#48 - A Founder's Find

If you are a Founder.....

—the joys of your successors will touch your scars. You might feel renewed pains of the entrepreneurial journey in such a moment. You might not. You will remember the pain, though. There is little difference. If your scars are festering when your successor gets a win, you will mutter and need to tell someone about the past. You might even resent that the credit hasn't been shared with you. Sipping that addictive poison might be momentarily therapeutic, but it will not help.

If your scars have healed, you can smile, rejoicing with those who rejoice, albeit through tears.

—refusal and blame flow in your direction, even if not directed at you. When you ran the organization, refusal and blame were sand in the gears, limiting the speed of the journey to future value you felt you alone were seeing. You had to figure it out—blowing out the sand—for the vision to live. Now that your vision is in the leadership hands of others, refusal and blame will be directed your way for whatever doesn't work for them. They will have to figure out that you are not their problem for their vision to live.

Going deeper: some truth-telling from Gary Vaynerchuk

Combining these insights, we know that accolades and new opportunities growing from your figuring it out will gather around your successors. Credit for good results flows to them. Any refusal or blame will flow your way for some time after you are gone.? Both will touch your scars.

The best ointment I've found for a Founder's scarring draws on an even deeper history than the company's founding. History did not begin with me. It didn't start with you, either. And history certainly did not begin when our successors took the helm. Our lives are possible because of the scars our parents and predecessors bore, their parents and predecessors, and theirs before them.

Honestly! Why would I want my scars to limit opportunities for current or future joy?

As a founder, I can enjoy greater triumphs that match deeper sorrow. There is a beautiful balancing if I choose to see and claim it.?

Each of us is pock-marked, broken, patched together, deciding how to bring ourselves to the world with our smiling, tear-stained faces and limping, purposeful stride. ??

In My Backpack:

This Great Courses textbook gives focused summaries of Mr. Satterfield's lectures on the Mind-Body connection, drawing on medicine, psychology, sociology, and comparative religion.?

This little volume is a go-to resource for my growing work with Mygrow and the development of emotional intelligence in people and organizations. ??

Executive Thinking is a?source for being and thinking as an executive who links the world's future to their enterprise mission and its profitable operations. Here you will find some of the soul-searching, middle-of-the-night, honest reflections at the core of who we are becoming as leaders.

A Systems Convener and Executive Advisor walking alongside accomplished executives in the third turn of their careers, Mark L. Vincent, Ph.D., EPC, loves leaders who love leaders.

In his own third turn, Mark continues to grow his capacity for wise advising, artful facilitation, and public presentation.

Mark has founded?Maestro-level leaders,?Design Group International,?and the?Society for Process Consulting and authored a number of books, including Listening Helping Learning. He now partners with Mygrow to build an emotionally intelligent world.