The Ten Meter Tower
Why you have so much to gain from taking a bet on yourself.
Panic!
Two years ago on a seemingly ordinary train ride home I got a call from a former colleague and friend. I had little idea that the next 10 minutes would alter the course of my life and career. As the passing landscape and trees outside became a green blur, I listened as my old colleague told me how they had just finished the Y-combinator summer program and raised a few million dollars in seed funding for their company. “We want you to come on as our first employee and founding engineer.” -BAM!
The first thing to hit was panic and fear. The train car seemed to close in on me. I could feel my heart racing and I felt a lump forming in my throat and butterflies in my stomach. I wanted to jump out of the train and just run.
The second thing that hit me was disbelief and rejection as my brain’s logical processing of the conversation overcame my sympathetic nervous system’s fight or flight response. Was this even real? I can’t possibly do this. Why me? I had a well-paid job at a large corporation with a team that I enjoyed working with, and with a bright future ahead. My wife and I had recently bought a house in CT and we had been trying to get pregnant for the past few months. Needless to say: stability was what we both agreed on was best to manage our overhead and the prospect of starting a family.
After a few more minutes on the phone, I ended the conversation in the most polite way I could: “Let me talk to my wife about it.” A bit of relief washed over me as I hung up the phone, but it barely lasted 30 seconds when my mind started racing again. As I tossed the proposition around in my head, trying to find anything - something that would “disprove” my initial gut reaction, I sensed a seed of curiosity buried deep within myself. “What if I said yes?” As my brain was giving me the equivalent of a “Danger! Hazard ahead!” sign, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had uncovered something deeper that seemed to whisper: “You’ll probably never get this chance again.”
Seeds of Wonder
This progression from panic to disbelief to curiosity is the same feeling you get when you do something extremely outside of your comfort zone. You witness the effects of a well functioning endocrine system in children on their first rollercoaster ride or when you ask a group of adults to jump off of a 10-meter high diving platform. My body had somehow perceived danger, but it wasn’t from coming face to face with an imminent life-threatening situation. No. I had simply been asked to do something that I would normally have never done on my own volition. I was frightened not just by the unknowns, but by the total control I had over the decision. I could just say no and forget the last 20 minutes ever happened. I would continue on my peaceful way back home, share a mostly uneventful evening with my wife, and enjoy a deep and calming night sleep before doing (mostly) the same thing tomorrow. But, whether I liked it or not that little seed of doubt, sowed a mere 30 minutes ago, had other plans - I just couldn’t shake it.
As I got off the train, I immediately started to think about how to tell my wife. We had a vacation coming up - should I just wait until then to break the news? I decided I couldn’t possibly wait - there was just too many significant questions worries that I needed answers to now. How would she feel about me taking on a lower paid and much riskier job? Would that add more stress on her to support our family? Could it jeopardize our current lifestyle? Was that fair, selfish, or immature? How would that affect our relationship and our life? To what extend would I go to sacrifice my own career, ambitions, and status for her? It all seemed too far fetched - solidly out of the question. Yet, there it was, that little voice telling me it was all in my head. Instead of speaking to my fears and worries, it spoke to my sense of adventure, wonder, and opportunity.
As I had anticipated, the first conversation with my wife did not go over well. The rough response was something along the lines of: “Are you crazy?” Where I saw adventure and opportunity, she saw hardship and regret. Over the course of the next week as we packed our bags and prepared for our summer vacation with my parents, I could sense the air was thick and still between us. My hope was that some time away from work to clear the mind and immerse ourselves in a foreign country would help assuage the potential uncertainty that I had introduced and allow us to consider alternate perspectives so we could confidently make the decision that I simultaneously feared and hoped. By this time, I was now standing on the very edge; my knees week beneath me.
I’ll spare you all the details of our trip - we had a great time for the most part. We celebrated our friends’ beautiful wedding, learned to make homemade pasta with Nona Nora, and floated in the Mediterranean Sea. The only bad time we had was at dinner on the 3rd to last night when conversation accidentally steered towards the question we all were trying to avoid up until now. To this day, I blame the wine.
The next day brought warm sunshine and a rightfully deserved headache. As I walked the steep steps down to the water with my dad, we talked about balancing career ambitions with a marriage and family - lessons that unfortunately he learned too late. When “you’re on the same team, you respect and support each other; you nurture dreams and face fears head-on together.” Alone something might be near-impossible, but collectively, you can accomplish a great deal more. Life becomes a lot more “moldable”.
As I sat on the edge of the pier with my feet dangling in the water, I felt strangely at peace with the rhythmic waves lapping at my feet and the oceanic expanse stretching out in front of me. I watched as my wife approached. Her smile confused me - weren’t you angry with me from last night? She sat down next to me and swung her legs over the edge into the water. She leaned over, placed her hat in my hands, and whispered something into my ear. I looked down and I saw a little strip of paper with two blue lines on it. Almost immediately, tears swelled up in my eyes. She was pregnant! Everything about last night was immediately forgotten and nothing else seemed important besides us, sitting next to each other, hand in hand.
Leap of Faith
When you consider things from the perspective of life (and death), everything else seems almost trivial. During this existential crises, what I began to realize was the importance of making deliberate decisions with the time I had. What you do doesn’t matter too much - it’s why you do it.
Over the course of the next week after we got home from our trip, I talked to as many people as I could: friends, co-workers, fathers, wives, and close family. I ran outside for long distances (this helps me clear my head). I hypothesized many different future scenarios. And most importantly, I took an honest look at myself. While I would be giving up a good opportunity to stay and grow in my current role and company if I said yes, I realized I would be giving up a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity if I said no.
While startups are an extremely risky business, most of the risk is concentrated in the composition of the founding team. Not only did I see the founders as intelligent, trustworthy, and ambitious, I saw how much they cared about others and the world they lived in. And they wanted me to help them? If they were willing to take a bet on me, then by association, I would be taking a huge bet on myself! Someone once told me: “Invest in what you know better than others”. I’m certainly not a professional investor or risk-seeking venture capitalist, but if there was one thing I knew better than anyone else in the world - it was myself and what I was capable of. I also trusted the founders, not just their technical chops but their quality of character. Deep down I knew that even if the company failed in two years, I would have made a huge investment and I would leave, forever changed, a better version of myself.
Ultimately, it was a mutual leap. My wife and I made the “YOLO” equivalent decision to take a risk, lean-in and fully commit to each-other. Me to her pregnancy and to being an active part in our future family. And her to supporting and believing in me and my decision to take an (educated) risk on myself. We were choosing people and relationships over algorithms and money. We were choosing the difficult, uncomfortable path when everything around us was geared toward convenience and commodity. In a modern world mostly void of hard commitments and investments in ideas and people actually trying to solve hard problems and do social good, it felt liberating to break out of the stereotypical mold of suburban-corporate-finance!
As I reflect on this experience two years later, my life has somehow become unimaginably better than what I expected. After our daughter was born, my wife decided she couldn’t possibly give up the time to be a mother and return to a full-time job she hated. While we were both nervous about the financial implications of that decision, she wouldn’t have it any other way and I (secretly) couldn’t have been happier with her wanting (and actually having the freedom to choose) to raise our daughter. Without her salary, we needed to sell our house and decided to move full-time to the Hudson valley to raise our family. Within 6 months, she was already working on a business plan and using our kitchen as a laboratory/operation center - all while taking care of our daughter full time. In May of this year, she officially launched her own small business - something I am immensely proud of her for. And importantly, I get to be a part of it all. I get to see my daughter’s first smile, read her a book every night before bed, take her on my runs in the morning, show her our garden, and eat dinner together everyday as a family.
Would any of this have been possible if I decided not to take a leap of faith? Maybe not.
Was it frightening? Absolutely.
Did it strengthen bonds of friendship & marriage? Without a doubt.
Was it worth it? No question.
When I made my Ten Meter Tower jump, there was one thought that constantly ran through my mind that eventually led me to jump. The thought was me laying in my deathbed looking back at my life, imagining how I would have felt if I did or didn't take the jump. The regret of having not tried something I could have truly loved was greater than the fear of failing. So I jumped.
Excited to be on this journey with you.
Love this Matt