Speed Check, Momentum Push & Progress Recognition

And, 1️⃣ Self-care is always always always the top priority.

Nov 23, 2022

I first started writing this post on the last week of October, thinking to publish it as the October Issue of the Monthly Founder Story. Now it’s one day before Thanksgiving 😅 but hey at least it’s finally out 👏 !

Spoiler alert: This post documents a wide range of topics from my personal thoughts on “energy protection”, to reflection on the past 2 month, and last but not least the recent progress of BOLTBOLT! This serves more as a dairy or reminder for myself. No professional advice 😃

Let’s get started.

Part 1: Speed Check

Being a founder bootstrapping an ambitious project/startup, I find myself constantly switching roles between an individual contributor and a team lead which requires an extreme amount of both mental and physical power out of me.

“As an individual contributor, you should always protect your focus time so you can build more things. As a people manager, you should protect your energy so the positivity with be spread to people around you.” — Said a very wise person

Not gonna lie, there were about 2 - 3 weeks when I felt like not being the best version of myself. The more I want to bring out the best side of me, the more it drains my energy level.

Not hitting as many as work goals intended
Not having a healthy sleep schedule (not going to bed until 4 am…)
Procrastinating on the planned tasks and feeling frustrated about under-delivering to myself (and to people counting on me)
Not getting the weekly newsletter and Web3 resource guide out
Not walking my dog as often as I wanted to
Not spending enough time exercising
……

Internally, it seems I was unhappy with myself for not delivering enough as expected and promised and I hated this feeling. Even though I traded work-life balance for more heads down time, I was delivering about the amount of progress compared to three months ago. Why?

Doing a quick speed check on myself - After taking a closer look at my calendars and Apple Watch, I found out that I spent about twice the time exercising and doing outdoor activities, like skating, running, and bouldering three months ago than in October. I spent about 30 hours of workout time in July and only 13 hours in September.

Retrospectively, I forgot that patience is my friend. Getting things done right is way more important than getting things done fast. It might take a while to have the strenuous efforts pay off, but fulfilling the energy tank for the body should always be the top priority. As I cut down the exercise time, I essentially spent less time for my body and mind to relieve stress. Now I’m back on a much more regular weekly workout routine to make sure my body and mind get the treatment that they deserve. (BTW, big shoutout to Rumble Training - super energizing!)

Valuable lesson learned ☑️

Part 2 - Momentum Push

One of the most critical jobs for a founder is to maintain the project momentum for team members to stay driven and excited. It is not realistic to expect every single day at work to be exciting and challenging. While some days are extremely exciting and satisfying when I get to solve difficult problems, develop new products, and meet interesting souls, I have to be honest that there are other days where I found myself less motivated to deal with the operational issues and repetitive tasks, such as ongoing status checking, rounds of design iterations, creating documentations… I know I’m not the only one feeling this way here.

Keep the Momentum Going - When things get stuck, a piece of good news can drive us to go a long way

Last Thursday we successfully had one mini debut of BOLTBOLT’s Nebula speaker at a Web3 Music event in Los Angeles. It was extremely encouraging to gain support from like-minded people who share similar passions and visions like us. All the hard work seem to pay off at that moment. Although we still have a long way to go and a lot more to build, the support and love that we received helped boost our momentum.

This reminds me of the old Chinese saying “It takes ten years of practice for one minute on stage.” Everything is moving at an extremely high speed, especially in the Web3 world when checking the latest tweets can produce FOMO and anxiety of falling behind. It then becomes more critical to shut down the noise and head down to focus on my own progress. All the less exciting work will eventually show its value.

Momentum - A splash of “sprinkles” 🧁

Part 3 - Progress Recognition

BOLTBOLT embodies this one value - pushing the boundaries in product excellence. This value boils down to all the aspects of how we create, build and operate. We are all naturally curious people who are driven by the finest details and we tend to chase after incomplete tasks, unresolved issues, and missing pieces. While the team has been in heads down zone for a while, I want to document and recognize a couple of progress that we’ve accomplished recently:

A new round of product iteration is complete, a new prototype produced
Appearance at in-person events
Stronger internal team bonding
Onboarded external team members to initiate marketing efforts
Added more clarity to project structure, company short-term and long-term goals
……

This also reminds me of the significance of progress recognition among the team. The constant fighting priorities and urgency kept us from diving deep into accomplishments, but the recognition will help us cut through the noise and gain confidence in conquering the upcoming challenges!

Progress Recognition = Power refill ⛽

Final words

Although with mixed feelings, I’ve been enjoying my journey as it’s also a great opportunity for me to get to know myself better. It’s a marathon. It’s always day 1. There is so much more to live, more to build. 😎

Again, only personal feelings, not professional writing, or advice.

Happy Thanksgiving!!