My heart skipped a beat this weekend.

I was listening to an interview of Patrick Collison (one of the founders of Stripe). What he said so perfectly described what happens any time you try to get out of your comfort zone that I have to share this with you.

Guy Raz, the interviewer, asks: “Was there a moment when you & your brother sat back and said, ‘wow, look what we built!’?

Patrick Collison answers:

”There’s nothing like a young company to remind you every morning that there’s so much left to be done; that so much isn’t yet working the way it should be...

It’s really quite visceral: you wake up in the morning and there are 20 emails in your inbox all related to things that you’re doing badly or wrongly. There’s never a moment when it feels successful.

There’s a quote I often think about from Greg LeMond (the cyclist) saying, ’It never gets easier. You just go faster.’

I used to cycle quite a bit and there’s a painful truth to that. As you cycle more, as you practice more, as you get fitter, as you get faster, as your form gets better: sure, you start cycling faster. Your times do get better.

But the experience of being on the bike never gets easier.

The pain that you feel on the first bike ride, that’s the same pain you’re going to feel on your 500th bike ride – you’ll just be riding must faster by then.

It feels like that in a start-up. Every day now, the problems and challenges and the visceral pain are just as acute as when we were starting out. The problems just have a different form. It’s this relentless process of trying to shift what exists into what we set out to create in the first place.”

Change doesn’t feel spectacular. It’s as hard over there as it is right here.

Expect the feelings to be exactly the same.

On my podcast (Excellent Rider), I share everything about managing your feelings, so you reach that 500th bike ride.

No bad horses, only untrained riders 🚲