Speed, Trust and Belief

The other day I was driving out of town. It took me about 45 minutes to do 15 Kms inside of Bangalore at 4 AM. There was no traffic on the road. Once I got out of the city though, I was able to drive a lot faster and covered the next 200 Kms in about 2 hours.

For those who are intimately aware of Bangalore, the roads in the city are not great. It is not that I could not have driven faster in the city, it is just that I did not trust the roads enough. As soon as I would speed up, a pothole or some undulation would appear forcing me to brake. More fundamentally, not knowing where these surprises were going to pop up meant I did not trust the road ahead. As a consequence of this I did not cross 60 Km/hr while driving within the city.

People do not like uncertainty.

To the contrary once I got onto the highway, I kept getting faster and faster. As I started driving on the highway, I was cautious for a period of time. As I noticed that the road was more predictable and no surprises were in the offing, I forgot the bad experiences within the city and sped up. I trusted the road that lay ahead of me; This trust in the highway allowed me to speed up and stick to it.

Your ability to go fast is directly proportional to your trust/belief in what you are doing.

When you are driving if you do not trust the next piece of road to be safe you will not be able to commit to speed; If you are running a business and you do not believe in what the company is doing, you would not be able to grow fast.

When you run a company trust manifests itself in the form of belief.

If you are put in a situation where you are left selling your product to someone who is 'sitting on the wall'; your ability to sell will depend on how strongly you believe in your product. If you really think that this product is worth every penny and that it is going to make a positive change to the customer, you will sell it to the best of your ability. And most often your will succeed at it as well.

What did Steve Jobs bring to Apple? Not knowledge, not technology, he brought belief.

Your ability to achieve what other call the impossible is greatly accentuated by your belief. This is the reason, in certain cultures, people walk on fire; they believe that they will not be harmed.

Starting a startup is hard. It is like walking on fire.

Do you believe the activities that you are pursuing with your startup is going to change peoples lives positively?