I think there are many falsehoods in the world of startups and venture capital, one of which is the perception of perfection.
When I was an outsider, I looked upon this world with admiration for the backgrounds of the founders and VCs that inhabited it. So many of these folks went to the perfect schools, they had perfect families, their look was perfectly manufactured, they spoke with perfect eloquence – perfection in so many ways.
As I dive deeper into this world, I find so many of these folks are what Angela Duckworth would describe as “Fragile Perfects” – folks who have achieved perfection without ever being fully challenged. When challenges finally arise, unfortunately these folks really struggle because they haven’t been able to develop the coping mechanisms capable of overcoming those challenges.
For better or worse, I was never perfect. I got in trouble, I underperformed in school/sports, I’ve made endless dumb mistakes in my life and a lot of challenges have arisen through that – some through unfortunate circumstances and others that were self-inflicted.
Today, I am the personification of imperfections…and I’m ok with that. I was speaking with one of my founders who was largely unaware of some of the things from my past and we opened up with each other about some of our imperfections. Reflecting upon that conversation, it’s clear that it’s our imperfections that make us who we are today. The mistakes we made and the subsequent challenges that each of us had to overcome from those, enabled us to arrive at the point we are at today. We got knocked down, but we got back up…and we keep getting up.
As I think about those that I interact with, that’s all that matters. It doesn’t matter if you are perfect (no one really is)…all that matters is that you keep getting up. The best founders always get back up.
We have a saying in our household “Are you a winner or a whiner?” The other night, my daughter (she’s 5) was crying because she was scared that she was going to fail at something. I sat down with her and told her it was ok if she did. All that I cared about was whether she kept on getting back up. I asked her “What do we do when we fall?” and she replied (wiping a few tears from her eyes), “We get back up.” I told her “That’s right. If you fail, it will be ok. We can just try again. If we fail the next time, that’s ok and we’ll try again. It’s ok if we fiall, we’ll keep on trying til we succeed. As long as you keep getting back up, you will always be a winner.” She stopped crying and gave me a hug.
There are many things I’m proud of when it comes to my daughter, but above all else, she gets back up. I don’t care how perfect you think you are, perfection doesn’t make you a winner. Getting back up does.