Startup Stories – The Greatest Leverage Is Yourself

Startups are the most intense way of testing your idea in reality, because you will get the most truthful feedback from a merciless entity: the free market. But startups aren't just great at testing out your idea. They're also phenomenal in testing yourself.

If a company would be an airplane, the crew are the employees. In a corporate setting, you're assigned a specialist role. The bigger the company, the more it makes sense to hire people who're highly specialized in one domain. It's clear who the pilot is, the maître de cabine, and the rest of the crew. You might encounter some turbulences here and there, but it should be a smooth flight. Startups are a different experience.

Getting a new company off the ground is one of the most difficult endeavors I've ever partaken in. There might be some job titles, but in the end it's the wild west: everybody's doing everything because everybody has to do everything. Fires are breaking out everywhere, on every front, all the time. You must be able to fly the plane, cater to the passengers, and know how to use a fire extinguisher. But that's exactly why startups are great engines for finding out where you thrive the most.

Everybody's talking about the new ways of doing business but they neglect the most important kind of capital: human capital. People consume what you offer, but people also produce what you offer. The greatest leverage isn't found in the newest technology or in untapped markets. True brilliance and success lies where it always has: with the people that create it.

But how do you find out where you fit in the organization?

There are whole companies doing nothing else than selling these tests to other companies. Investor Ray Dalio mentions in his book "Principles" that his company uses the Myers-Briggs Personality Test, also known as the 16 Personalities or MBTI for short. It's based on the Big Five personality test. There's also the Enneagram, the DISC-model, and many more. The best scientific evidence is still with the Big Five personality test, though.

These tests are helpful for finding out what kind of tendencies you have, but they also hold a trap. They might put people into positions where their natural tendencies are more likely to thrive, but they might also withhold people from having positions they'd be great at.

During my traineeship at an insurance company, we had a two-day seminar I will never forget. During these two days, our trainee group would take the DISC assessment. It groups you into four different groups distinguished by color: red, yellow, green, and blue.

I got hired to be in IT – most commonly associated with the color blue. But my test showed something very different.

Everybody's personality profile fit their role in the company pretty well. Everybody but me. My results came back, and it confirmed what I already knew: very, very yellow with a little bit of red sprinkled on top. Now it all made sense. I always felt out of place, as if I couldn't use my greatest gift at all. According to the DISC model, I should be in branding, marketing, product evangelism, startups, or everything in between. The polar opposite of IT.

But then the event ends, and the forgetting curve sets in. When you're done with the event, you feel like you know yourself much better. Then you go back into your old environment, and your mind immediately switches back into its old mode. The voice shouting you finally know where you belong and can thrive gets more and more quiet. But the whisper never leaves – the whisper that you know where you belong.

Yet only thinking about change doesn't change anything. You must try it out – just like a startup, you have to test yourself against reality. The first compass are your interests. Why something captures your attention more than something else is a clear sign you should follow.

When you reach the destination that's paired with your interests, don't get discouraged if some tasks suck anyway. There are some tasks that need doing even though you might not enjoy them. That's not a bug, but a feature. Even the rockstar who loves music probably doesn't enjoy their bloody fingers after playing ten concerts in a row. But it's part of the game – a game worth suffering for. But you must be merciless when it comes to what game you're playing, because you want to play one you enjoy.

And the place where you can try out everything because you have to, at least in the early stages, is at a startup. Only now I can experience what it feels like when you're in your element. When you do what you were meant to do. Just like with a startup, you have to keep going, and learn to fly the plane that can soar to the highest of heights: yourself.