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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a reserve request for the book. Back in those days, well before the Web, Kindle, and email, the only way to reserve a book was to put your name on a paper log. Once the book was available, the library would then mail you a postcard. Come get this book you were waiting for. We will hold it for two weeks. The postcard, with the promising title of suicide, landed in his mom's hands. Sure, Mom might be wondering about this fantastical development in her son's reading habits.

      “Oo – and thank f**king God,” writes Tim. His worried mom called Tim to ask about this book and he blurted out a fast lie – a friend wanted this book for research on depression. Tim had specced out as many as six exit pathways, but that one call from his mom flipped a switch in his head. “I snapped out of my delusion by this one-in-a-million accident,” he writes. A library's postcard may have saved Tim's life.

      Entrepreneur Ben Huh writes of his days of despondency. “I spent a week in my room with the lights off and cut off from the world, thinking of the best way to exit this failure. Death was a good option – and it got better by the day.”

       Founders' Voices

       As we were going to bed, my spouse – a founder – muttered, “Sometimes I think it would be a lot easier if I didn't wake up tomorrow morning …”

       The idea of suicide changed from a comforting option to a constant yet terrifying urge …

       My head was filled with thoughts of suicide – that I was thinking about it in some form or another all the time shook me up … felt like a vice clamped around my head.

       -Gwendolyn Brooks

       Sit down. Inhale. Exhale.

       The gun will wait. The lake will wait.

       The tall gall in the small seductive vial

       will wait will wait:

       will wait a week: will wait through April.

       You do not have to die this certain day.

       Death will abide, will pamper your postponement. I assure you death will wait. Death has

       a lot of time. Death can

       attend to you tomorrow. Or next week. Death is just down the street; is most obliging neighbor; can meet you any moment.

       You need not die today.

       Stay here – through pout or pain or peskyness.

       Stay here. See what the news is going to be tomorrow.

       Graves grow no green that you can use. Remember, green's your color. You are Spring.

      What Drives Us to the Cliff – Is It Shame, Envy, or Powerlessness?

      In a rapid-paced world, the fastest runner, the unicorn-bagging CEO, becomes the hero. But very few get there, and for the vast majority who don't, the self-image crumbles. “This state of shame and envy is followed by self-destructive impulses … the suffering ego wants to do away with the self in order to wipe out the offending, disappointing reality of failure … the self-destructive impulses are to be understood here as the expression of narcissistic rage,” writes psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut. Founders have to be mildly narcissistic, and believe that their images, their views can change the world. When faced with resistance, this perspective and energy turns dark, angry, a rage when it does not meet its self-appointed goals.

      Those who may have started off on the hero's journey may soon feel powerless against the stagnant forces of the market adoption risks, technology stasis, and fickleness of investors, who were chasing the next big thing. Mark probably felt weak and helpless. And his identity was so attached to his start-up, unable to separate the two, he decided to end it all.

      Vulnerable Egos and High Expectations

      Founders hold themselves to high expectations – statements like make a dent in the world are a part of their daily dialogue. The chasm between their expectations and outcomes may be wide, and the resources required to build the bridge or cross this chasm may not be available, but that does not scare nor stop them.

      The summary of the study is quite simple. We think we are way smarter than we actually are. And because of such inflated self-images we tend to make stupid choices. Like rubbing lemon juice on one's face and then robbing a bank. And our stupidity makes it nearly impossible for us to realize that we are – pause for a drumroll – stupid. Dunning and Kruger state this in a far more polished manner. Read on.

      People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but [also] their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.