I'm sure that's where the money is, but I can't really stand being around psychotic people all the freaking time. C-level execs, puke.
Takeaways from coaching CEOs, founders and VCs
101–110 of 118 posts
Re: Takeaways from coaching CEOs, founders and VCs
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm touched by your vulnerability and openness. It reminds me of a client who had built a billion dollar company and wanted my help building his next one. My immediate sense was that that was not really why we were talking or why he was here. We kept going and eventually I challenged him asking whether he had really built a billion dollar fortress to never need to be vulnerable. He broke down and we went deep, uncove…
Isn't this just essentially just a reflection of maslow’s hierarchy of needs? I mean, everybody has their demons, and the founder of the billion dollar company has the time and resources to face those demons by receiving top quality professional assistance, leading him/her closer to some kind of self-actualization. Whereas a large majority of the population (even in developed nations) are still struggling on much low…
Western philosophy starting from Ancient Greeks has offered a variety of coherent life philosophies that both help with untouched wounding and ego-striving. The books provide cheap and accessible salvation which is just not in demand by most people and it is quite sad.
Re: Takeaways from coaching CEOs, founders and VCs
#103> “We’re all just big, complicated bags of emotion walking around.” This has been the most important discovery from my startup journey, and the topic on which I now place the greatest focus. I was in the YC batch of winter 2009 – the one that included Airbnb. It was a small batch, so we all got to know each other pretty well. There was something that really made the Airbnb founders stand out from the rest in that bat…
Tom, could you please share how you've worked on your emotional wholeness? This is an issue I recognize in myself, but do not know how to begin to heal.
Re: Takeaways from coaching CEOs, founders and VCs
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here are some: https://youtu.be/5WX9UEYZsR8 https://youtu.be/M5S6cTQRoU4 He talks mostly about goals in life but I believe the principles are the same. Search keywords: jordan peterson goals
I find these videos to be what I experienced as typical Jordan Peterson ramblings. A clearly above average affluent, above average intelligence speaker, who goes off with what feels like very little preparation or direction. Does very little for me, specially when it comes to the specific topic of "taking time to think things through" that i was inquiring about (but also anything else, really).
Well in the second movie he explains what happens when you set goals without much thought.
It could be it is not your thing but I believe he has some authority when it comes to psychology.
Re: Takeaways from coaching CEOs, founders and VCs
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't this just essentially just a reflection of maslow’s hierarchy of needs? I mean, everybody has their demons, and the founder of the billion dollar company has the time and resources to face those demons by receiving top quality professional assistance, leading him/her closer to some kind of self-actualization. Whereas a large majority of the population (even in developed nations) are still struggling on much low…
No. Emotional healing became my top priority when I was effectively broke and homeless. I mean, I was crashing at my parents and friends’ places, but it was a profoundly miserable (and low-Maslow) state of existence. Founders of break-out successful companies don’t just voluntarily embark on emotional healing practices once they reach the pinnacle of business success. They generally do that when they suffer a humilia…
This is a prime example of survivor bias. Most homeless people don’t make it back to the top.
Re: Takeaways from coaching CEOs, founders and VCs
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> I just don't have what it takes to grow a business to those levels. Don't be too hard on yourself, not everyone has the necessary work ethic to succeed in this industry. The AirBnB guys are very smart and they have excellent business acumen. They had a vision and they created opportunities for themselves through hard work. Not everyone can be a winner.
I agree. In my case it's not ethics as I enjoy working hard, but as it gets less interesting and goes in growth phase I'm already chasing the next idea.
I was just kidding btw. The AirBnB founders just got lucky.
They knew the right people to get into Y Combinator. Their original idea for air mattress rental is a really dumb idea. It's a miracle that they got accepted into YC.
Re: Takeaways from coaching CEOs, founders and VCs
#107> “We’re all just big, complicated bags of emotion walking around.” This has been the most important discovery from my startup journey, and the topic on which I now place the greatest focus. I was in the YC batch of winter 2009 – the one that included Airbnb. It was a small batch, so we all got to know each other pretty well. There was something that really made the Airbnb founders stand out from the rest in that bat…
I'm touched by your vulnerability and openness. It reminds me of a client who had built a billion dollar company and wanted my help building his next one. My immediate sense was that that was not really why we were talking or why he was here. We kept going and eventually I challenged him asking whether he had really built a billion dollar fortress to never need to be vulnerable. He broke down and we went deep, uncove…
Great book on this topic is I Don't want to talk about it by Terrance Real
Re: Takeaways from coaching CEOs, founders and VCs
#108> “We’re all just big, complicated bags of emotion walking around.” This has been the most important discovery from my startup journey, and the topic on which I now place the greatest focus. I was in the YC batch of winter 2009 – the one that included Airbnb. It was a small batch, so we all got to know each other pretty well. There was something that really made the Airbnb founders stand out from the rest in that bat…
By the way, since someone has already asked (and I generally get requests for more info when I write about this stuff here) people are welcome to contact me if they want to know more about techniques I’ve used for emotional healing. I’m working on some written material to share my learnings with others who may benefit from it, so if you get in touch I can share it when it’s ready. Email address in profile.
Thanks for sharing your story.
My own story has some similarities to yours -- I joined an elite startup accelerator straight out of university, thought I had a bunch of pretty damned good business ideas to work on (and looking back, I did -- I had a pretty good understanding of business strategy, engineering, product design, etc) -- but then ended up bouncing between jobs and quickly-aborted startup attempts, before crashing pretty hard around age 26-27. Meanwhile plenty of my peers steadily moved forwards while a few others shot off into the stratosphere.
I actually knew Leo Widrich, author of the article, back in university! Two guys had set up the "Internet Entreprneur Society" at our university in the British midlands, I was helping them run it as they were about to graduate. Leo was an Austrian business student with lots of passion and just starting to learn about tech startups. He ended up working with one of the two guys I mentioned (Joel Gascgoine) on some tweet scheduling app which is now apparently worth about $80m :) Small world!
As for myself, after several setbacks in my late 20s, I realised I had a whole bunch of psychological/emotional issues stemming from an unstable childhood. What's surprising is that with time and effort all these problems were, in fact, fixable... and through lots of reading and self-work I've managed to fix 80-90% of these issues. Like you, my desire to build a startup business empire has diminished greatly, and, nowadays, after learning all the things I've learned, I've rethought my career plans, and figured out a new direction to go down which ties together the various things I'm interested in, and which I'm very confident I can succeed at. (I'd rather not go into details in a public forum, but's it essentially a path that combines intellectual and technological projects).
(For those in a similar situation, the best books I read were: "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents", "Running on Empty: Overcoming your Childhood Emotional Neglect", "Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving" and "Psychology of Self-esteem". I also recommend the post "What is a central purpose in life?" (plus comments) [1] for a discussion of how to integrate one's career values).
[1] http://aristotleadventure.blogspot.com/2008/05/what-is-centr...
Re: Takeaways from coaching CEOs, founders and VCs
#109As a coach to similar-level people and professor/coach to elite students at NYU and Columbia Business School, I'm also impressed by how much the social and emotional challenges can be overcome with a few exercises that teach social and emotional skills. It amazes me that our educational system at every level teaches so much information, knowledge, and analytical skill but virtually ignores teaching social and emotion…
I read your blog a ton back in the day! Good to see that you're still around. Whenever people start talking about introverts vs extroverts I still think "it's only a model!"
Re: Takeaways from coaching CEOs, founders and VCs
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. Emotional healing became my top priority when I was effectively broke and homeless. I mean, I was crashing at my parents and friends’ places, but it was a profoundly miserable (and low-Maslow) state of existence. Founders of break-out successful companies don’t just voluntarily embark on emotional healing practices once they reach the pinnacle of business success. They generally do that when they suffer a humilia…
This is a prime example of survivor bias. Most homeless people don’t make it back to the top.
I tried to be clear that I wasn’t “homeless” in the sense of living on the street.
I just couldn’t make rent (ironically I had to Airbnb out my room) or easily afford food/bills, so needed to sleep at parents’/friends’ houses for a while as I worked to get back on my feet.
Plenty of people go through this, due to a business/career/relationship breakdown, and recover to a good life, and it’s very common for people to start focusing on their emotional/spiritual wellbeing when they hit rock bottom (e.g., join 12-step programs, counseling etc).
People who are chronically homeless are in a different category, but it’s widely accepted that chronic homelessness is usually linked to mental illness and/or addiction (which is a form/symptom of mental illness after all).
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how outcomes for chronically homeless people could be improved if they had access to the kinds of support and healing techniques I’ve used. Given the opportunity, I’d be very willing to support research into this in the future.
Invoking concepts like “survivorship bias” is unhelpful in a discussion like this; my story is obviously anecdotal, not an academic paper or claim of scientific evidence. But that aside, “survivorship bias” in this context would require the existence of a whole lot of people who attempted the same approach to emotional healing that I did but failed to improve their lives, and there’s no evidence for this.