Start With Why

Greetings! My name is Justin Miller, and I’m the Founder and CEO of 7Talents. This week marks 90 days since I’ve been a business owner, and it’s been so fun! There are many things I’ve learned these past few months, and I can’t wait to share them with you. But, instead of talking about these today, I wanted to start by telling you why I started a company in the first place.

Rewind with me for a moment back to September 2006. I was 22 years old, living in Orlando, and had just started my last year in grad school. I had a friend and coworker named Austin. We were mostly in shape and had done things like 5K’s before. To be clear, we weren’t “runners” by any means, but we were adventurous and wanted to try our luck at something a little more challenging.

We knew in about 3 months was Disney’s annual race weekend. On Friday was a 5K. On Saturday, a 1/2 marathon. And on Sunday, a full marathon, 26.2 miles. Austin and I talked it over, and wanted to sign up for the 1/2 marathon. We thought it would be a stretch from the 5K’s we had run before, but not so long that we could not finish.

However, there was only one problem. Apparently, Austin and I weren’t the only ones with that idea. As we learned, the 1/2 marathon is the most popular race — probably for the same reasons we wanted to try it. That race was sold out, which left us with only two options.

The next night, we were at work, and one of our coworkers overheard us talking about our dilemma — do another 5K, or run a full marathon. She approached us, entering slowly into the conversation, and at one point simply chuckled and said, “you guys could never do that” as she turned and started to walk away.

I don’t know about you, but without missing a beat, Austin and I looked at each other square in the eye, and we knew what had to be done. We started training the very next day. I was not even able to run a full mile without stopping. But we were committed, and we trained consistently. Both of us suffered injuries that took us away from training for a few weeks. But, by some miracle, we were able to work up the endurance to be able to run the entire distance. 3 months later, Austin and I both crossed the finish line after running 26.2 miles, not stopping to walk once.

I share this story not to convince you to run a marathon, although that would be great and I would highly encourage you to try it at least once! Rather, to give you a glimpse into why I’m doing what I’m doing.

Simply put, I believe too many of us go through life being told over and over that we can’t make it. We’re not good enough. We’re too young. We don’t have enough experience. What we want to do is too hard. Just accept where you’re at and move on. But, I’m here to tell you today, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Growing up, I’ve been blessed to have family members that have long outlived the normal life expectancy. Between my four grandparents alone, one lived to about 80, two to about 90, and the fourth is still alive and is approaching 100 years old. That’s amazing! But as neat as that is, I’ve also had to face the reality that on a long enough time horizon, the survival rate for each of us goes to zero. In other words, all of us will die one day, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. I know that’s not fun to hear, but it’s the truth. So, the question becomes this — knowing that’s how the story ends (at least here on earth), how should this influence what we do with the limited time we do have?

I believe we have two options. For most people, they don’t think about this future reality and they go through life just getting by. They make decisions based on short time horizons, play things safe, and one day look back and wonder where all the time went. This isn’t a bad thing, but I would argue it may not be the most fulfilling when you get to the end and look back. The second option, which has been more interesting to process, is to start at the end, look back, and ask myself “what should I be doing now to make an outsized impact in the future”?

One of the things I’ve enjoyed about spending time with my grandparents — aside from the fact that they are all incredible in their own way — is all of them have been incredibly active, full of life, and willing to take risks. And if you survey a larger population of folks who are approaching end of life, two common themes you’ll find are (i) they wish they had taken more risks and (ii) they wish they had chosen more meaningful work. And that, my friends, is something I think we can all learn from.

So, what is 7Talents, you ask? Good question, but it is not the most important one today. But, I promise I will come back and answer this in a future post.

Instead, why did I start 7Talents, you ask? Ah, great question! It is just one of the ways I want to intentionally live out what others have learned before me. I get to engage in more meaningful work, and I get to take more risks in the process. Two birds, one stone. How cool is that?

For those of you that have made is this far, thank you for listening and being part of my story thus far. I always want to start with why, and I encourage all of you to do the same! If you do that, often the how and the what fall into place. Which, I look forward to sharing more about in a future post! Stay tuned.