Future You vs. Current You
“I sort of tricked myself into thinking it doesn’t matter what happens here because your future self will take care of it. ”
I’m sure many people feel this way, but Twitter co-founder Biz Stone made me feel a little less crazy in this interview with Harry Stebbings.
Risk and being misunderstood are a package deal at startups. The exercise of negative visualization is inherent to startup founders and the founding team.
Harry asked Biz about ‘Future Biz and Current Biz’, which is a way that Biz approaches decision making (12:50 to 13:45). I’ve felt this way for years, but never vocalized it, and I thankful that Biz did.
“…I joked about this all along. I said ‘Well, future Biz will get current Biz out of whatever jam he’s getting himself into.” And I guess it was kind of an excuse to do crazy things because I did sort of say out loud that, ‘Well, no matter what I do here if it doesn't work with my future self will figure out how to make everything right again.’
“And so, it was almost like having a safety net without having a safety net. I sort of tricked myself into thinking it doesn't matter what happens here because your future self will take care of it. So, go ahead and take this crazy risk or do this thing that doesn't, in the short term, look like it helps you at all. But it's something that you can try because you'll be ok.
“And I think that in a weird way helped me do things that I might not have done if I was worried about trying to save money or save face, or you know, reputation or something like that.”