Just remember that the failure of your startup/project does not mean that you are a failure. In the last years you most likely "merged" yourself with your startup, you need to keep reminding yourself that your are more than it. You have friends, family, other ideas. You always can try again. And yes, would be happy to have coffee/lunch/whatever to chat (I am in the Bay Area).
Founder Depression
141–150 of 210 posts
Re: Founder Depression
#142Dig deeper, Sam. Achievement-oriented people are given to depression both when they fail and when they succeed. If your identity is tied up in your work, then you feel bad about yourself when work isn't going well. That's obvious, and that's the message of this blog post. The implicit message is that you're depressed because you're not succeeding, so get your shit together and succeed and be happy like everyone else.…
Everything we do in life is to feel a certain way.
Anything with a brain is driven to acquire certain feelings and move away from others.
And all feelings have to do with the future.
That is, feelings are either
1. a prediction of what you believe will happen in the future. For example, happiness is the belief that something good will happen in the future.
2. a feeling that you should feel in the future when you come across this event again (data for #1 to work). For example, pain happens after you lose something, and this serves as a reminder for the future, if you ever come across this event again, don't do what you just did.
So on the topic of the post, what is depression?
Depression is the belief that you will not have good things happen to you in the future. It comes from what you believe (in your emotional brain), not what you think. And your beliefs come from memories (which in turn come from experiences).
The more recent a memory / experience, the stronger it is. If you have few experiences of good things happening in the past X timeframe, you will start to become depressed. X varies for people, it can be 3 months or 3 years.
So what counts as a good thing or a bad thing?
It all comes from how you interpret experiences. This can be controlled consciously, but only if you bring your emotional brain into the meeting and communicate with it in language it understands (action and visualization).
For example, I used to be addicted to reddit. While I consciously knew it wasn't good to be going to reddit so much, my emotional brain didn't mind. But after discovering a process that uses these principles, I quit "cold-turkey" by imagining a lot of bad stuff in relation to reddit. I wrote (I find writing a good method for visualizing) about all the stuff I was missing out on because of reddit. I wrote about how all I was doing there was arguing with a bunch of fat sweaty no-life neckbeards, which would only lead to bad things to me. Then after I wrote this, I went to delete my reddit account and I thought "whoa this is serious" (you HAVE to feel this way, a.k.a. surprise. Surprise happens when your emotional brain realizes it's past way of thinking is invalid). I thought about it for a couple minutes, but followed through and deleted it. After that, I never went on it for months and would be repulsed at the idea of going there. I rarely go there now.
Anyway, about depression specifically to entrepreneurs or "goal oriented" people. I believe the way to be happy here is to change our beliefs. The goal shouldn't be to have success, but to do the things well that lead to success.
Let's say you want to build a wall (think of the wall as your goal). If you're only happy if you have the wall, then you will be sad throughout the journey until the end when the wall is easy to see finished.
Then after the wall is made, well you don't necessarily have anything good to look forward to now (which is what happiness is), so your happiness will start to drop.
But what if instead, our happiness wasn't dependant on whether we have a wall or not, but rather how many bricks we laid today?
Then we could look forward to "I'm going to lay X bricks today!" and get a much faster success feedback loop.
I'm going to try a process similar to the reddit one above to link good things not with having the wall, but with laying the bricks.
Re: Founder Depression
#143Greek philosopher Epiktet has the solution.
From http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html:
The Enchiridion
By Epictetus
Written 135 A.C.E.
Translated by Elizabeth Carter
1. Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.
The things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered; but those not in our control are weak, slavish, restrained, belonging to others. Remember, then, that if you suppose that things which are slavish by nature are also free, and that what belongs to others is your own, then you will be hindered. You will lament, you will be disturbed, and you will find fault both with gods and men. But if you suppose that only to be your own which is your own, and what belongs to others such as it really is, then no one will ever compel you or restrain you. Further, you will find fault with no one or accuse no one. You will do nothing against your will. No one will hurt you, you will have no enemies, and you not be harmed.
Aiming therefore at such great things, remember that you must not allow yourself to be carried, even with a slight tendency, towards the attainment of lesser things. Instead, you must entirely quit some things and for the present postpone the rest. But if you would both have these great things, along with power and riches, then you will not gain even the latter, because you aim at the former too: but you will absolutely fail of the former, by which alone happiness and freedom are achieved.
Work, therefore to be able to say to every harsh appearance, "You are but an appearance, and not absolutely the thing you appear to be." And then examine it by those rules which you have, and first, and chiefly, by this: whether it concerns the things which are in our own control, or those which are not; and, if it concerns anything not in our control, be prepared to say that it is nothing to you.
[...]
Re: Founder Depression
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's nothing wrong with "Because I wanted to" as a WHY.
There's nothing wrong with it. It's perfectly valid. But there is something strangely crushing in the freedom to always do exactly (and only) what you want. I can't really explain it.
I think the crushing-ness may come from a (somewhat justifiable, IMHO) fear of solipsism. "Because I want to" is a fundamentally ego-centric view of the universe: your feelings are your own, so what happens if nobody else wants what I want? Are we then alone in the universe?
The solution (at least for me) comes from expanding our view of what "I want" to include people close to us and the outside world as well. And so I do what I want, but my wants also include making the people I care about happy, being a net positive influence on the world, and not turning away from reality even when it seems bleak or painful. In this way, there's no contradiction between achieving things and doing what I want to be doing.
"Be good to yourself, and to others. You cannot do one or the other; it has to be both, or neither."
Re: Founder Depression
#145Can someone provide insight on life after a failed startup, in terms of career prospects? Often depression can make you feel as if you're failing on all fronts, that nothing will get better in the foreseeable future. Most of the time that really isn't true. You're often stuck in a temporary rut that your mind drastically exaggerates. But for a founder who's going through a dark time and whose startup ultimately fails…
I think the best way to do well after failure is to be intellectually honest with yourself. Polonius said it best "To thine own self be true." As an engineer, in Seattle and the Bay Area, you will always have access to jobs. For non-technical founders, you will have had gained valuable experience that will make you significantly more attractive. You often have to wear multiple hats, manage your time, focus on what ma…
(You know, Polonius was meant as a figure of mockery, so I'm not sure it makes sense to go around quoting his ironic sayings....!)
Re: Founder Depression
#146Dear Sam, It's interesting to hear you speak about founder depression as you sit on top of the world. Our team, openhospital.com, interviewed at YCombinator 6 weeks ago for the current batch and we failed (rejection email below). The $1100 interview reimbursement we received from YC only covered 1/3 of the cost of the trip and the time/energy spent applying could have been time and money spent coding and developing o…
You might have more success if you explain your business model a bit better. What pain point are you addressing? Who's the customer? How big is the market? How do you plan to introduce your innovation and induce behavior change in the current marketplace and insert yourself into the transaction? etc..
Re: Founder Depression
#147You can't afford to follow this advice. Saying you're crushing it is part of your 24/7 job description. There is a story of the founder who had just put a round together with a VC. Then, privately, the founder confided to a mutual friend, over dinner, about some of the difficulties. Result? The friend told the VC, the VC pulled out, and cited this conversation, saying that it was because his mutual friend said the co…
Bullshit. Your advice could literally kill people. There are always many many people you can and should talk to in confidence. Many examples have offered their email addresses above.
That's why you talk to a therapist who is legally bound to protect your doubts.
Re: Founder Depression
#148Doing what you love is the key to happiness. This may not make you a billionaire but will certainly make you very happy. There is just too much pressure in wanting to be a billion dollar startup. If you take a VC's money as a means to your happiness, you will end up working for the VC's happiness and not yours.
Re: Founder Depression
#149Dig deeper, Sam. Achievement-oriented people are given to depression both when they fail and when they succeed. If your identity is tied up in your work, then you feel bad about yourself when work isn't going well. That's obvious, and that's the message of this blog post. The implicit message is that you're depressed because you're not succeeding, so get your shit together and succeed and be happy like everyone else.…
>>> If you talk to e.g. people who've gone through rigorous Ph.D. programs, you'll find a number of them were severely depressed after their defense.
Likewise after earning tenure.
Re: Founder Depression
#150Dig deeper, Sam. Achievement-oriented people are given to depression both when they fail and when they succeed. If your identity is tied up in your work, then you feel bad about yourself when work isn't going well. That's obvious, and that's the message of this blog post. The implicit message is that you're depressed because you're not succeeding, so get your shit together and succeed and be happy like everyone else.…
Well, not all founders are Threes. It would be interesting to type everyone in a YC class (or several) and see what the distribution was. I'd certainly expect some Eights and a smaller number of Sixes. And Fives will of course be well represented among the technical founders.
(Interesting to see someone plugging the Enneagram on HN. Doesn't look like anyone else has picked up on it, though.)