The Go/No Go Date
"Feeling fear goes hand-in-hand with being ambitious. Imposter syndrome is real and normal. In fact, if you aren't feeling fear in what you do, I'd argue that you aren't being ambitious enough." Here's a way to build in the fear and do it anyway.
It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Corey Ford and his approach. It’s not an arms-length relationship: he invested in Known, I came to work for him as west coast Director of Investments at Matter Ventures, and I get a lot of value out of his ongoing coaching at Point C. Given that relationship, the ideas he’s been publishing on his website aren’t new to me, but I appreciate his condensing them down into resources I can point other people to. They’re very good ideas, articulated into repeatable frameworks that are easy to understand.
The Go / No-Go Date is a really important tool for anyone building a startup or innovation project.
“Feeling fear goes hand-in-hand with being ambitious. Imposter syndrome is real and normal. In fact, if you aren't feeling fear in what you do, I'd argue that you aren't being ambitious enough.
The goal isn’t to avoid fear. The goal is to feel the fear, name it, and act anyway. Your job as an ambitious person is to practice standing in fear, becoming comfortable in that spot, and doing what you set out to do.
[…] The Go / No Go Date is an exercise that you can do early on in a journey of ambition that helps you manage that fear in order to maximize your energy and utilize the precious runway that you have.”
Imposter syndrome? Moi?
The Go / No-Go Date is all about giving yourself permission to do something risky, because there’s a defined date when you’ll evaluate if you should keep doing it. For me, the power is in allowing yourself to face the fear that something might not succeed and build it into the process. In doing so, you’re not constantly struggling with that fear, watering down your ambition in the process.
You’re also not ignoring the fear, which some founders erroneously think is a sign of strength. Being clear-eyed about what the worst thing that can happen actually is allows you to plan for it and establish frameworks that allow you to innovate anyway. Anything less than realism about the pitfalls is magical thinking — but this simple idea allows you to be brave and try something new anyway.
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