Let’s Talk About Myths in the Startup World
Myths that say startups are the most important thing in your life. It has become the norm, and even celebrated, for a startup founder to sacrifice everything for the success of their company. We idolize founders who don’t eat, sleep, stop working, take vacations, bathe, change clothes, see friends, and live in poverty.
We idolize founders who drop out of college and sleep in their investors’ offices, like Elon Musk who slept on the Twitter couch, sending tweets at 4am. We accept that as long as our company grows, it doesn’t matter how much health, relationships, and well-being we sacrifice. In fact, we desire it. Like a form of privilege that accumulates in “rockstar” status.
But the cost is very high. We suffer by sacrificing our health, relationships, and well-being for the success of our company. And in the end, we apologize and invite you to change this narrative.
We must prioritize our own health and well-being above everything else. We must celebrate and appreciate rest, vacations, meaningful relationships, and taking care of our body, mind, and soul — above all else. We must fill social media with posts that celebrate how much we sleep, how much time we spend with our loved ones, how much exercise we do, and how long we meditate, not how much income or money we accumulate.
