Worrying Does Not Make You a Better Entrepreneur
I’ve long observed the almost fetishization of stress and worry among entrepreneurs and founders. It what many readers have likely experienced firsthand, founders take to LinkedIn to broadcast to the universe how many sleepless nights they have tallied in their startup journey. Others pile into the comments to either agree or one-up the original poster. What results is a feedback loop that reinforces stress and worry as central to the startup process. This not only intensifies the existing stress founders may be feeling, but also, in my opinion, turns potential would-be great entrepreneurs off from the pursuit of starting something themselves.
No one likes to live in a world of anxiety and unending stress. Don’t get me wrong, putting everything on the line to start your own business is stressful. By its very nature, it introduces uncertainty and high stakes into a business builder’s everyday life. However, dwelling in that stress and worry—constantly revisiting it time and time again long after anything productive can be done to remedy the cause—is not only unhealthy, it is flat out value destroying.
This is not some post to argue about the benefits of mindfulness and meditation for founders. To the contrary, this is a plea for individuals in the broader startup world to reframe the way that stress is talked about and felt. And humorously enough, I was moved to make this post after I ran across a recent quote from J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. I’ve included it below.
Jacob Kowalski:
Tell me, has anyone ever believed you when you told them not to worry?
Newt Scamander:
Well, my philosophy is that worrying means you suffer twice.
It’s such a simple concept, but it bears shouting from the mountain tops. You will make mistakes as an entrepreneur. There will be failures and setbacks. It will not be an easy, seamless process. In fact, many of the setbacks an entrepreneur will face will be totally and completely out of their control. Worrying about them in advance just means that you will suffer in the lead up to some invisible future hurdle. While vice versa, worrying after a setback or problem is introduced is only magnifying the disruption and pain from something that is already in the rear-view mirror.
There are many different qualities that make a great entrepreneur, but I think the most pertinent are i) effective prioritization of the things to care about, including only caring about those that are within your control and ii) moving on quickly from setbacks to reduce the drag of never ending worry and second guessing.
At the end of the day caring about the long-term health and viability of your business is not the same as losing sleep because you are lost in the depths of worry. One is due to passion and the other is due to the illogical framing of what running a business truly entails.
