lystn

Today on The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about the lack of mastery in inner work. As humans, we all are experiencing life differently, and these experiences shape who we are and mould us into what we are at any given time. Although some of us would love to master our shortcomings, it is an ongoing situation, and mastering inner work is the type of work that never ends. In today’s episode of the show, Steli and Hiten talk about how your strength can be your weakness, how inner work is the type of work that never ends, why you shouldn’t dehumanize your heroes and much more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic 00:48 Why this topic was chosen. 01:01 How your strength can be your weakness. 03:04 How inner work is the type of work that never ends. 04:05 How inner work can feel like a never-ending onion. 05:21 How what you are today will always keep changing. 06:22 Why you shouldn’t dehumanize your heroes. 07:12 How Jeff Bezos is a human. 08:47 Why there’s no mastery at the end of the tunnel. 09:51 How long it took for the Steli and Hiten to realise they were full of shit. 3 Key Points: There’s no mastery in inner work.Inner work is the type of work that never endsYour strength is your weakness. [0:00:01] Steli Efti: Hey everybody, this is Steli Efti. [0:00:02] Hiten Shah: And this is Hiten Shah. [0:00:04] Steli Efti: And today on The Startup Chat, we're going to talk about the lack of mastery in inner work. So, here's what I want to briefly chit-chat with you about and kind of unpack with you for the audience. Recently, I had a very intense kind of weekend session with a good friend of mine, where we did a lot of what I would call inner work, just very introspective work of what's going on in our lives and what are the challenges? What are the limitations? What are possible blind spots? We had some very deep, very, very intense, very good and honest conversations with each other. Then there was one moment where my friend looked at me and was like, "Wow," because I'd brought up something that I've just recently gotten to realize about myself and how surprising that was, because it didn't fit my self-image at all. I was like, "I'm so surprised that I am this way." It would have been- [crosstalk] [0:01:03] Hiten Shah: But I am. And I know. [0:01:04] Steli Efti: But I am. Now I know like, "Wow." And then it was like, "Wow, I'm mind blown," especially, I wouldn't have expected you having this kind of a surprise revelation because you have such a master of inner work. And I was like, in that moment, my response was like... [0:01:19] Hiten Shah: Feel like that but not really. [0:01:20] Steli Efti: No, I'm like... I think I said verbatim and then I thought, "Oh, I should tweet this someday." And then the world, it started exploding... [0:01:27] Hiten Shah: Wooh, yeah. [0:01:29] Steli Efti: So I'm just thinking about, I just kept it to myself. But he was like, "You're such a master of inner work." I'm like, "There's no mastery in inner work. This isn't mastery." [0:01:36] Hiten Shah: None. Sorry. That's good. That's good. [0:01:39] Steli Efti: "This doesn't exist. There's nobody that has a black belt. You don't remember how many books you read. I don't remember how much I've analyzed." [0:01:43] Hiten Shah: No. No. No. No. [0:01:44] Steli Efti: "You'll never figure the shit out." And I think that that's what I wanted to talk about a little bit, because I think... [0:01:53] Hiten Shah: That's great. Great topic. [0:01:54] Steli Efti: I see this with myself a lot, Hiten. I see this with some of my smartest, wisest, most successful friends. Your strength is your weakness. The thing that you spent a lot of time around...