When an employee unexpectedly quits, an investor backs out, or a big customer churns— fear of failure takes over. When you close a new round, land a big customer, or make a big hire— you feel pure excitement. 

Every founder is on a fear-excitement spectrum. There's no way to prevent yourself from feeling the two extremes. But I've seen great founders use several tactics to help themselves operate out of excitement more often than out of fear. 

Those founders also feel fear— but they use these tactics to spend more time closer to excitement. Because operating out of failure is playing not to lose—whereas operating out of excitement is playing to win. 

Here are 3 ways to do just that.

Why you should listen

• How to use multiple plans to operate more freely and objectively
• Why runway and low burn are the keys to lower founder stress
• Why working with the right investors is more important than raising big rounds
• What Tobi Lutke (founder of Shopify) did to change his employees' mindsets 

Keywords
founders, fear, fear of failure, excitement, validation, runway, partners, mindset, expectations

Send me a message to let me know what you think!