've done, that doesn't mean shit, uh, you know, I have to do the next thing. That's the problem. Yes, by all means, you know, be ambitious and, and, and, and go attack life, but do it with gratitude. And Ryan, I, I think, you know, if, if, if I were to zoom out and say how did I solve the Beverly Hills problem, so to speak, which sounds like the most first world problem of all time, how did I solve it? I changed my perspective. I changed my level of gratitude. So that I could be anywhere, right? I live in in Ohio now and I love it. I've never been happier. I've never had more gratitude. I, my life's never been easier. It's phenomenal, right? This is, this is the Beverly Hills for what I need in my life, and, and I'm so thankful for that. And it didn't take some massive exit, it didn't take some like, you know, entire life change. All that changed for me through this entire thing, through this entire journey that made me whole, was just changing my perspective.
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.