Santiago Bilinkis l Risk and Reward - Trying to live a life out of the comfort zone

The sensation of flying, even at low altitude, is like anything else. But the true challenge (and pleasure) is to be able to fly high.

The next morning after my first take-off, we went to a much higher mountain. It was no longer time for preparation or test take-offs: the time had come to really fly.

The valley looked distant down below. One more time, I chose not to go first, but my turn came quick. Trusting the ability of my paraglider to fly, I run towards the slope.

And in that flight I learned a lesson I could never have imagined: instead of scaring you, the altitude gives you calm! It is the ground that can hurt you, not the air. Flying smoothly, about 60 feet high, I experienced a sense of peace that could not be compared with  anything I have experienced in my life.

The similarity with Entrepreneurship is obvious: Contrary to what intuition may make you believe, it is easier to fly high than low. It is easier to create a large company than a small shop. Because the risk is to hit the ground. The higher, the better.

Then the question becomes not why to point high but how. These are a few ideas about that:

1) Point high: This may sound like obvious, but the first requisite to fly high is to point high. Most of the companies that managed to grow large, made it because their founders wanted them to be large. I am not saying, Paulo Coelho-style, that wishing is enough for something to happen. I DO say that if the entrepreneur does not passionately want the company to grow large, it will not.

2) Do things in a scalable way: Many times in the early stages of a company the “home-made” solution can get you by and that is tempting. But from the very design of the business plan to the concrete steps of the startup, all the decisions you make have to pass the “scalability filter”: will these processes work when my company is 5 times larger? And 20 times? Sometimes the answer can temporarily be “no”, but that is a yellow light so you know you are having a problem at some point you will have to address.

3) Know what ‘high’ means to you: There is no clear definition of ‘high’. To every person there is a height that is low and comfortable and another one that intimidates him or her. The challenge is again to point high. Get out of the comfort zone, dealing with the anxiety of being higher than we feel relaxed.

4) Turning makes you lose height: In paragliding, every time you turn you lose height. In business is the same. However, sometimes you have to turn! It is crucial to know when it is time to keep course without getting scared and when it is time to give up a few feet to make a turn and not hit the high voltage wires!

5) Learn to delegate: The one who flights is the paraglider, not you! It is better to leave lift to him and just limit yourself to hang below it, holding the controls than hoping to do it all, even the paragliders’ job. In Entrepreneurship, there are lots of companies that are as large (or, even better, as small) as their founder. Doesn’t matter how talented he or she is, every company that has the scale of its founder is small. Learning that the secret is to attract others and give them autonomy and responsibility is crucial to be able to fly high.

In the last post of this series, we will jump into the clouds.

Photo: NASA