One of the challenges I‘ve been facing lately is letting go. It’s always been a struggle for me in my life.
I‘ve become good at many things because I stick to them and focus. I get obsessed to the point where I can be out with friends at a party but I’m thinking of the thing that matters to me. This allows me to solve problems that most people do not think deeply about.
But there‘s a downside to this, it’s hard to let go. It‘s harder to let go when you are successful.
This is the problem we faced recently. We run an AI reasoning company that has been able to deploy and release a ton of products. Some products are doing very well and some are not doing well at all.
The ones that are not doing well—and not just financially—are taking more time and energy than the ones doing well. It’s not just about the money; it‘s about opportunity cost. If you can do something that generates a billion dollars in revenue but you’re focused on something you love that generates five million in revenue, you have to decide on a trade-off. There‘s beauty in imperfection, in choosing the thing that speaks to you over the thing that optimizes returns. But you need to be aware you’re making that choice. If your life just becomes about imperfections without awareness, then it makes life very challenging.
From the outside looking in, it‘s an easy choice. Let go of the low performers.
But this has been my core struggle. It’s very hard. Not because the products are special or I have a history with them, it‘s because I feel I can turn them around and there’s so much to learn. It‘s the feeling of a story being unfinished.
The pain of an unfinished story hurts so much and we humans find creative ways to continue. This happens at work, but also happens in life. The ex that got away, the event that you could have done better. We can start building a different timeline of the past and live in that timeline.
I see this all the time when I see people from my highschool days. What if they worked harder? What if they made the soccer team? What if they asked that beautiful woman out? That what if takes up so much mind share that they are tired and drained to move forward.
I can see people do this and tell myself “I’m not like this”, yet I am. I cling to things that I think the story is not finished. I watch movies or shows, then research them to figure out what could have happened. I journal my own endings or rethink stories. I look at endless lessons and growth in relationships and life. It‘s nice and I guess it shows empathy but also drains me.
Although I’m the busiest I‘ve ever been in my life, I’m the least productive.
I have a lot of output and a lot of results, but I‘m not moving the mountain.
I’m moving a lot of rocks, but the mountain remains. But I think if I can let go of certain rocks and focus on the core ones to find the fulcrum points, I can actually do more. The fulcrum point is that perfect place where minimal effort creates maximum movement—like finding the exact spot to place a lever to move a boulder. In business and life, these are the few critical decisions or actions that, once identified and executed, cascade into transformative results. But you can‘t find these points when your hands are full of smaller rocks.
I’m not sure where letting go comes in but I know it‘s part of the solution and not bad. It’s saying no to things in order to say yes. I feel like I‘m on the verge of a breakthrough, but I don’t know exactly what to do yet. I think I have to practice letting go and see where it takes me.
Maybe the first step isn’t knowing what to let go of, but simply being willing to let go at all.