🏴☠️ ⚡️ Issue #18 - Fear is the Mind Killer (Musings)
Welcome! This newsletter is dedicated to acquiring and operating Micro SaaS firms. Join us every Saturday morning for Deal Teardowns, Operating Concepts, and more!
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Part 1 — 🎯 DEAL TEARDOWN - Digital Credential Management SaaS doing $41k MRR
Part 2 — ⚙️ OPERATING CONCEPT - 2x OG Growth Frameworks to Live By
Part 3 — 🛠️ OKR TEARDOWN - Full Refresh of Pricing and Monetization
Part 4 — 🤔 MUSINGS - Fear is the Mind Killer
🤔 MUSINGS
📺 WATCH:
📻 LISTEN:
‘FEAR IS THE MIND KILLER’
(The above is a famous line from Frank Herbert’s Dune, which if you haven’t read, I highly recommend)
As acquirers and operators of Micro SaaS, there is no shortage of fear in our system at any given point in time - Was this a bad deal? Is our growth plan misguided? …Entrepreneurship could be defined in two words, ‘risk appetite’. Reward is considered a function of risk because the general population avoids risk. And with risk comes fear.
Fear is considered one of the primary emotions and it plays a critical role in the survival mechanism of humans and animals. Fear is an instinctual response to potential danger, which prepares the body to react through the "fight or flight" response. Neuroscientific research has shown that the amygdala, a part of the brain's limbic system, plays a key role in fear processing. When the amygdala is activated, it can override other brain functions…and thus, hinder how your mind might typically / optimally function.
Fear is good. It’s kept our species in the game. The only rub is that our evolutionary wiring has yet to really catch up with modern existence. An angry email from your largest customer triggers the same brain chemistry as a sabertooth tiger.
More often than not, fear in a contemporary context does not serve us. From a position of fear, we often overemphasize the magnitude of a situation or project a less-than-rationale chain of events. If we return to the angry email from your largest customer scenario, it might go something like this: …Oh god, if they churn we’ll see a huge drop in revenues » That means I’ll have to lay off staff » That will hold back product releases and new sales » We’ll be insolvent in a quarter!
So how do we prevent fear from holding us back, and perhaps use it to our advantage?
I’d argue it starts with recognition that fear is present. From here, you can appreciate the instinctual response to a situation, but it must stop there. Recognize the emotion, apply logic and reason to size up the magnitude and worst case impact, then determine a reaction.
I’d also argue we should practice embracing fear in a respective situation only once. Use it as a helpful and primal signal that risk is in the picture and move the hell on. Grasping and spinning around fear is a recipe for a full-on tailspin. Fear beyond the initial signal provides steeply diminishing returns and ends up serving as a looming distraction.
The above is obviously much easier said than done. Navigating fear is also a practice. In the times I feel awash with fear, I rely on Herbert’s words and recite them as a mantra.
Recognize the fear, make use of it and let it go such that ‘only I will remain’…All the wiser, ready to take constructive action.