The Resilient Founder. Mahendra Ramsinghani

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Название The Resilient Founder
Автор произведения Mahendra Ramsinghani
Жанр Личные финансы
Серия
Издательство Личные финансы
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781119839743



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       In which we look at how inner challenges and frustrations can push us to the limit – and how we can postpone some ideas.

      A few years ago, a founder, who I'll call Mark, committed suicide. Mark had given up, was done, could not solve for anything anymore. His inner resources exhausted and spent, the range of problems he perceived were all massive, impossible. For Mark, the best option, in fact the only option was to end it all.

      Mark was building a company that could have changed the way we design and develop medicine. To say that he was driven and passionate would be an understatement. He had raised money from some of the leading investors in Silicon Valley. As an investor in the company's seed round, I saw his fierce intensity up close.

      And then one day, Mark was gone. The candle snuffed out, just like that.

      We just saw one side, the bold and brazen exterior, the showman, while on the inside, the picture was vastly different. He was broken. Tired. Some evenings, when he would go visit his parents, he would just sit on the couch, for long periods of time, silently staring into the void. Overworked and exhausted, he would ask to just be left alone. He did not want to talk to anyone, nor go for a walk, watch a show, or read a book. He just wanted to decompress. The Silicon Valley cheerleaders had egged him on with generous superlatives like man, you're crushing it. But the chasm between his self-view, his abilities, and the scale of problems kept widening. He got crushed instead.

Snapshot of the post from Elon Musk. Snapshot of the post of Brandon Fluharty.

      From Linkedin: A step towards being better humans first….

      When Dreams Turn to Despair

       Desires and ambitions propel us into actions (start a company).

       Actions without results lead to restlessness (slow pace of adoption, maybe).

       Prolonged restlessness leads to dejections and disillusionments (this will never work).

       All these culminate in despair (no one cares).

       And then the final question: Is this worth it?

      The mind that could surge up in confidence to start a company, that could discriminate the merits of an opportunity, build a compelling narrative, raise capital from some of the world's best investors in Silicon Valley – that same mind had lost its ability to find a way out of this chaos.

      Why does the powerful force that could have made a dent in the world turn inward and self-destruct?

       Varying degrees of adversity – from product market fit, to raising capital, to scaling, and dealing with competition

       A conflict in relationships – co-founders, board, team or family members

       Threats to perceived notions of success

       Financial or legal challenges

       The daily roller coaster ride of wild swings that are not experienced in most careers

Snapshot of the post of Aleksandr Volodarsky.

      Source: Twitter, Inc.

      These obstacles impact almost all of us at some point in our lives. And we often feel like it's the end. In his post “What's the Most Difficult CEO Skill?,” entrepreneur-turned-venture capitalist Ben Horowitz writes that managing your own psychology is the most difficult skill. CEOs often succumb to that WFIO. Pronounced as whee-f-eyo, it’s that sinking feeling. We are f**ked … It's Over! And in such situations, one option that surfaces is to self-destruct.

      Sigmund Freud wrote that “the tendency to self-destruction exists to a certain degree in many more persons than in those who bring it to completion.”

      Thinking, Ruminating, Full-on Planning

      When we are in a funk, we keep thinking about suicide. Those thoughts might keep spinning in our heads, and soon some of us even start to research the how-to options. We might identify the various steps, and plan the final exit in great detail.

      Tim Ferriss, investor, podcaster, and author of the best-selling book The 4-Hour Workweek, writes about how he had gotten past the “deciding mode” and into “full-on planning mode.” “The world was better off without a loser,” he had concluded.

      In his planning mode, Tim Ferriss went to Princeton's Firestone Library. As one of the promising