Start School Session: Torus Founder & CEO Nate Walkingshaw

Talk about the weight of responsibility and what that means as an entrepreneur in building something and how you've managed that and grown accustomed to it over time in a way that you're able to lead yourself in a way that doesn't end up in like, you know, just hurting yourself.

But there is this weight that all entrepreneurs feel.

Everybody in this room has felt that weight of responsibility, like what you've taken on in the building of your company and the people that you're responsible for, the employees you're responsible for, the customers you're responsible for.

When you said that, I saw you got choked up, and so I just wanted to double-click on it around this idea of the weight of responsibility.

Yeah, I think... you know, it's, it's chapters.

I would say like my career over the last 25 years has had a lot of chapters in, I'd say personal leadership and growth.

And I would say the very first company that I built, Paramed was really all about me.

Like I really wanted like my commitment to looking good, my commitment to building my commitment to being smart enough because I felt like that I wasn't smart enough.

Um, you know, through my kind of classical education.

So a lot of that, I mean, honestly, when I look at the mirror and I evaluate my performance, um, even though the company had a very successful financial outcome I would say I wasn't a great leader

in fact I I don't think I was a good leader just stating it plainly and

I think that is resulted like in the culture that I would build and then I'll give you a good example of like what bad behavior looked like then in that shit in that chapter for me so I had a group of mechanical engineers that were designing like you know all the power lift and load systems and and stuff that we were doing and i would stand over like a mechanical engineering shoulder and ask him why he's shaving 40 thousands off a spacer I mean, I would literally micromanage most of their workflow.

And that example, you guys, was prolific.

I was 25 years old.

I had never built a business.

I'd never raised cash.

I'd never physically built a product before.

I was learning financial acumen in real time.

And so a lot of this was...

I would go into my office and have this huge imposter syndrome kind of meltdown and then come out and like wear a face of like, I know what I'm doing and I know how to build.

And that probably landed on folks as pretty inauthentic.

And then we still had a very successful outcome and I

got to rub it in people's faces and say, I told you so.

And that was even more bitter.

In fact, if you think about Pyramid of all the employees that we had there, I have successful ongoing professional relationships with probably a dozen.

Talk about the weight of responsibility and what that means as an entrepreneur in building something and how you've managed that and grown accustomed to it over time in a way that you're able to lead yourself in a way that doesn't end up in like, you know, just hurting yourself.

But there is this weight that all entrepreneurs feel.

Everybody in this room has felt that weight of responsibility, like what you've taken on in the building of your company and the people that you're responsible for, the employees you're responsible for, the customers you're responsible for.

When you said that, I saw you got choked up, and so I just wanted to double-click on it around this idea of the weight of responsibility.

Yeah, I think... you know, it's, it's chapters.

I would say like my career over the last 25 years has had a lot of chapters in, I'd say personal leadership and growth.

And I would say the very first company that I built, Paramed was really all about me.

Like I really wanted like my commitment to looking good, my commitment to building my commitment to being smart enough because I felt like that I wasn't smart enough.

Um, you know, through my kind of classical education.

So a lot of that, I mean, honestly, when I look at the mirror and I evaluate my performance, um, even though the company had a very successful financial outcome I would say I wasn't a great leader

in fact I I don't think I was a good leader just stating it plainly and

I think that is resulted like in the culture that I would build and then I'll give you a good example of like what bad behavior looked like then in that shit in that chapter for me so I had a group of mechanical engineers that were designing like you know all the power lift and load systems and and stuff that we were doing and i would stand over like a mechanical engineering shoulder and ask him why he's shaving 40 thousands off a spacer I mean, I would literally micromanage most of their workflow.

And that example, you guys, was prolific.

I was 25 years old.

I had never built a business.

I'd never raised cash.

I'd never physically built a product before.

I was learning financial acumen in real time.

And so a lot of this was...

I would go into my office and have this huge imposter syndrome kind of meltdown and then come out and like wear a face of like, I know what I'm doing and I know how to build.

And that probably landed on folks as pretty inauthentic.

And then we still had a very successful outcome and I

got to rub it in people's faces and say, I told you so.

And that was even more bitter.

In fact, if you think about Pyramid of all the employees that we had there, I have successful ongoing professional relationships with probably a dozen.