When you're in your own way

Is your focus on truth, or on yourself?

I’m speaking to the Theanna community tomorrow, a platform supporting female tech founders on the path from 0 to 1.

I committed to them that we’d talk about when to pivot, and how to do it well. But when I sat down to make my deck, I realized that prioritizing the tactics of pivoting wasn’t going to be the greatest value I could offer them.

Time and time again, I see as a coach that you can give people tools and tactics, but if those tools and tactics don’t resonate personally with the user, then they can fall short of delivering the desired transformation.

Sometimes the tactics don’t align with how some people process and absorb new information. Other times, people have the best of intentions to adopt the tools, but have a hard time building consistency in using them.

So I decided that I want the bulk of the talk to be about adopting a truth-seeking mindset as the most important lens to hold as a founder. Without it, you won’t be open to pivoting even when your business needs you to, to survive.

A truth-seeking mindset is one of forming hypotheses, then pursuing insight that will ultimately prove or disprove them. It’s a mindset that frees you from your own and others’ subjectivity, if you’re willing to let it.

As nice as this sounds, adopting a truth-seeking mindset is hard because it requires you to set aside the things you prefer or yearn to be true. It’s especially hard to do when your identity and values are intrinsically tied to your business. Sometimes the intersections will make your head want to explode!

To open our minds to letting go of what we think is true, especially when faced with evidence that tells us otherwise, we need to identify which voices are dominating in our minds. Are the voices self-centered, or truth-centered?

To discern between the two, write the lyrics of the soundtrack in your head next to the soundtrack of focusing on truth. Write, quite literally, side-by-side.

For the Theanna community, the soundtrack I’m offering as an example is a common one I’ve gathered through talking with dozens and dozens of women tech founders: where pressure on oneself struggles against being unattached to receive truth freely.

I have a hypothesis that this approach to the session is going to land. I’ll get to the tactical, but I’m not going to lead with that. And I’ll get on that Zoom call open to whatever the response is, to help me get closer to exactly what the group needs.

Wish me luck.

Do you have a soundtrack in your head that’s getting in in the way of being truth-seeking? Hit reply if you’re curious to talk through it.