22d • 🧠 Thinking & Leadership
Hard Is The Filter
Alex sent a really good email today and a few lines in it hit.
Mainly this:
A lot of people think hard means something is wrong.
A lot of times, hard just means you’re early.
You’re paying known costs for unknown payoffs.
You don’t fully know if you’re on the right path yet, you just know you have to keep going.
That part is real.
Especially in entrepreneurship.
There are seasons where:
- you doubt yourself
- you question the decision
- nobody is clapping
- and it feels like you’re carrying all of it alone
That doesn’t always mean you’re lost.
Sometimes it means you’re in the exact part of the journey most people won’t survive.
That’s the filter.
That line about being “the single clap in an empty auditorium” was strong too.
Because that’s really what it feels like sometimes.
No big support. No huge applause. No outside validation.
Just you choosing to keep going.
That’s part of the path.
Dropping the full email below because I think it’s worth reading.
If you’re in a hard season right now, read it.
Then keep moving.
Onwards.
The Actual Email:
I don't know where you're at right now...
But this is for anyone going through a hard time.
You're going to lose sleep. Doubt yourself.
Wonder if you made the right call and have no way to know for years.
That's what “hard” actually feels like: Known costs with unknown payoffs with few milemarkers.
You’re not sure if you're lost or on the right path.
But here’s the good news: Hard means no one else will do it.
Which means...Good...More for you.
When you’re younger, "hard" feels like a warning to slow down, pivot, stop, etc.
But once you understand what the path is actually supposed to look like, hard becomes a filter.
Every wall you climb over is one more person selected out of the success pool.
You survived this round of culling.
What to actually do:
Flip the script from "poor me" to "poor everyone else who has to try."
The other thing nobody tells you about the early days:
You're fighting a bear with a stick while someone further down the path is fighting a dragon with a nuclear bomb and six nations behind them.
The bear fight is actually harder.
You just don't know it yet because you haven't seen the dragon.
I slept on the floor of my gym because I couldn't afford two rents.
I screenshotted my bank account when it hit zero.
Not to wallow... to remind myself: this won't happen again.
And here's the unfortunate reality: Nobody cheers for you when you need it most.When you're in the lonely chapter, too different from your old friends but not successful enough for your new ones, that's when you want support the most.
That's exactly when you won't get it. So don’t expect it.
You have to be the single clap in an empty auditorium.
For a long time. And that’s okay.
The loneliness IS the proof. Proof that you're on the right path.
Because if everyone were cheering, you'd just be like everyone else. Average.
And that’s not where you want to be.
For you have to have a story worth telling at the end of your life...You have to go through things other people weren’t willing to.
So…
Onwards.
2
3 comments
Hard Is The Filter
powered by
skool.com/the-institute-6909
For service business owners tired of running your business from memory. In 7 days install your Notion Command Center + AI Executive Assistant.
Suggested communities
Powered by