Understanding Your Co-Founder's Life Priorities: The Wheel of Life

One of my favorite exercises for founding teams, the "wheel of life" helps create alignment and understanding not only in the team’s professional sphere but as individuals in all slices of life.

Inspired by Anna Heath’s “One Life: Pie Chart” mentality mentioned in Episode 1.6 of How I Met My Co-Founder, I wanted to share one of my favorite exercises for founding teams. This exercise helps create alignment and understanding not only in the team’s professional sphere but as individuals in all slices of life.

Instructions:

Step 1: Make sure these categories feel like they capture areas of priority for you, if one is missing and/or one doesn’t feel right, then edit the categories. (~3 min)

Step 2: For each category:

• Describe what your ideal (or 10 out of 10) looks like. Name and describe certain elements that are important for you to have in that category. (~5 min) Option to complete for your life across: 1 year, 3 years, 5 years.

• Force rank the categories from 1 (highest) through 8 (lowest) based on how important this dimension is to you. (~1 min)

• Place a dot on the line to the right of the category capturing where you feel like you are on this dimension today. Note where you’d like to make the most progress in the next 1, 3, 5 years (~1 min)

Step 3: Share wheel with teammates. Identify areas of commonality and difference, areas that may lead to tension as well as complements.

I hope this tactical guide is helpful, if you’d like to chat more about it - you can schedule a quick chat with me here.

Are you a conflict-free early stage (Pre-Seed through Series A) co-founder?

Let’s keep it that way! Have your team complete the How Well Do I Know My Co-Founder Quiz and schedule a free initial team consult to explore your results.