regarding victories

I find that often when I’m in need of a message, it comes to me from a few different sources. In this case, it came first from a mentor that has already meant an unspeakable amount to our venture. She’s the founder of a company that I have an immense amount of respect for, and she said that one of the things that she didn’t do enough early on was celebrate the victories. She said that startup founders often get bogged down in ‘what’s next’ type thinking which is of course what makes them entrepreneurs. I can identify with this – even with each little victory, it can be tough to celebrate because you still realize that you have so far to go. Yet the power of celebration is undeniable – the exultation in ‘hell yeah we did it! Woo!!’ (or even the quiet triumph in ‘we did it. Yes.’) is a huge momentum builder for everyone involved. Your employees need it, you friends love it because they get a chance to cheer you on, and most of all you need it.

This message was powerfully reinforced by a good friend of mine when I was describing a set of challenges we’d been facing. He said, ‘look, I know that it sometimes feels like you’re not moving fast enough, that enough isn’t getting done. But dude, think about it. In just this year, you built and launched an entire freaking company and won 75,000 dollars to go live the dream – and those are just the front page headlines! Sometimes you have to ignore the one hole you three putted and remember the fairways you’ve been hitting all day long.” And he was right.

Consider only the victories. And when they come, celebrate them.