Being a founder with heart & vision

What the Mindfuck of a founder looks like

During spring of this year, I decided: I will quit my great job and leave my even better colleagues to start my own business… another crazy woman!

And frankly, that is what I feel like. Especially while I am writing my business plan and have to draw up a profitability forecast for the first few years of my business, I feel sick. I keep thinking how insane I am. What numbers I must achieve to keep myself afloat. Yes, maybe you have thought up to this point: “She’s setting up a new startup very relaxed and easy” (Not that startups are relaxed and easy to set up, but there are born founders among us…)

I’m bringing my vision to life!

I want to support people, teams, work cultures and thus our society to learn to look more to the inside to discover their strength instead of constantly consuming and seeking confirmation.

I’m tired of watching all of us racing for Likes, for looks from men/women in the club, for the boss’ praise in the job. How we make decisions only for our CV, choose dates through pictures and matches, and count overtime as part of a normal working week.

We have looked to the outside for long enough when seeking answers and insights and compared ourselves to everything and everyone. And I believe we all know that this is not the healthy way to go in the long-run.

I think it’s about time that we finally start to trust ourselves more, learn to reflect more and listen to our inner voice.

I want a society full of people who do not fear each other, who don’t have to evaluate each other and thus diminish themselves – but can grow up – all of them, with and next to each other. Because they can do it and because they want to!

That is my vision, and that is what drives me – every day.

But integrating a vision like that into life is work. I thought it would be easier for me because it is my vision. There you are, imagining you have a full supply of energy, which lasts until you have reached your vision. But no, I probably reach a moment each and every day, where I ask myself:

“Is this the way to go? Why are you doing this?”

I’ve always been someone who preferred to walk the cobbled path rather than the paved road, so I know all about it. But setting up my own business on my own is a completely new road – I’m building this road, it hasn’t been built before.

I have emotional ups and downs and yes, I love it and I hate it. It is chaos and order at the same time. I have a name in my head, and then I throw it out again. I know what I want to offer and what I want to call the formats. Two minutes later, I think it’s a little stupid. I write a text that I love in the evening – in the morning I delete it completely. Argh!

Except for all the paperwork….

It took me a long time to trust the wisdom of my heart, but then I reached the point where I knew I could no longer ignore it. Now, everything I do comes from my heart.

“That’s great!”, my coach would say.

And yes, of course, I thought I could take the safer option and build my own heart project on the side, while working my regular job. But fortunately, I had very special colleagues who challenged me with this idea a lot. I will never forget how I heard: “We feel like your heart is no longer here with us.” And they were right.

But where was my heart?

On that day, I drove into the forest, into the beautiful Grunewald in Berlin, and searched for my heart. And I found it again: at Pichelswerder on a footbridge at the Havel.

There it was, sitting and saying to me: “Go your way!”

It had said that to me many times in my last 30 years. And one thing I have learned, is to follow my heart and listen to its voice.

And now I’m sitting here in front of my laptop, at 10:44 pm in Berlin-Kreuzberg, writing texts. Texts about me, my approach, my vision, my ideas, my life and I’m building a fancy website that should provide a suitable framework for all these contents.

That’s hard as hell. Especially I too grew up in a society where confirmation from the outside is so important and what I write is not just anything. No, I’m writing my website. People should be attracted by my ideas and messages and pay money for wanting to work with me. So, it needs to sound plausible and look appealing.

Then my little perfectionist knocks on the door again (and I thought I finally saw her walk away in peace through many reflections and meditations). But no, exactly when I’m close dealing with my after-work plans, at precisely that moment she knocks on the door and says to me :”Everything  you’re writing is bullshit, nobody wants to read this anyway and how can you think you know how to do all of this?!”

Some evenings, it makes me sick. I think that’s what some people call inner demons. We all have them and they become increasingly loud when you spend a lot of time with yourself and walk the path of your heart. Because by doing so I become vulnerable, I can no longer explain everything logically and rationally and take the risk that my heart will not dock or connect …

But hey, I’m doing it anyway, because I want it, because my heart tells me so and because I believe that hearts and visions with a sense of change making always find a connection….

 

This article was also published on EDITION F – read here. 

 


Photocredit: Ian Schneider – unsplash.com

 

Being a founder with heart & vision