Run Towards the Pain

In my last company we landed on an internal motto that shaped everything — our strategy, our operations, and the way we talked about hard things. Four words:

Run towards the pain.

This sounds counterintuitive until you've run a business for a while. Then it sounds obvious. All real wisdom is crystallized pain. Every meaningful accomplishment requires painful effort. Every risk worth taking means living with uncomfortable uncertainty. Pain, in business, is usually a signal — and most people's instinct is to look away from it.

That instinct is expensive.

Here's what running towards the pain looks like in practice:

• In a competitive market, the alpha lives where other companies won't go. The painful work your competitors are avoiding is your opportunity. Go there, with aggression.

• Problems compound when ignored. Costs increase on an exponential curve the longer something goes unaddressed. When something goes wrong, go there fast and with resources.

• Every business has something bad or embarrassing in it. Look hard enough and you'll find yours. Look now, because it will surface eventually — and it's better to find it than to have it find you.

• When you make a mistake, say so. Out loud, to the people who need to know. Then learn from it. Then move on.

What makes this motto powerful isn't just the courage it requires — it's what it does to your culture. When running towards the pain becomes the norm, blame and shame start to fall away. Problems become impersonal. Speed replaces fear. People stop hiding things and start fixing them.

Then run towards the pain.