Make Room For What They Can Handle

When I graduated from college, I received a job offer. The offer was to pay me nothing unless I made a sale. In hindsight, I am unsure how I decided that was a good idea or why no one didn't advise me against it.

The pitch was that every year, you would wake up with no base salary but the potential to earn as much as you wanted to based on how he does, how good you are, the caliber of your clients, etc.

I ended up being rookie of the year nationally, so it turned out okay, but damn, that was one hell of a way to start my professional life.

I was given a mentor, one of the older salespeople in the firm. He said to me, "Andy, the key to succeeding in this business is to tell your wife or your partner exactly how much money will be in the family bank account every single month, and no matter what, never miss that number. The first month that you miss that number will be the month that there will be doubt in their mind about what you're doing is actually the work that you should be doing.

"I've been able to work at this job for over 25 years because I've never missed that number. And my wife knows that there are some months where we make a lot more than that number and there are some months that we make a lot less than that number, but for the stability and sanity of our household, she knows that there will always be that number in the family bank account, and my job is always to make sure that that's true."

I was thinking about this piece of advice this weekend as I was sitting on the beach with my wife and sister-in-law. There had been a recent storm in Montauk that had carried a bunch of rocks up onto the beach and I thought it would be a great idea to see how high I could stack them. (I might have been inspired by this guy)

As my stack got higher and higher, I started to notice that I wasn't the only one paying attention to my creation. As I placed the ninth, then the 10th, the 11th rock, I would see the enthusiasm, first from my wife and my sister-in-law, but then from a couple of other beachgoers who were watching me as my balancing act climbed over three feet and then four feet tall.

I would put the 12th or the 13th and the 14th rock on top, and suddenly, something would wobble, and the whole thing would fall over. In my head. I thought, "Interesting. I think I know how I will do that better the next time."

But then I noticed that the others watching became very invested in how high I was building my rock tower. They started telling me that that was high enough. They started saying that's a good place to stop. Let's just have it be there. They started being really sad when, inevitably, I would go for one more, and the whole thing would fall over.

I've also experienced that as an entrepreneur, building companies, trying to do things that have never been done before, trying to put a dent in the universe, and making sure that my impact in my time on this earth is felt. Sometimes, in pursuit of the difference that I'm trying to make, in the work that I'm trying to do, I build a little bit too much in public, to the point that others get invested in the process.

And while I might have the stomach to fail and rebuild, to fail and rebuild, to fail or rebuild, I sometimes have forgotten that sharing the process with others involves them to where they feel like they have a stake in the game. They get their hopes up for my high hopes. When things don't turn out, they sometimes feel a deeper level of sadness than I felt because they were the observers watching me attempt to pull something off but there wasn't anything that they could do about it.

Being the man in the proverbial ring means I always feel like there's something else I can do. There's always something else I can change for the next time.

But their observation is that the deal still hasn't closed, the project still hasn't been paid, and the work hasn't been created. Those of us daring greatly have a responsibility to shoulder some of the intricacies and the ups and downs of the process because no one else, no matter how much they want to, ever fully understands or cares about the thing as much as we do.

Entrepreneurship, just like being an artist or an athlete, can be incredibly lonely. And not because you don't have support from family and friends. And not because no one cares what you are endeavoring to do. But because sometimes there is simply no way to fully share the depth of the lows or the energy of the highs with anyone in a way that does your experience of them any justice.

And because sometimes, when you try to, you push their limits further than what they can truly handle as you rise and fall again and again on your way to your ultimate vision for what life has for you.

One of the best habits my wife Maddie and I got into during the pandemic when we were both working from home was to ask a simple question before sharing what was top of mind for us:

"Do you have the capacity to drop in with me right now?"

Good or bad, whatever might have been going on in each of our businesses needed to be met with an acknowledgment of the other person being in a place to be ready to roll with it.

So make room for what they can handle so they can make room to ride the ride with you.

Have a fantastic final week in August; get excited for a new series in the Make Room universe starting next month!

Andy

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