CHICKENS TALKING TO DUCKS

Summary from the TLDR Founders newsletter

There's a Cantonese saying about chickens talking to ducks - both speaking their language, both making sense, neither understanding the other. When the author had breast cancer, her husband kept saying "you'll be fine" while working through the night closing his company sale, which felt like dismissal until she realized he wasn't reassuring her - he was reassuring himself. This same dynamic happens constantly between founders and investors, founders and employees, founders and spouses - each person speaking their own language of fear or control, thinking they're communicating when they're actually talking past each other. Her husband, watching both her parents die of cancer, needed to believe she'd be fine to function. She needed him to acknowledge her fear to feel heard. She finally said, "I know statistically I'll be fine, but right now I need you to hear that I'm scared" - and everything changed.