A Call to Courage with David Cohen

I remember when David Cohen came to visit us in 2011 while  I was in Techstars.  After a couple months of hammering to accelerate my start-up with the support of a tsunami of mentors, I was finally starting to feel like things were coming together.  David was the CEO of Techstars, what is today a global and diversified juggernaut, in service to helping start-ups achieve break out business success.  He visited Seattle, one of the earlier Techstars markets, to give us feedback on our progress.

David wasn’t super impressed with my 5-minute presentation on EveryMove, my digital health start-up at the time.  I just remember this feeling of his critique stinging a bit more because of his role and it forced me back into my hole to rework my positioning and keep trying again.  And then trying again.  And then trying again.

David Cohen and Techstars represent the ultimate in what it means to take action.  They put a premium on translating ideas into forward motion and are relentless in pushing its start-ups to do more than they ever thought possible.

But if you look a little bit closer, David was not just there to be smug and dismissive about my presentation.  No, he was there to help me face my fear and make a decision.  He was there to ask me to be more courageous.  He was there to remind me that the world before me was going to be full of challenges and distractions and was I willing to look deeply inside myself and do the work to find the right alchemy for success?  

When I wrote One Life to Lead, I reached out to David to ask him to review the book and consider writing a testimonial for me.  He said the following:

As an investor in thousands of start-ups through Techstars, I’ve seen time and time again the difference that effective leadership can make in the entrepreneurial journey.  One Life to Lead perfectly captures the essential but often unspoken ingredients necessary for great leadership in one’s own life as a prerequisite to leading others

What I believe is that David’s call to courage is less about the start-up idea, but more about how you are going to navigate as an entrepreneur to manage yourself as you try to birth a new reality.  David wants to invest in human beings and he wants to make sure that you are ready to assume the challenges before you.  

If you are interested in learning how to lead yourself for the challenges ahead, I encourage you to pick up One Life to Lead.  In it, you will learn from other entrepreneurs how they managed themselves at the intersection of business design and life.  

Russell Benaroya is an entrepreneur, coach, speaker and author of One Life to Lead and Free Yourself to Work on Your Business.  To learn more, visit www.russellbenaroya.com.