A friend who just started a company texted me last night and asked:

"What's the best piece of advice you have for me?

What do you wish someone told you when you were running these companies?"

Here's what I answered

Work on yourself:

Meditation, therapy, exercise, get good mentors, find a network of founders at your level

Every hour you put into yourself will pay huge dividends in the long run

Don’t worry about goals or outcomes, only worry about building a framework for directional progress

You don’t control the outputs, you only control the inputs

Money and success are downstream of relationships, hard work, and experimentation.

In the beginning I severely underweighted how important it was to exist in a sustainable equilibrium. I.e. if you hate your life you will burnout or quit.

That’s not to say don’t work hard. But it’s about creating a structure that supports you working as hard as possible.