Justin Mares

Hardest isn’t the right word. But one of the most difficult things is to understand that there will always, always be someone or something who is better than you are. And to accept it.

Lately, I’ve been struggling with this blog. I’ve been going back and forth thinking about why I’m even writing – what do I have to say that’s valuable? I’m not the smartest person I know (that would be Nick Pinkston), nor the best writer around my age (Dan Shipper), nor the most insightful (Venkatesh Rao of Ribbonfarm). What do I have to say that’s valuable?

Really, the answer is nothing. But that doesn’t mean I should stop writing.

Ultimately, I’m doing this as a learning process, and because I like to. I’m not competing. I don’t have to “win” at blogging. I’m doing it to improve. But not to win.

This sounds simple, but this was a massive mental shift for me when I came to terms with it. I’ve had some limited success so far in my life, and sometimes the expectation of succeeding flows into other areas. For example, I probably get too competitive in sports. I’ve been teaching myself programming, and gotten frustrated when I don’t immediately understand something. As I’ve come to expect success, I’ve also started to question and rationalize when it doesn’t come immediately.

Expecting success isn’t the worst thing, but it certainly isn’t a trait I want to encourage. Doing so would make me shy from difficult problems (starting a company, learning a language, etc.) and embrace easier ones. That’s not how I want to live.

What’s helped me get away from this personally competitive mental measuring stick is focusing on process. I know my writing has improved (see my first post), though maybe not as much as I’d hope. By paying attention to the act of writing, and trying to use writing as a way to expand and clarify my thinking, I know that I’ve grown. I’ve also realized that everyone experiences the world differently, and maybe it’s not a bad thing that I’m adding my perspective.

A lot of this comes back to philosophy. To stoicism. When you separate results from the process, and work on becoming unattached to outcomes, suddenly writing becomes a lot more enjoyable. As does just about everything else. I can write without worrying if I’m the best. I can start a company without being depressed that I’m not the most successful person I know. I can read without wondering if this book will help me get ahead. Success isn’t a bad thing, but I’m working on being less attached to it.

I came across a fantastic speech by David Foster Wallace earlier this week where he touched on the above ideas that have been bouncing around in my head. He said it better than I ever could:

“Because here’s something else that’s true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship – be it JC or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles – is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things – if they are where you tap real meaning in life – then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth… Worship power – you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart – you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.”

Working to separate myself from outcomes has been the only thing I’ve found that makes me happy. Anything else, and I get sucked into a world of comparisons and envy. I’m learning and growing, and I’m working to appreciate where I’m at.

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Unrelated, but I found this and I really enjoyed it – Louis C.K. on Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy.

This past week I took the trip of a lifetime and drove across the country with a friend. We went from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles in just about 10 days, camping out in state and national parks the whole time. We stopped in Chicago, Omaha, the Badlands of South Dakota, Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills, Boulder, Denver (and the first ever Chipotle!), the Rockies,  Arches national park in Utah, and hiked the Grand Canyon on the last day. I’ve never appreciated this country as much as during this trip. I hadn’t realized before just how massive and how beautiful America is. As lame as it sounds, it also opened my eyes to parts of the country that I had no idea existed.

Random stops in places like Lusk, Wyoming – a town of less than 2000 people – were experiences I’d never had before. Seeing the massive tracts of farmland in the Midwest and small towns dotting the South Dakota and Iowa countryside were things I’d heard about but never experienced – experiencing it gave me a whole different appreciation for where I live and where I’ve grown up.

Being in these places also made me think about what I’m doing career-wise and the current state of startups in general. Outside of startup land, there are people who experience very real problems. Many of the people I met didn’t have tons of money, were overweight, and many didn’t seem happy (as subjective as that is). Not to say that people in cities or in startups don’t suffer from the same problems, but I definitely felt like I was outside of my standard well-educated, dynamic bubble of startup people.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with any of the people I met. Most of them were exceedingly nice and friendly, and happy to talk to someone who was driving through the country. This experience just got me thinking about the types of problems startups are trying to solve right now – sharing photos, mobile advertising, gaming, etc. These aren’t issues that normal people struggle with, and don’t have a powerful impact on the lives of individuals. And yet, this is where many startups are focusing these days.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to make money by doing a startup – in fact, it’s one of the main reasons I started Roommatefit. I have nothing against anyone trying to do one of these startups (unless you’re trying to do another deals site, then I get annoyed), but there are much more real problems that companies could address. If you think you have the power to make an impact, doing a meaningless startup is an opportunity cost and a chance wasted. Education is broken. Healthcare and nutrition are broken. The employment and job markets are broken. In a very real way, finance (and how people manage their money) is broken. People have addictions, are unhappy, struggle emotionally, and waste much of their time on unproductive activities. There are hundreds and thousands of potential companies that could address any of these real issues, and have a meaningful impact on the lives of millions of individuals. Google is a great example – in a way, they have been one of the main educators in my life. They have made massive amounts of information available to anyone online, for free. Amazon, PayPal and Apple have all had tremendous positive impacts on my life. I wish there were more companies aiming to do the same.

With all we know about human behavior and psychology, and with a device (the phone) that everyone has on them at all times, it surprises me that more companies aren’t aiming at improving the emotional part of one’s life. I think this is one of the great unexplored areas of the web. So far, the focus has been on improving certain small tasks (online calendar scheduling, social networking, online payments, etc.), but that’s starting to shift a bit. I think the next wave of startups will become a deeper part of people’s lives and work to improve their emotional lives. I think we’ll see companies that address addictions, health, parenting, personal development, etc. I hope to see more companies solving real problems, and am working to be one of those founders doing so.

One of the most significant moments of my life was buying a pair of shoes. Not just any shoes, but green Vibram toe shoes. I was the first one on my campus to have a pair. Why is this so significant? Because I’ve learned that success isn’t normal.

For the vast majority of people in the world, major success is not a normal thing. The average person in the US makes 43k, is obese, watches 3 hours of TV and works a 40 hour week. That is average. Nowhere is massive success a normal part of their lives (nor has it been a part of mine).

Wearing Vibrams around campus wasn’t normal. More than buying shoes, the important fact was that for the first time in my life I was willing to do something very different than others in my environment. Just being willing to be different and not do exactly what everyone else was doing, especially in college, has lead to a lot of great things. It’s not normal to read a book a week, to try and teach myself programming, or to cut sugar out of my diet. It’s not normal to start a company in college and be talking regularly with 5-10 successful, smart people. This doesn’t mean that not being normal = success: I doubt if you started drinking your urine it would make you successful (but who knows). I just know that for me, being willing to take chances and do things out of the ordinary has been a series of small steps that have led to a lot of good things in my life. First, I bought the shoes. Then, started a company, gave a pitch to 1000+ people, lived in San Francisco for the summer and have had an incredible stretch of learning experiences ever since.

Most of what I write about on here comes from things I’ve learned from my mentors and others who are far smarter than me. One of them, one of the most successful guys I’ve ever met, has carried around an extra copy of his favorite book since he’s been in college. He does this so he can give it away to someone he meets that he likes. That’s not normal, but neither is being the youngest ever person to occupy the position he’s in.

The same can be said for startup success. Startups that follow normal paths often struggle to get traction (partially related to the law of shitty clickthroughs). Who would have thought that the best way to start an international social network was to first capture Ivy League college students? Do what your competitors are doing, and you are likely to fail. This can also be applied to startup ideas – if you are thinking of starting a company now, good luck doing it in the deal or photosharing spaces. A company like Instagram getting acquired is a sign that a wave has passed, not that a storm is gathering.

Again, I don’t think success is something that intrinsically means all that much. Whether it’s a good or bad thing can be debated (my takes are here are here), but the fact is that most people wish they were massively successful, or even moderately successful, in some way. And the best way I’ve seen successful achieve success is to be different.