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Rob Artigo: Today’s line is blunt. If you don’t like to worry, don’t start a company. Ray, you ran Mike Row for 37 years, payroll downturns, personal guarantee bigger than your net worth originally, even going legally blind in the middle of an IPO roadshow. What kind of worry comes with the job that people just don’t see before they quit their paycheck?
Ray Zinn: Worry is the key. Did I have things that concern me? Yes. Concern is different than worry. Concern is something that you can do something about. Worry is something you can’t do anything about. And so if you can’t solve the problem and you worry, then that’s a downfall. That’s the kiss of death. So if you don’t like worrying, in other words, if you don’t like fixing problems, if you don’t like resolving issues, then don’t start your company. And I know that sounds like a bit of a tongue twister to say be concerned about everything, but don’t worry about things you can’t change. So if you can’t change something, that means you’re going to worry about it. And you can’t worry about things you can’t change. When I lost my eyesight, I couldn’t change it. I mean, there was nothing I could do to change the outcome of that. And so there was no need to worry about it. I just had to go and work around it. I had to come up with a fix and I did, or work around a pivot as you would. And so that’s why our topic today is if you don’t like to worry, then don’t start your business. So if you don’t like to fix things, then don’t start your company. So that’s what we mean by be concerned about everything, but don’t worry about things you can’t fix. So if you can’t fix it, then don’t do it. Don’t start your company.
Rob Artigo: You’ve said being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart, that passion has to outrun the fear of failing. Where is the line between useful worry and the kind that just eats up the founder?
Ray Zinn: There’s no useful worry. There’s no such a thing as useful worry. What worry does is that it causes you to get distracted. I remember in debate, the way we win a debate is we get our competitor nervous or upset or defocused from what the topic was. That’s how we won the debate. Get your competitor upset and that’s that worry thing. If you get people to start worrying, you’re going to win. And so if I can get my competition in my business a semiconductor, if I got them to worry about me, that was fantastic. I love to get my competitors worried about me because they got distracted. They did foolish things. They did stupid stuff in order to try to counteract the worry as you would. So there’s no such thing as useful worry.
Rob Artigo: Some people think the goal is to stop worrying. Now you’ve talked about you can kind of train for this sort of mental activity. Can a founder learn to carry worry or is this a personality test that either they pass or they just shouldn’t start a company?
Ray Zinn: I start out by saying be concerned, certainly. Be concerned about the economy, be concerned about your product, be concerned about your competitors, but don’t worry about them because worry gets you distracted. I just talked about in a debate, you got your competitor to worry. You got them distracted. So all worry does is distracts you. So if you’re going to worry about things, if you can’t tolerate problems and things going awry, then don’t start your company.
Rob Artigo: Somebody listening to the podcast right now is possibly romanticizing the startup life. Think about it, the move fast and break things and all the kind of cliche things that you think of. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs lighting themselves on fire with energy to get something started without much of a plan. So maybe they’re really good at their craft, but they hate lying awake at night worrying about stuff or they’re worried about this, they’re worried about that and they are overwhelmed with the worry. What should they ask themselves tonight before they actually incorporate anything, before they take the plunge?
Ray Zinn: Do I have the mental resilience? No matter what happens, do I have the mental resilience to stick with it, to stay with the plan or the objective of the company? And so it’s key. I did a lot of testing when we see a product that we were talking about introducing. We talk about having the equal number of cons that you do with pros, so the pros and cons. We made sure that we looked at all the cons, all the things that can go wrong because if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. Trust me, it will happen. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Recently Meta, this is that Facebook, Instagram company, they lost a big lawsuit and the distraction that their product was having with young people and now they got to pay out $17 billion over the next 10 years. That’s a hit.
Ray Zinn: That’s something that will happen. You’re going to suffer setbacks like that and you have to be willing to absorb that and move forward without harming your investors or your employees.
Rob Artigo: So, the company will give you problems whether you ask for them or not. And really for the listeners, if that prospect makes you miserable, maybe you should be thinking about taking a different path.
Ray Zinn: Exactly.
Rob Artigo: Listeners can continue this conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Questions and comments are welcome for Ray. You’ll also find the podcast archives and the books, The Tough Things First, The Essential Leader, and the Zen of Zen series, including the latest Zen of Zen Daily. Follow Ray on X, Facebook and LinkedIn. Until next time, do the tough things first, right Ray?
Ray Zinn: Let’s do it.
