Your Growth > Your Misery (Thanks Steve Schlafman)

Steve Schlafman is an investor and coach I greatly admire. After this story, I admire him as a human even more.

Schlafman was about to raise a new fund. The money was committed and his investors were waiting for the “I’m open for business, go ahead and send me your money” email.

Instead, they got the “I changed my mind. I’m doing something else” email.

I was reading his blog post about it, imagining being in his shoes, and my brain immediately started to fill up with, “are you crazy? This is nuts – they want to work with you! It’s exactly the work you know how to do and do well! What are you doing? No, seriously, what are you doing?!”

I don’t know exactly what his self-talk sounded like in that moment, but Steve had strength.

And courage.

And wisdom.

And… just read this excerpt:

No one wants to let others down or be perceived as a quitter. Myself included.Here’s what I want you to know. It’s ok to walk away. It’s ok to change your mind. It’s ok to deeply listen to yourself. It’s ok to take a different path. It’s ok to press pause. It’s ok to question what matters most to you. It’s ok to leave a “great situation” behind. It’s ok to choose a calling over potential financial upside.

The hard thing about hard things is that they’re hard. Sometimes, they’re really hard. Like Steve, we have to do the hard things for the right reasons.

It takes a lot of courage to do what he did, and a lot of vulnerability to share what he shared.

Your growth is greater than your misery. Even if it doesn’t always feel that way in the moment.

I can’t wait to see what he does next.

Ps. Read Steve’s post “I Just Walked Away From My New Venture Fund. Here’s Why.”

Pss. Read more posts on Steve’s work and how I use it here.