In Chapter 1 of 15 in his 2012 Capture Your Flag interview, community builder and entrepreneur Fabian Pfortmüller answers "What is Getting Easier and What is Getting Harder in Your Life?" He shares how he has set a goal to say "no" to invitations, opportuniites, and requests as his free time becomes scarce and his responsibility grows. He notes how this has progressively gotten easier. As his company Holstee grows in size and head count, Fabian finds it progressively challenging evolving and growing to meet the organization needs. Pfortmüller is co-founder of the young leader accelerator, Sandbox Network, and HOLSTEE, an apparel and design firm that sells meaningful products to mindful shoppers. Pfortmüller graduated from Columbia University and its school of General Studies.
Transcript:
Erik Michielsen: What is getting easier and what is getting harder in your life?
Fabian Pfortmüller: I think it’s getting easier to say no to things. One thing that I learned this year is that there’s always tons of opportunities out there and I feel that one thing that I wanted to teach myself was to say no to things and the more I do it the easier it gets because at first it’s super hard and you don’t wanna disappoint other people, you don’t wanna give up on those opportunities that come up but over time it gets easier.
One thing that I clearly see now over the last year and that I truly feel gets harder is just the responsibility when your team grows. We grew last year from 3 to 8 people and that really has, you know, an impact on how you take decisions because suddenly you’re not just like 3 guys who are making free t-shirts. Now, you’re like you have a responsibility and that make certain decisions definitely harder because the risk is higher, the stakes are higher, you’re affecting other people and when we talk through what should we do next and what should we focus on, we definitely try to keep this in mind.