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The topics of this episode are very challenging to face. I recognize that and strive to be sensitive, knowing that many of my listeners are working through difficult patches in their lives as we speak.

Unlike the previous episodes’ models, the Unwelcome model signals that the efforts you have been putting in are not cutting it for someone or some organization. This dissatisfaction may or may not be complementary to your feelings, but often comes as a surprise and leaves you forced to face a new beginning immediately. The next day you wake up and your world is different.

By contrast, you may come to realize that an Unwelcome model may be in your future, and you reclaim the narrative through the Survival model. You relinquish your stake prior to being told to do so. And, barring severance or hurt feelings, the result is exactly the same (waking up with nothing to do the next day) but you may find that this choice gives you confidence and energy to move ahead more gracefully.

Where are your exposure points? Are you comfortable knowing that your very existence is tenuous at best?

The Startup model gets us started in this episode. It can manifest itself in business, and does so most often, but in actuality, this one is seen any time that you seek to clear your mind of something grand, but that you don’t really want to consider your crowning achievement. In business, you may have an idea for a modification to something already mainstream, and you may work to get others on board with you, to drum up investors, and see it through, but with the hopes of being bought out by those same competitors. In other arenas you may simply want to draw attention to a passion of yours, through advocacy or activism. Think of it as “well, nobody else is doing anything about it, so I better.”

Complementing that, there may be a stronger headwind than you expected, and at some point you may come to realize, likely in a time of self-reflection, that your goal is not going to come to pass in the timespan you’d envisioned, or that you have infused too much “time, talent, and treasure” into the enterprise, such that it is affecting your progress elsewhere, or putting a strain on the relationships with those whom you hold dear. This is a difficult decision to make.

This moment of pragmatism may come out of a startup idea that was fully fleshed out and simply didn’t materialize. But, one of the problems may in fact be that when you started without a clear goal for how long you wanted to be involved or what your original goal was.

Are you “just doing it”? Think of those things that you are a part of right now. Do you have an escape plan? Is there a goal or are you just on auto-pilot?