On the Half-life of Enthusiasm

In 2014 I started finally breaking away from my career as a developer and exploring more of what it would be like to take on a Leadership position in my team and in the company. I was voracious to learn more about concepts like agility and lean.

That lead me to attend conferences, and at one I learned about what someone called, "The half-life of enthusiasm."

Now, the speaker said that this is a precious thing to use as someone who wants to found a start-up since it is when you are the most productive. He advocated to throw yourself into the problem while this enthusiasm lasts, because when it fades you'll be left with work.

Except...

I've been sensitive to this idea ever since and there's a very dangerous thing to keep an eye on. That thing is that your enthusiasm comes with tunnel vision. While you're excited about you're new idea, you're also not going to be as honest about the risks and assumptions you're making along the way.

In other words, while you're lost in the joy of creation, you'll accumulate risk.

I think that this is a precarious situation, but not one that has to defeat you.

Trust the Process

One of the best things you can do to keep the benefits of your enthusiasm while dampening the risks is to formalize your processes around risk and assumption mapping, hypothesis creation, and validations.

As excited as you are, you apply that excitement to working through the process and not skipping it in favor for what feels good.

If you're curious, I wrote about this in terms of flow-state.

What Happens When the Enthusiasm Ends?

Well, you won't be excited, you'll see the problems, and the work ahead. This isn't a bad thing, but it does become a lot less fun.

Here's a weird way to think about it. Say you have an idea and you have all that enthusiasm. Say then that you ignore it and don't do a thing until the enthusiasm is gone.

When you are no longer excited you can ask, "Do I really think this is a good idea?" We do this all the time when we think about impulsive purchases. We tell ourselves to sleep on it and think if it's a good idea in the morning.

Well, in my experience that half-life is a lot longer than one day. Wait until it isn't exciting, then check.

I did this for my start-up, and it lasted a year before I wasn't excited. When it was over and I could see the piles of work ahead I still believed it was a great idea. Do I think that is what everyone should do? No, but it is a weird way to look at how the lack of enthusiasm can maybe give a clearer signal.

In a perfect world, you have a proven market validation process that you can work through while you're the most excited, and as it wears off you'll be set up for succcess.