Lesson 8: Do or do not. There is no try.

The power of commitment and integrity

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One of the things I enjoyed most about surrounding myself with founders was being able to truly count on them to do what they say they’ll do. This creates a beautiful, frictionless space—a sense of safety and the feeling that you have an army of soldiers you can rely on.

Usually, it goes like this: you hop on a call with another founder, talk about how you can help each other, and they suggest making an intro to someone who can open a new door for you. Typically, within an hour after you hang up, you’ll find those intro emails in your inbox.

No more waiting days or weeks for someone to follow through on a promise or even respond to your request. Founders have a habit of doing small things like this immediately to keep them from piling up.

If it’s something they can’t do in the next hour, they’ll usually tell you when they can—like “tonight” or “tomorrow”—and then they’ll do it.

What a relief!

I remember being in environments where people couldn’t even promise or commit to doing something by a certain time. Or if they did, they would often postpone, cancel at the last minute, and come up with all kinds of reasons why it didn’t happen.

Plans changed. Unexpected things happened. I didn’t have time. Something urgent came up. I was so busy, it slipped my mind.

Those are some of the most common excuses people make.

Do plans change for entrepreneurs? You bet they do.

Do unexpected things happen for entrepreneurs? Pretty much every day.

Do entrepreneurs have more time than other people? Clearly not.

Do urgent things come up? Of course—and it’s a founder’s job to minimize that.

Are entrepreneurs less busy? No need to answer another rhetorical question.

The truth is, if you want to do something, you find a way. If you don’t want to do it, you find excuses. We all know that.

Keeping commitments is how you build trust in yourself and enhance your self-confidence. Other people trusting you is a by-product of that.

This is fundamental to building personal integrity and aligning your actions with your values.

Every time you fail to do something you said you’d do, you chip away at your self-respect. Every time you follow through, you create evidence that you can trust yourself. Self-belief is essential for entrepreneurship—you can’t even start a business without believing in yourself, let alone make it successful.

The connection between commitment and integrity is foundational in leadership. Commitment reflects dedication to fulfilling promises and achieving goals despite challenges. Integrity involves ethical behavior and consistency between what you say and what you do.

Imagine a would-be founder saying: “I’m going to try to build a business. I’ll try to be successful.” Would you want to join or follow this person?

If someone is constantly changing their mind, postponing deadlines, or altering their outlined actions, how much trust would you have in them? Would you want to work with them?

In her work on vulnerability and leadership, Brené Brown emphasizes the deep connection between commitment and integrity in teams and leadership. She often cites the importance of “choosing courage over comfort” when honoring commitments. This means choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy, and practicing values rather than merely professing them.

Integrity involves standing firm in commitments, even when circumstances are difficult or results are uncertain. Brown emphasizes that this takes courage because fulfilling promises often means confronting discomfort, fear, resistance, or external challenges.

Of course, developing a realistic understanding of what you can deliver and how much time things take is a process that varies in duration. This can seem to contradict the idea of setting outrageous goals—shooting for the moon to reach the stars.

However, both can coexist. Setting ambitious goals is about aiming high and challenging yourself. Developing a realistic assessment of your capacity ensures your efforts are sustainable and grounded in integrity. The key is to balance ambition with self-awareness: dream big, but structure your commitments so you can maintain consistent progress without overextending yourself or breaking trust.

Brené Brown also stresses the importance of setting boundaries to avoid overcommitment. Saying “yes” to too many things, only to fail to deliver, reflects a lack of integrity. It also shows a lack of clarity, poor prioritization, and an inability to say no—all of which are critical skills in entrepreneurship.

Knowing our limits ensures that the commitments we make are achievable, reinforcing trustworthiness and helping us avoid self-sabotaging patterns.

Do or do not. There is no try.

When you decide to step into entrepreneurship, you get in the driver’s seat, take 100% responsibility, focus on finding solutions, and just get your hands dirty. You develop your decision-making power daily, and you gain a profound sense of how your choices shape your reality.

I chose this topic today because this post continues my commitment to share 100 lessons I learned from entrepreneurship after a personal healing year. I consciously did not set a deadline for this series from the start, acknowledging it’s a free, long-term project of relatively low priority. During the past year, I distanced myself from the startup world and entrepreneurship to fully focus on my well-being. This helped me reflect more deeply on lessons I learned, gain new perspectives, and reach a higher level of clarity that will surely shape my future writing. So stay tuned!

Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again. — Nelson Mandela

This post is part of the series “100 things I learned by becoming an entrepreneur,” which I launched to reflect on my founder journey, encourage fellow founders to appreciate their own progress and growth, and inspire more women to take the leap into entrepreneurship. You can find the previous posts here, and subscribe to receive future ones directly in your inbox as soon as I hit publish. ??