Guy Reams (00:01.07)
This is day 362, the waiting is the hardest part.
I've been getting inspiration lately from music. Not the music itself, but the story behind the artist's success. It has occurred to me that launching a startup company and a musical group trying to score their first hit single are not only similar, they follow similar patterns. I have several playlists for different moods that I might be feeling, and earlier this morning I decided to play the not-quite-melancholy-but-almost playlist.
The first song that came up was The Waiting by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. In this song, the chorus captures a specific feeling that is worthy of some consideration. The waiting is the hardest part. Every day you get one more yard. You take it on faith, you take it to the heart. The waiting is the hardest part. This sums up one of the most difficult things about doing something new, exciting, or something you really enjoy.
There are times when you have done what you can and now you just need to wait. That is really hard to do and it is the toughest part about doing what you love. In 1980, Tom Petty and his band were working on their next major album release, which would be titled Hard Promises. Petty says that he heard an interview with Janis Joplin in which she said, I love being on stage and everything else is just waiting. This was exactly how Petty felt.
He loved being on the road with the band, playing rock and roll music. The idea resonated with him on a deep level, so he started working on a hook for a new song. According to Petty, he found the hook rather quickly. The chorus wrote itself, and he decided to draw an allusion to a new love, which was very much how he felt about his music. The band had enjoyed a few smash hits since getting started in 1976, and now they were in between, searching for the next one.
Guy Reams (02:03.278)
Petty knew he was on the cusp of something, so he kept working the song. He composed the rest of it line by line and struggled through the remaining verses for several weeks. He knew he would get it. He could feel the song coming into focus. He discarded everything else and honed in on his craft. When finished, they decided to release it as a single to headline the new album. It became a fan favorite and has remained so for decades.
I'm not surprised that Petty would take a quote from Janis Joplin and turn it into a hit single. Janis Joplin was incredibly introspective for being the queen of rock and the matriarch of Haydn-Ashbury music scene. She often delivered great one-liners during interviews in her short life. Just as Janis felt and Tom expressed in his song, waiting is indeed the hardest part. When you're doing something new and exciting, whether it is new company, a new job, a new love interest, or anything else important,
The desire to be constantly doing something effective is heightened. Janice was having her success. She was on stage constantly and she loved every minute of it. The drought between her tour dates were the hardest to bear because she loved being on stage. Anyone I ever met who saw her in a concert or a small club would talk about how she would dominate the room and capture everyone's undivided attention.
When you meet someone who is truly passionate about what they are doing, it shows in everything. They radiate nervous energy. In the case of Janice, you can see her bouncing the balls of her bare feet, waiting to run out on stage again. So it goes without saying that the startup entrepreneur is the same way. They love building. They love seeing what they might be possible come to light and get tested in the marketplace.
They work hard to get everything in motion, working tirelessly, constantly pushing toward that hopeful event of more subscriptions, more investment, more inquiries about potential sales. However, in between the hard working sessions, after the whiteboarding sessions, the demo calls, and the investor pitches comes the waiting. This is the hardest part, waiting for the software to be written, waiting for the advertising to land, waiting for the next round of investment checks.
Guy Reams (04:22.061)
The waiting is indeed the hardest part. We cannot forget that important and constant principle, however, waiting may be hard, but it is required. You cannot rush everything. You cannot push past all delays. You cannot meddle your way through this period. Once you have set the wheels in motion, it is often required to endure the most difficult part, and that is to wait until your effort is needed again.