Re-framing age and start-ups
Why is it that most start-ups are formed by young people? There are a lot of answers to that, but "because they can." is one of them. Why "can" they any better than someone who is older? They can because they have not yet constrained themselves with thinking like "Well, I better not try that because I have a family now..." or other self-limiting beliefs. When I feel like I have something to lose, I bias toward protecting that thing that I fear losing. There is a high price to pay for this, and I think that sometimes we need to be shaken and awakened to find just how high a price we are paying. Realistically, someone who is 50 is in a far, far better position to be able to form a company than someone who is 25. I know *I* am in a much better position to form a company now than when I was when I was 25. I have seen a lot of things. I have tons of experience. I am able to interact with difficult people with much more skill. I know what bad ideas look like because I have seen many of them fail. I also know what good ideas look like, and have seen many of them succeed. I understand the difference between the long game and short game. I am able to manage the emotional turmoil of things not going the way that I had hoped or planned. The challenge now is that the structures that I have created in my life need to now support something different than just the usual routine. They need to be re-configured to support the creative process and to nurture an idea into manifestation. The difference at 50 is that I have the resources to re-configure...the fear is much different at 50 though, because there is both more to leverage, and more to lose.