What do you care about?

“I can either be a good employer, or make a lot of profit.”

“Food is either tasty, or healthy.”

“You can either find a partner who is ambitious, or one who cares about you.”

What do the above statements have in common? They’re false dichotomies. While they may sound insightful at first, they are actually full of 💩 because they are trying to convince you that two things are mutually exclusive options, when that is not the case at all.

I hear them from founders all the time – we feel that we can’t grow our companies quickly and have a life at the same time, have both financial success and do work that’s meaningful, be hyper ambitious and still remain nice people – whatever it is that’s important to you, it will find its way into these kinds of thoughts. (I can either write legit finance content and be taken seriously, or pop psychology that I know nothing about and be seen as a joke).

So how do you snap out of this?

Think of all the things that matter to you. For me, with Tiny CFO, it’s having a clear, positive impact on the founders I work with and their businesses; building a progressive company that’s in line with my values; making it financially successful to create a good life for myself, my family, my future employees, and communities I care about; and having fun and a life outside of work while doing all that.

Sure, I may not always succeed, but that's not a guarantee for anyone who’s only focused on one of the above either. To me, it’s the vision of being able to combine all of these things in one company that gets me out of bed every morning, more than any one individual thing on that list ever would.

If what you care about is not one thing, but a whole list, watch out for those false dichotomies.

Love and cash flow,

Jana