One step at a time
Insights by our team member Hanna: "What I learnt about founding a startup by walking the Camino de Santiago"
Since I’m working for the Green Alley Award, I’ve been thinking a lot about the reasons for success. How come that among all those great ideas we’re receiving every year only a handful make it through? A couple of years ago I was doing the Camino del Norte in Spain. It’s an 850 km long distance trail starting in Irun and going to Santiago de Compostela all along the Spanish coast. When I started walking, I was motivated and full of energy. I had been doing tough hiking trails before, so I was sure I could also handle a couple of weeks of “simple” walking.
I imagine this is also what it must feel like to found a startup. Convinced of your idea and ready to conquer the world. After a couple of days my muscles felt sore, and I got really bad blisters. There were more and more days where I felt like “Really? Why am I doing this again?”. However, there were also some days when I was enjoying the landscape, meeting nice people from all over the world and felt at total ease with myself. Then halfway through my blisters got so bad that I had to go to the hospital. I was in a small and shabby town, alone with no knowledge of Spanish except for “Un pincho de tortilla por favor” (Can I have a piece of tortilla please) and “hay una cama” (Do you still have a free bed). This was a low point. I was sitting in a spartan room with my bandaged feet and as there was no WIFI the only entertainment I had was a novel by Ken Follet somebody had left behind. I hate Ken Follet.
I assume that this is what it must feel like to be working for months to convince an investor and finally be told that they have decided to invest in somebody else. What do you do? Do you give up, decide it is not worth it? Do you give in to the inner voices telling you that you’ll never be successful, telling you that your idea is just not good enough that you are not good enough? After two days of rest, my feet still felt sore but staying at that awful place was no option, so I continued walking.
That was when I started to think that we may have a wrong perception of challenge and success. It is probably more like a marathon documentary and less Romantic Comedy with a guaranteed happy end. Going on any endeavor does not necessarily entail a happy end. There will be low points with investments falling through and long stretches where nothing exciting happens, except for more blisters and the regular piece of tortilla. So how do you keep it up? How do you keep on walking despite the draw backs? I did some research and came across a psychologist who had found an answer. According to Angela Duckworth the key is perseverance and passion.
When Duckworth studied high school students and military cadets to try to predict their professional success later in life, she was surprised by the survey’s results. Her findings show that it is not talent or intelligence that are the decisive factors for success. It is the combination of perseverance and passion, she calls Grit. According to Duckworth, gritty people are unusually resilient and hardworking to the extent that they are willing to continue despite obstacles and failure. They are driven by the strong desire to improve. “Even if some of the things they had to do were boring, or frustrating, or even painful, they would not dream of giving up. Their passion was enduring.”
After five weeks I arrived at Santiago de Compostela. I was exhausted, but also very proud of myself. Today, I have a deep respect for all our Green Alley Award participants. They are on a tough journey and doing a great job in walking on every day, Chapeau!