Processing Your Emotions is a Competitive Advantage
As a breed, founders tend to have gorgeous, big, beautiful brains. After working with literally thousands of them, I think I'm well-qualified to make this statement. You are all so unbelievably smart. You’re awesome at analyzing problems and coming up with solution after solution after solution. And there is no bias to action like a founder’s bias to action, as long as you know what action to take.
So a founder's psychology - your internal workstream - tends to involve a lot of thought. Thoughts that turn into actions. Thoughts that turn into actions. Thoughts that turn into actions. Your psychology skews heavily toward being almost all driven by, and centered around, cognition.
And for the most part, this is cool!! Like - this ends up working out for a while, again, because you’re all so smart. And your brains are so powerful, and so good at finding paths forward, through setback after setback. And your thoughts have gotten you this far, so why would you change tacks?
Well, a psychology that relies on brilliant thinking is indeed a brilliant system. But it’s not resilient - a single-threaded system is not a resilient system. Relying exclusively on your thinking to get you through every challenge your startup brings you is actually a failure mode. Your thoughts can only bring you so far.
That’s because there's another component - an additional dataset - within your psychology that isn't being included in the workstream: Emotion.
And failing to incorporate emotion into your workstream is a problem because as it turns out, founders have a lot of feelings.
Pictured here are SOME of the NORMAL emotions that founders feel.
It is NORMAL to feel any of these emotions.
It is NORMAL feel ALL of these emotions.
It’s NORMAL to cycle through every one of these feelings at a really high intensity in the span of a day, an hour, or even minute to minute.
These emotions are NORMAL. Normal. They’re okay. And you’re okay for feeling them. Founders at every stage and size feel feelings. If you think you’ll stop having feelings after you raise your next round or ship that next feature, then let me be the first person to tell you you’re wrong. Your startup will only get more complex from here, and the complexity of your problems will grow in size and scope to match. Your feelings will follow the same trajectory. Feeling feelings about your startup is not a problem now - and it won’t be later. Emotions aren’t bad, and they’re not wrong. They’re morally neutral. They don't mean you’re weak, or incapable, or any less of a founder.
Feeling emotions means that you’re human.
Scale yourself by using emotion
Founders scale themselves when they learn how to use their emotions as data that drives action right alongside their thoughts. Incorporating emotion into your psychological workstream builds a more resilient operating system, because now you're pulling more data - and more possibility - into your execution. Founders scale themselves when they learn to leverage their humanity to maximize the number of actions and solutions available to you.
Emotions are data. They’re information that we feel, sense, and perceive. Emotion is experienced in our bodies, whereas cognition is experienced in our minds. Thoughts and feelings are different datasets.
People have the idea that emotion is illogical, and this is simply not true. Emotion has a different logic than cognition does - it’s data that has a different purpose and carries a different signal than our thoughts. The logic of our emotions is equally valid and equally important. Our emotions tell us about the strength and safety we feel in our relationships to everything and everyone. Emotions give us information about what we need. And emotions carry signal about what’s deeply right for us - or wrong for us.
For example, maybe you feel disappointed in your lack of progress over the last few quarters. Your disappointment speaks to a high standard of execution you didn’t meet - the relationship you have to your highest vision of yourself. That’d be good to know! Your disappointment isn’t a bad thing if it gives you a map for who you’d like to become, even if your experience of it is uncomfortable.
Or maybe you’re angry at your cofounder for moving too slowly or being sloppy. Anger can be a really powerful way to clarify an expectation you have that you might not have communicated. That seems additive.
Maybe you feel sad that investors have rejected you, and you’re worried because your family is relying on your success. Well, you’re probably feeling sad in direct proportion to the amount of care and love you have for your family. That seems right. Good, even.
Emotions aren’t a problem - they’re data that speaks to our humanity. They add color to and richness to our lives, and really, really clear information about what steps to take next. You live in a world where there will never be enough information to know that you’re making the right decision. Bringing emotion into your psychological workstream - and balancing it with your thoughts - is you unlocking all the data available to make the best decisions you can for yourself and your startup.
