This is a slightly different post than normal, inspired by a book i’m reading, called Happier. The book is written by Tal Ben Shahar, a Professor at Harvard University teaching the school’s most popular class on positive psychology after dedicating much of his adult life to studying everything he could about Happiness.
In one of the stories, Ben Shahar tries to help his brother, a fan of psychology who spent his free time reading about the topic, discussing it, writing and thinking about it. However, when he was accepted to Harvard to study psychology, he was miserable. Ben Shahar comes up with two modes that illustrate how students are motivated: the drowning model and the lovemaking model. I found it interesting and I felt that the same lessons apply to startup founders.
Why is the study of Happiness or positive psychology interesting?
One of my favourite topics to read about, apart from startups and venture capital, is Happiness and positive psychology. From Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s “Flow” to Herman Hesse’s “Siddhartha”, I try to read as many books as I can that look at Happiness from different angles. Even though they all have much in common, there’s always something new to learn.
Tal Ben Shahar’s “Pursuit of Perfect” (which was published after “Happier”) is another thought provoking book:
In the book, Ben Shahar shares his own struggles with perfectionism. As a professional Squash player, he wanted nothing more than to win the Israeli National Championship. He worked incredibly hard, and when the moment finally came, and finally got the title at 16, he never felt emptier. Not only he wasn’t happy, but he didn’t really experience success, because as a perfectionist, upon achieving the goal, there was always a next goal – the regional championships, the world championships, the Olympics… sounds familiar?
A key theme in “The Pursuit of Perfect” is the difference between Perfectionism vs. Optimalism –
The key difference between the Perfectionist and the Optimalist is that the former essentially rejects reality while the latter accepts it.
While the Perfectionist rejects failure, the Optimalist accepts it as a natural part of life and as an experience that is inextricably linked to success.
Are You a Perfectionist or an Optimalist?
The image below describes it well:
On the right – Optimalism
Back to Happier – The Drowning Model
A person who’s head is forced under water will suffer discomfort and pain and will struggle to escape. If at the last moment, their head is released, the person will gasp for air and experience a sense of intoxicating release.
Students who are under the burden of tests, lectures and deliverables throughout the term, it might feel like they are drowning. They are trying to avoid failure and are motivated to work hard to keep up to get good grades and achieve the next goal. Upon finishing a term, they might mistake the relief they feel with happiness. Pain followed by relief is a model that is imprinted upon us since grad school.
In startups, it’s very similar. Replace tests with releases, client pitches, funding rounds and KPIs.
The Lovemaking Model
The lovemaking model is not a trade off between present suffering for future benefit.
“The hours we spend reading, researching, thinking and writing are considered Foreplay. The Eureka experience, when the boundary between knowledge and intuition breaks, when we reach a solution to a problem, for instance, is like the climax”
Happier, Tal Ben Shahar
In the drowning model, it’s about the destination, getting to the end, and in the lovemaking model is about deriving satisfaction from everything that happens in the process.
My message for startups
I don’t need to tell you that process of building and running a company is full of ups and downs. It’s not a linear line of fundraising rounds, even though reading Techcrunch headlines can make it seem like so many startups just become unicorns in increasingly shorter periods of time.
Building a startup from scratch is tough, it requires sacrifices, and it’s a marathon, comprised of a series of sprints. It’s important to make the process itself enjoyable. Learn to embrace the struggle and celebrate the small wins along the way. The responsibility for this is not only the CEO’s but every employee should internalise it. Knowing this, as an investor, I care a lot about how the founders feel about the problem they are solving. Why are they focusing on what they chose to solve? do they really really love what they’re doing, or are they focusing on it because it’s attractive financially?
I highly recommend reading the book and engaging with this topic. After all, you happiness is the ultimate currency.
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
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