18) Day by Day

Behind-the-scenes building Vambrace AI, a company on a mission to figure out its mission. Please pardon the stream-of-consciousness style. Subscribe to follow along or visit the site here:

(typos are to make sure you’re paying attention)

Introductory Remarks

Dear Vambracers —

In last week’s post, Hotline Bling, I discussed the strategy for a cold-calling campaign in support of general business development and top-of-funnel sales activities for my services model pivot. I am pleased to report that I procrastinated a bit on the actual outreach for most of the week and didn’t make as much progress as I would have liked—but that’s sometimes just how the cookie crumbles with these things.

[Huge bounce back win for the Steelers, but still a lot of stuff to clean up. I’m nervous that the Vikings are gonna rock us next week, but I guess I should just enjoy the win while it’s here.]

Revisiting near-term mindset

In today’s post, I’d like to identify some core day to day operating principles that I really want to adopt in the immediate-term. I did a more general exploration of mindset principles as my third ever post (ref: Mindset) but that covered high-level and longer-term beliefs around the pursuit of entrepreneurship and company building. Today, I want to get a little more immediate and practical, particularly as I accelerate my business development efforts. Let’s get into it!

Rhythm and structure

I have a lot of time on my hands right now—and that’s a blessing and a curse. There’s a lot of time to work on things, but it’s also highly unstructured currently—and I think I’m not positive where and how to structure my days. I’m excited by the opportunity to figure it out, and to create a schedule and rhythm that works for me and like amplifies my output and stuff—but I’m just at the super early stages of that process.

Day by day (s/o Godspell)

I have many guiding aspirations all centered around a North Star of building a real, meaningful business. That’s really the goal here. I want to hire people; I want to eventually have an office; I want to delight customers; etc. And then even on a personal level I kind of have a good sense of North-Star who I want to become and where I hope to take my life. But I realized this past week that my intense ambition for certain long-term outcomes can actually distract from immediate-term execution (as in, like, day to day). And so as I move forth now, I’m really trying to get super intentional about not thinking more than a day or two into the future and getting hyper-focused on what I can do in each moment and in each day to advance the objectives of the business. And I think if I can really adopt a more immediate-focus approach—at least for the next like 3-6 months—then the longer-term success and possibilities will sort of take care of themselves.

In other words, I’m realizing that planning for the future, in any level of detail, is a luxury reserved for those with some amount of product-market fit or reliable income. The pressure is clarifying, which I want, but it’s also a mindset shift I need to embrace.

This is scary

The human condition is defined by paradoxical feelings. For me lately, it’s been immense fear and nervousness despite confidence and self-belief. Particularly as I start marketing myself and my services, it feels weird to so explicitly sell to folks. I know maybe that’s a ridiculous thing to say, but I’ve always subscribed to more subtle forms of selling. And so now that I literally have to call strangers and try to get them interested in what I offer, it’s just an uncomfortable situation for me. I know that growth follows fear, but it’s just easy to forget how crippling fear can be and how much courage is required to push past the fear, to reach the growth. And so I think as I really try to get this snowball rolling, I just want to be sort of gentle with myself that this is a scary and difficult thing I’m trying to do—but that that’s why I’m doing it and that’s also why I’ve intentionally removed any and all exit ramps. I want to be here and I want to be feeling this; even though it’s super scary.

It’s all on me

Speaking of fear and uncertainty, the hardest part about entrepreneurship right now is that it’s all entirely on me (which, again, I want). Like, I have to face my fear and make the call; I have to figure out the words that compel someone to give me their time and capital; and I have to press the buttons and manipulate the bits that effect the outcome the customer desires. It’s on me. I have a wonderful support system, which I’m very grateful for, but there’s also no super well-defined playbook or system here that I’m following (which is also somewhat by design, btw). So I think, I’m working to embrace the buck—it’s just harder to stop when nobody else is there to try to slow it down.

Grace, too (s/o the Hip)

The last thing that I’m really focused on: I’m obviously talking very openly about a lot of my insecurities and the difficulties associated with this journey. And they’re very real. But I also do really believe in myself, and no matter what happens in life I’m not going to go down without a fight—and I’m going to give my all to this—and I’m going to push and push and push. You get the picture.

And so I think entrepreneurship can just feel very vulnerable and isolating, and so I want to also have grace with myself and with the experience and let myself be vulnerable and feel the challenges and then enjoy the successes (which hopefully start some point soon!) and just embrace this entire experience as a constructive use of my life. It’s kind of obvious but it’s also worth noting, I think.

Looking Forward

That’s all I have for you this week. Now that we’re really actually getting into it I have to start putting my money where my mouth is—and that’s pretty terrifying. But the best parts of the soul burst from the seams of terror. Or at least I hope that’s the case.

Have a wonderful week!

Sincerely,

Luke