5 muslin Custom-Fit Riding Jacket Prototypes for 5 beta client woman
Yesterday I picked up the muslin Riding Jackets. You may notice that last week there was no Weekly Letter. I was holding the letter for when I received the muslins. WE HAVE THEM. And today is the first fitting with professional tailor, Nighisti Selby.
I will send an update on our progress as we work our way through the fittings next week.
This week I want to share some reflections I had on careful and calm decision-making in a world that seems to keep pushing us to do more and go faster. If you have experience with the start-up world, the bias tends to be to move faster, push harder, accelerate. The word “accelerate” may sound like a dream come true for those of us slogging in the start-up trenches where you learn sometimes agonizing lessons about patience. And so last week I observed the disconnect between the lessons I’ve learned about slowing down and building a strong foundation, in contrast to the feeling to urgently build it right now, before someone else, ideally have it done yesterday.
Early on in my business, I assumed that this push to move quickly was right and that any anxiety I felt about not moving that fast was some inner resistance to achieving something great, emotional gunk if you will. But I have come to see that beautiful businesses, ideas, innovations, are built over decades. The true innovations that stand the test of time were not built over night or even over a few short years.
The tricky part in the world of forging our own path is to keep the path in focus in our noisy, distracted, pressure filled world. Post more social media, move quicker, grow faster. Jump towards this opportunity and that one. Get blown around in the storm of racing after this and that. OR get quiet. Get in touch with your strength. Trust what you’ve learned. What feels right?
Where I am standing, there are not that many people alongside me looking at the same facts, having learned, often the hard way, how to solve this problem, what the complexity of it looks like, what the texture of the terrain on the path ahead looks like. And though there is still so much I do not know, so much that is yet to be learned, I have learned to trust my knowledge of this problem. And so now, when there is a push in this direction or that direction, this accelerator program, or that grant opportunity, I can get quiet and use my experience to sift through the noise and find the answer. So much work, so much sweat blood and tears to get here, but so worth it.
Go, fight, win.
Reid