Dear Entrepreneur,

There’s a rebel spirit in side of you, which has a beautiful cadence and manifests in challenging authority, refusing to be pinned down.

This force finds opportunity where others don't see it. It's the persistence to carry on long after others have quit.

I celebrate you.

Structure Allows 200 mph on the Autobahn

I also fear for you.

I fear you question and challenge authority and structure just because it’s authority and structure.

Structure is, quite often, the gateway to freedom.

Just look at a Pakistani outdoor market. The traffic is congested, everyone honking and yelling at one another. No progress.

Then think of the Autobahn. 200 mph because there’s structure everyone agrees to, namely driving on the proper side of the road. Structure provides incredible freedom.

A 12 year-old often protests against everything their parents say, just because it’s their parents who say it.

A 30 year old can (should?) peacefully evaluate and accept reasonable and fair structure and all the freedom it creates.

At the end of the day: do you like the results you're getting with the level of structure you've got? Or is there break-down and frustration in your life?

Survival of the Most Adaptable

"Survival of the fittest" was never Darwin's stance.

It was "Survival of the most adaptable."

Humans are weak, hairless, soft, sensitive beings. Yet we corral and control beasts 10 times our size and sit atop the food chain. We are the most adaptable.

Succeeding as an Entrepreneur requires us to be fast to understand and adapt.

After all, we don’t get mad at the skies when it rains, or mad at gravity when our pen falls to the ground and breaks. We grab an umbrella and a pen jar.

Being mad at a client, teammate, or ad platform is less useful than realizing (and accepting) we're now playing ice hockey and need to swap out our Air Jordans for Bauer ice skates.

Being response-able is being responsible.

Growth Creates Complexity

The more we grow our businesses, the more complex our businesses become.

Having one teammate means you've got one relationship to manage.

Having 50 teammates is not 50 relationships. It's literally, mathematically, 1,225 relationships. It's not a linear expansion, it's geometric.

If there's only 1 vehicle on a country road, few rules are needed.

But if there's 1,225 vehicles on the road, we need complex structures to keep everyone safely moving: traffic signs, traffic lights, lane markings, speed limits, etc.

Everything has a tradeoff:

• The tradeoff for size is complexity

• The tradeoff for complexity is structure.

• The tradeoff for structure is learning how to build people, strategy, process, and tools.

• The tradeoff for learning is humbling ourselves, regaining a beginner's mind, and risking both failure and evaluation.

Courage is the Price of Admission

If you want to grow as a CEO, the cost of doing business is courage.

To overcome the fear of failure.

To overcome the fear of evaluation.

To overcome the fear of rejection when it's time for the tough conversation.

And to overcome the fear of surrender. Surrendering to the needs of your business, like a parent surrendering to the needs of their child when it's 2am and the baby is screaming for a bottle.

It reminds me of the African Proverb: "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

Constantly evolving and growing is the path of the Entrepreneur-CEO. With it, you can build a wonderful business that provides incredible reward for many for years to come.

Onwards and Upwards,

Tim :)