4 Ways Founders Can Learn to Keep It Real
Mastering your own reality is a critical leadership tool and, thankfully, one that can be readily learned
I meet a lot of entrepreneurs who are driven by their amygdala, the part of the brain that’s meant to keep us safe and triggers our fight or flight response to threats. The amygdala stands opposed to our cerebral cortex, which is the rational, problem-solving side of the house.
While the amygdala has proven adaptive through the millennia, it causes us a lot of problems in today’s world. The problem with the amygdala is that it succeeds by lying to us, arousing fear or anger or defeat instead of thinking. To return to founders, when something happens to them — a retailer drops them, an investor’s term sheet disappoints them, they have “too much on their plates” — and they default to fear, anger, frustration or self-defeat. They don’t take the time to understand they create their own reality and determine whether something is good or bad.
Maybe you’ve heard the parable of the rain: two different people are going to look at rain and have a different interpretation of it. The fact is, it’s raining outside. But the parent who planned to take the kids to an amusement park thinks the rain stinks; the farmer who has been enduring drought can’t get enough of it.
I’m not suggesting that founders should be more Pollyannaish, but I am suggesting they become more aware of where their negative thoughts and emotions are coming from and their impact on themselves and their teams. Because the founder determines the character and disposition of his or her team.
There are several proven ways for creating your own reality which I encourage founders I work with to explore. I have found that when you become comfortable practicing these techniques, you can bring a focus and energy to your work that makes it successful. Here they are.
Meditation
And if you’ve never meditated, I’d recommend starting with Headspace, or if you’ve been at it a while, consider graduating to Sam Harris’ Waking Up. One of things that prevents people from giving meditation a try is thinking the goal involves clearing their heads and thinking of nothing, which is difficult if not impossible to do. The goal of meditation is actually to be far more aware of what passes through your consciousness.
For example, if you’re focused on your breath and start thinking about a song or about some work you’ve got to do, the key for meditation is to become aware of the intrusion of anxiety-provoking work thoughts and then gently come back to your breath. To compare it to a workout, that would be one rep.
Meditation is the practice of getting outside of your own head and being aware of what’s going on in your head and your body, and learning to quickly and almost unconsciously allow the distraction to dissolve away. And so the more reps you can do, the easier it is to interrupt your pattern of being controlled by your amygdala because you can see it arise throughout the day — during that bad meeting or after reading that bad email — and let it go.
But you have to practice. And that’s what meditation is — something you practice for 10 or so minutes each day until you can bring the control from the meditation to the rest of the day.
Fact vs story
Another technique I use with founders involves mastering the art of separating fact from story. We are not very well educated or trained to tell a fact from a story, and most of us get through the day by believing that the stories we tell ourselves are facts.
A fact is what a video camera would record if it were turned on and pointed at your meeting and captured everything that was said or done. If somebody said, “I don’t like the way you did that,” that’s exactly what the recorder would show.
But the story you tell yourself might go somewhat differently.
The story might be that this person doesn’t like you or that they’re angry. We don’t really know if either of these stories is true, but the words “don’t like” triggered an emotional response of indignation and defense that signaled a personal attack to be defended against. But that’s not what the camera recorded, is it?
One way you can disrupt this tendency is to check your story. If somebody seems to be attacking me in a conversation, I’ll say, “Hey, I’m telling myself a story that you’re angry with me or frustrated. Can I check my story out with you?”
Separating fact from story disrupts the emotional white noise and judgment about the other person in your head and seeks the facts from the person.
Speaking unarguably
The idea of speaking unarguably is not to always be right; it is to allow you to speak your truth so that others (and you) know where you stand and why. Speaking unarguably articulates what’s true for us is our body sensations, our feelings and our thoughts.
If someone on my team proposes that we try to do something that got me fired at a previous job, I will likely feel a wave of alarm in my chest or in the pit of my stomach. These body sensations surface to protect me and I need to acknowledge it, not only to myself but also to others.
I might say, “I’m feeling fear right now around this issue. I’m having the thought I tried this at my other job, and it didn’t work, and I got fired. And so I’m feeling some fear.” Nobody can argue with your feelings or thoughts — that’s what makes them unarguable. And it ought to give them pause to consider the experience you’re drawing upon.
This is preferable to your saying that something “will never work” or “sounds like a shit show,” or something along those lines, even if such would likely be the case, because it sounds adversarial. Better to let others deal with your version of the truth, which might easily be wrong, but which is nonetheless true.
Feel it
Finally, I encourage people to practice “feeling their feelings all the way through.” We’re often taught from an early age to control our feelings with the goal of taming or suppressing them, but the truth is they can reveal important things to us if we try to understand where they come from.
For example, we generally come to believe that fear, anger and sorrow are destructive and limiting emotions that we should suppress and seek to escape. But I have learned that emotions are basically energy in motion, or energy + motion = (e)motion. And that that emotion is just energy that wants to move through your body and bring you some awareness and some wisdom.
So if you let that energy move through your body, it usually lasts 60–90 seconds, and then has completed its course. After this, it’s all about learning from that emotion. Your anger might signal that something needs to stop; fear might mean something needs to be faced where due diligence has been lacking. Conversely, a swelling of joy in your heart and throat could suggest you need to celebrate something rather than just blow right through it.
In this way emotion brings a ton of wisdom to us. But if we suppress it, we’re basically avoiding a pathway to reality and learning.
Again, as the founder goes, so goes the company! You can lead with more energy and presence if you learn to master your reality. It takes consistent work, but with practice it will become second nature to you.
Sincerely,
Rob Craven, scalepassion
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All credit to my ghostwriting partner, Dave Moore, who is instrumental in getting my thoughts out in a coherent manner & into these blogs. Thanks Dave!