Nobody Cares About Your Middle
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Nobody Cares About Your Middle
Everyone loves a good start. Everyone celebrates a strong finish.
But what about the long, hard stretch in between?
The part where the excitement fades, the crowd disappears, and you're left wondering if all this effort is worth it?
That's exactly what we're diving into today:
Your business is in the worst possible place right now.
Not failing enough to quit. Not succeeding enough to celebrate.
Just stuck in the middle.
Grinding away with modest traction, reasonable growth, and the creeping suspicion that it shouldn't be this hard.
Nobody warned you about this part.
They told you about the exciting early days – the launch, the first customers, the initial validation.
They told you about the destination – the exit, the IPO, the passive income, the freedom.
But nobody told you about the endless, thankless middle where you'd spend 95% of your entrepreneurial journey.
Alex Hormozi captured this perfectly in a recent tweet:
"People only root for others at two times: First, when they're at the beginning of the race. Second, when they finish. Neither is when you need it. So, you have to master the middle. The boring, exhausting, soul-crushing middle. That's where the winning happens. On your own."
This isn't just social media wisdom. It's the brutal truth about building anything meaningful.
Let me show you why the middle is where most dreams die, why it's actually your greatest opportunity, and how to master it when nobody else is watching.
The Middle Is Where The Crowd Disappears
So what actually happens in this thankless middle phase?
The start line of any venture is crowded with cheerleaders.
Your family says they're proud of you for taking the leap. Your friends double-tap your social announcements. Your network sends encouraging messages.
The validation feels good. The dopamine hits are frequent. The external motivation is plentiful.
Fast forward six months.
The likes have dried up. The check-ins have stopped. The enthusiasm has faded.
It's not because people don't care about you. It's because humans are wired to notice change, not consistency. Your business is no longer news. It's just... there.
This same cycle plays out in fitness, relationships, creative projects – any meaningful pursuit with a long timeline.
The crowd's attention span is shorter than your journey.
Phil Knight experienced this while building Nike. In his memoir "Shoe Dog," he describes years of grinding where nobody beyond his small team cared or even noticed what they were doing. For nearly two decades, Nike was "just another shoe company" to most of the world.
Even Knight's own family questioned why he kept pushing forward when the financial rewards were minimal and the stress was constant.
The crowd's attention returned only when Nike became an "overnight success" – after 18 years of work that almost nobody witnessed or celebrated.
The middle is where the crowd disappears. But it's also where the winners separate themselves from everyone else.
The Middle Is Where Your Real Competition Quits
If the crowd is gone, what happens to all the other entrepreneurs who started at the same time as you?
Here's what most people miss about entrepreneurship: The most talented people often don't win.
The winners are those who can endure the middle.
Look at the numbers:
20% of businesses fail in their first year
50% fail within five years
70% fail within ten years
Most of these failures don't happen at the beginning. They happen in the middle.
Not from catastrophic events. Not from complete market rejection. But from the slow, grinding attrition of motivation when progress seems incremental and recognition is non-existent.
The middle creates a natural selection process that has nothing to do with your ideas, talents, or market – and everything to do with your mental toughness.
Sara Blakely encountered this middle phase while building Spanx. For two years, she worked a full-time job selling fax machines during the day while developing her product at night and on weekends.
When she finally launched, there was brief excitement. Then came the long middle – traveling store to store, facing rejection, working from her apartment, all while watching her savings dwindle.
"Nobody cared if I succeeded or failed except me," she later recalled. "Most days felt like pushing a boulder uphill."
What separated Blakely from countless other entrepreneurs with good ideas wasn't her concept (shapewear existed already). It was her ability to keep going when nobody was watching or cheering.
The middle is where your real competition quietly disappears. Your job is simply to be the last one standing.
The Middle Is Where Your Identity Gets Forged
But the middle phase isn't just about outlasting others. Something even more important is happening.
The beginning of any journey is about excitement. The end is about achievement.
But the middle? The middle is about transformation.
This is the part most people miss. The middle isn't just something to survive on the way to success. It's the process that creates the person capable of handling success.
The middle isn't delaying your results. It's creating the foundation that makes your results sustainable.
During the middle phase, you're developing:
Decision-making systems that don't rely on motivation
Operational discipline that works even on your worst days
Emotional resilience that can weather rejection and setbacks
Strategic thinking that isn't swayed by external validation
These capabilities aren't built through books, courses, or mentors. They're forged through the repeated stress and recovery cycle of showing up when nobody is watching or cares.
Ray Dalio's middle lasted over a decade. After early success with Bridgewater Associates, he made a series of bad bets that nearly bankrupted the company. What followed was a long, unglamorous period of rebuilding with little external validation.
"I was in pain," Dalio writes in his book Principles. "But at the same time my character was being strengthened."
During this period, Dalio developed the decision-making principles that would eventually transform Bridgewater into the world's largest hedge fund. The middle wasn't a detour from his success – it was the necessary forge for creating it.
The person who starts the journey cannot finish it. The middle is where that transformation happens.
How To Master Your Middle
This all sounds great in theory, but how do you actually survive when the middle gets tough?
Understanding the importance of the middle is one thing. Mastering it is another.
After studying entrepreneurs who successfully navigated this phase, patterns emerge:
1. Build your own feedback loops
Since external validation disappears in the middle, you need to create your own systems for measuring progress and maintaining motivation.
Jeff Bezos implemented this at Amazon with a relentless focus on customer satisfaction metrics rather than competitor comparisons or market validation. During Amazon's challenging middle years (1999-2002), when the stock crashed and critics called the company "Amazon.toast," these internal feedback loops kept the team focused and motivated.
For your business, this means:
Identifying 2-3 key metrics that genuinely reflect progress
Creating weekly review systems that highlight incremental wins
Celebrating process adherence, not just outcomes
2. Find your "middle masters"
While the crowd disappears in the middle, you can strategically build relationships with others who understand and value the middle phase.
These aren't cheerleaders. They're fellow travelers who respect the grind.
Howard Schultz formed a small kitchen cabinet of advisors during Starbucks' challenging expansion years – people who understood the unglamorous work of scaling operations when the initial excitement had faded but before the massive success had arrived.
For your journey, this means:
Connecting with peers at a similar stage, not just aspirational figures
Building relationships based on shared challenges, not shared outcomes
Creating accountability structures with those who value consistency
3. Reframe the timeline
Most motivation systems fail in the middle because they're built around reaching the destination. When that destination keeps moving further away, motivation collapses.
Reed Hastings navigated Netflix through a brutal middle period by reframing the timeline for his team. Rather than focusing on the destination (becoming the dominant streaming service), he created a culture focused on making consistently excellent small decisions each day.
This meant:
Breaking down distant goals into 90-day objectives
Finding meaning in the process itself, not just the outcome
Measuring success by adherence to principles rather than proximity to the finish line
4. Master psychological switching costs
The middle is where most people quit because the psychological cost of continuing seems higher than the cost of stopping.
To counteract this, successful entrepreneurs deliberately increase their psychological switching costs.
Elon Musk did this during Tesla's darkest middle period (2008-2009) by publicly committing to specific production targets and delivery dates. The personal embarrassment of missing these targets created a psychological switching cost that outweighed the pain of continuing.
For your journey, consider:
Making public commitments that would be embarrassing to abandon
Creating financial structures where quitting costs more than continuing
Building identity-based habits where the action is tied to who you are, not what you get
The middle is mastered not through motivation but through systems that make continuing easier than quitting.
The Competitive Advantage No One Talks About
When you look at the middle this way, something surprising becomes clear.
Here's the opportunity hiding in plain sight: If the middle is where most people quit, then mastering the middle isn't just a survival strategy.
It's your greatest competitive advantage.
In today's world of:
Low barriers to entry in most markets
Widely available information and education
Accessible funding and resources
Rapidly advancing technology
The biggest competitive moat isn't your idea, your funding, or your skills.
It's your ability to endure and excel when nobody is watching.
This is why Hormozi's insight is so powerful. The middle isn't just a phase to survive – it's the opportunity most of your competition will fail to capitalize on.
When you truly understand this, the middle transforms from a burden into an opportunity.
Every day your competition gets discouraged by the lack of recognition is a day you gain ground. Every week they cut corners because nobody would notice is a week you build structural advantage. Every month they question their path because external validation has disappeared is a month you move closer to inevitable success.
The middle isn't something unfortunate that happens on the way to your destination. The middle IS the journey.
And it's available to anyone willing to master it.
The Only Audience That Matters
So how do you stay motivated when nobody's watching?
Let's end with the most important truth about the middle: You are the only audience that matters.
In the beginning, external validation fuels you. At the end, external recognition rewards you. But in the middle, you must become your own source of validation, recognition, and motivation.
This isn't just philosophical advice. It's practical business strategy.
The companies that survive the middle are the ones that would continue to exist even if no one ever recognized them. They have an internal compass that doesn't depend on external feedback.
As Hormozi puts it, the winning happens "on your own."
Not because that's unfortunate. But because that's the only way it can happen.
So ask yourself: Would you continue building what you're building if no one ever noticed? If the only reward was the work itself and the person it made you become?
Your answer to that question will determine whether your current venture becomes a story of what could have been or what actually became.
Because the middle is coming for you. It always does.
The only question is whether you'll master it, or let it master you.
Thank you for reading.
– Scott